Orange Middle School Looks to the Fundamentals

Yorba Middle School in Orange is seeking to recast itself from a struggling working-class school to a “fundamental” campus stressing basic skills as well as music, art and drama.

The ambitious conversion to a fundamental program--where parents pledge to participate in their child’s schooling and students adhere to homework requirements and a dress code--is an attempt to bring up low standardized test scores and stem declining enrollment as some frustrated parents move their children to more successful schools.

The Orange Unified School District is hoping the move will mimic successes in Santa Ana’s public schools and elsewhere, where the creation of a few fundamental magnet programs has brought academic success and such popularity that parents line up days in advance to enroll their children. However, Yorba will remain a neighborhood middle school first, with room to accept more than 100 students from across the school district.

The school is taking center stage in Orange’s plans to improve schools. And Principal Rod Hust and his staff are busy making sure Yorba is ready for its close-up.

“You have to be very clear in terms of what you want to do” in restructuring a school, said Hust, who became Yorba’s principal this year. “We need to say we can’t do everything, so why even try? We need to build concretely on what truly works for our kids.”

Yorba is beset by educational challenges: It educates mostly poor students, many of whom are not fluent in English. Many local parents work at several jobs and can’t necessarily volunteer in the classroom. About 60 children from its attendance area chose other schools this year. And Hust was appointed principal after his predecessor suffered a heart attack.

The bulk of classrooms lack the outlets and wiring to support Internet-capable computers. Time and the pounding of athletic shoes have cracked the weed-dotted basketball courts. Classrooms need a fresh coat of paint and new carpeting. The students could use a handball court; right now they use the exterior locker room walls.

The release of a new ranking system put the school at center stage. It’s not Orange’s lowest performing school, but Yorba landed in the bottom third statewide. It fared better when compared to schools with similar student and staff characteristics.

The reform effort at Yorba, set to take effect this fall, is still being drafted. All the particulars are not settled, but school trustees on Tuesday gave approval to plans to make Yorba the district’s first fundamental school. The 42-campus district’s only other nontraditional schools are a math, science and technology magnet--where Hust was principal previously--and a charter school.

The changes will rely heavily on mandatory reading classes for the 60% to 70% of students who cannot read materials at their grade level. Hust and his staff plan to devote federal poverty funding toward buying reading materials from the publisher of the successful, heavily scripted Open Court reading program to help backfill the comprehension and vocabulary gaps common among second-language learners.

Arts and music offerings will be expanded, as a way to hook students into their schooling, even as they face ramped-up academics. Plays, art shows or choral concerts could help students and parents feel connected to the middle school--even though students only spend two years there.

“A lot of these kids and families need to get tapped into the educational system. When they’re not successful, they don’t get tapped in,” said Chris Plass, an art, reading and physical education teacher at Yorba. “Through the arts, we feel like we can reel them in, give an opportunity for them to be successful and feel good about themselves: ‘My reading may not be that good, but I can really draw and paint.’ ”

So that students don’t get lost in an anonymous series of classes with different teachers, the school will be broken down into five “houses.” Each will have about 120 students who will take most of their classes from a core of four teachers who work and plan cooperatively.

She acknowledged that teachers are embarking on the changes with excitement--tempered with a healthy dose of trepidation.

The transformation will not be painless. The emphasis on literacy means that everyone--including math and science teachers--will be expected to teach reading part of the time. The restructuring is on a fast track--too fast for some teachers’ liking. And the glare of the spotlight is intense.

Because of the speed of the changes, parent reaction to the plans has been muted, Hust said. The plan has been the subject of parent breakfast and lunch meetings and it has been discussed at orientation sessions in area elementary schools. A few parents have told Hust that they had planned to send their children to other schools, but would now give Yorba a second look.

Most of the changes will be paid within the school’s existing budget. As programs develop, the school plans to apply for arts and education grants. Yorba will seek $2 million--about $400,000 of it from the school district--to modernize its Eisenhower-era buildings.

Trustee Robert Viviano plans to watch the changes carefully.

“I’m excited about the program, and I think it will rejuvenate the entire community in that neighborhood,” he said.