School to Write Book on Learning

Teachers seeking jobs, and parents wanting to enroll their children, faced stiff competition getting into a new charter school closely linked with Cal State Channel Islands.

“We knew that the school would be of great interest to people, but we were pretty overwhelmed,” said Linda Ngarupe, principal of University Preparation School in Camarillo.

The kindergarten-through-fifth-grade school, on the former El Rancho Structured School campus, will open Sept. 3 with 350 students from Camarillo, Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Moorpark and Conejo Valley.

An additional 180 students are on the waiting list, Ngarupe said. That doesn’t include children who are a year or more away from starting kindergarten whose parents have tried to sign them up.

The 19 teachers were chosen from 69 applicants from throughout Ventura County. All are tenured teachers with special skills in such areas as writing or technology, said Ngarupe, herself chosen from a field of 14 candidates. Most have master’s degrees and half are bilingual.

“It’s just so exciting, what with the all-star team and just starting from scratch, building a nice new program,” teacher Andy Hoerer said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Aspiring administrators and teachers enrolled at Cal State Channel Islands will intern at the school, where they will get hands-on experience under the guidance of the veteran educators, officials said.

University Preparation School will be the third charter school in the county and the first that isn’t for home-schooled students, according to school officials. Golden Valley Charter School started in El Rio a year ago, and Valley Oak Charter School will open in Ojai in September.

As a charter school, University Preparation will be funded by the state on a per-student basis. The school doesn’t have to comply with the state’s rigid education code, but teachers will be responsible for annual standardized testing, Ngarupe said.

Teachers and the CSUCI professors they are working with will be free to try new ways of teaching to improve performance, officials said. They will be allowed to use books and programs they think will work best.

Classes will not be broken up into single grade levels as in traditional schools. Kindergarten and first-grade students will be combined in early-years classes, second-and third-grade students will be in primary-years classes, and fourth-and fifth-grade students will be in intermediate-years classes. In the future, Ngarupe hopes to expand to include preschoolers and sixth-through eighth-graders.

Each student’s academic, developmental and social needs will be assessed regularly so they can work with other children at their level in each subject, said Ngarupe, formerly the principal at El Rancho.

Intermediate-years teacher Jeanette Smith said the multi-age classes will allow her to tailor instruction more closely to each child’s needs.

If a fourth-grader is strong in math, she can put him in a cluster with students working on fifth-grade curriculum. If a fifth-grader is weak in reading, he can work with the fourth-grade curriculum. For fifth-graders working above grade level, Smith will find special projects to challenge them.

Smith is particularly pleased that students will be in the same class for two years. A year from now, she said, she will be more familiar with her students’ math and reading levels. In turn, students will know Smith’s system and be able to help bring their younger classmates up to speed.

“That is really an avenue to gain a lot of time,” said Smith, a Somis resident who taught at El Rancho last year.

The multi-age classes and the strong technology program excite Tammie Kadin, a Camarillo mother who has a 9-year-old enrolled and a 7-year-old who has been on the waiting list since March.

The school’s dual-language program is what first attracted Kadin, because she thinks it is important for her children to learn Spanish.

All students will spend 30 to 60 minutes each day learning to speak Spanish. This will not only expose English-speaking students to another language but also give the Spanish-speaking students a chance to be leaders and mentors, Ngarupe said. Spanish-speaking students, who will make up 35% of the school’s population, will have a separate block of time for learning English.

In addition, some of the early-years students will be taught to read, write and speak in English and Spanish, with half of the day’s instruction led in each language.

The hope is that creative teaching programs that work well at University Preparation School could eventually be used in classrooms elsewhere, officials said.

“It could be a beacon ... that guides the way for other schools,” said CSUCI education professor Merilyn Buchanan.