Santa Paula Campus Faces Test

One in an occasional series

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At first glance, things might have seemed fine at Isbell Middle School.

Discipline problems on the Santa Paula campus were far fewer than they were a decade ago. Scores on state achievement tests were the highest ever. And compared with similar schools across the state, Isbell ranked near the top.

But to administrators in one of Ventura County’s lowest-performing school districts, fine wasn’t good enough.

Last spring, district officials invited a team of 10 Ventura County educators to conduct an extensive audit of the middle school’s instructional program.

They wanted to find out what the school might be doing wrong, and what should be done to fix it.

The results were not glowing. Rating the school in 41 areas on a scale from zero to 10, with 10 the highest, the audit gave Isbell an overall score of 1. “It shows we have some challenges,” said Santa Paula Elementary School District Supt. Luis Villegas. “But what we’re saying is, ‘We can do better than that.’ ”

After sharing the report with Isbell teachers and the principal, Villegas took the unusual step of issuing a press release about the unfavorable findings.

The district is serious about improving education for kids living in the small farm town, Villegas said.

“We want to be upfront about what we’re doing,” said Villegas, who took over the district in August.

An interim superintendent had ordered the audit, which cost about $30,000. “I think a healthy organization is always looking for improvement.”

Part of the reason district officials chose to audit Isbell was because it’s the only campus in the Santa Paula Elementary School District through which all students pass.

Problems there indicate problems across the system, educators said.

Dozens of schools across California have been forced to submit to curriculum audits as a result of lackluster test scores, said Charles Weis, Ventura County schools superintendent.

But as government pressure increases to “leave no child behind,” he said more schools may decide to take that responsibility on themselves, as Isbell has. “It’s not a report card that says you’ve failed,” Weis said. “It’s a report card on how you can do better.”

At Isbell, where one-third of the students are still learning English and 70% come from poor homes, auditors found plenty of room for improvement in several key areas.

The team spent nearly 60 hours visiting classrooms, interviewing and surveying hundreds of teachers, administrators, students and parents.

Among the findings:

* Classroom instruction was apparently not aligned to the state’s rigorous academic standards -- a checklist of facts and skills for each grade level that all students must master.

* Teachers spent an average of 20% of each class on activity unrelated to instruction, often giving excessive directions, allowing numerous interruptions or stopping lessons early.

* Bad communication existed on all levels: Teachers felt parents were uninvolved; parents said they could not talk to teachers or office staff because few are bilingual; students wanted more feedback from teachers; and teachers wanted more attention from district administration.

* Most class time involved students working independently or in small groups, and students were not engaged in learning.

* Teachers did not have any time to plan together or share experiences and ideas.

“Academic expectations for all of Isbell Middle School’s students need to be raised,” the audit said. “Equally important is that all students are challenged and shown how to master higher-order thinking and problem solving.”

Along with the criticism, the report includes more than 150 recommendations aimed at improving student achievement. Isbell Principal Jess Rodriguez and the school’s 51 teachers have pared it down to 40 that they will tackle over the next three years.

He also formed a task force of eight teachers who will help him carry out the reforms.

Sixth-grade teacher Lisa Darling is one of them. Initially, she said, the audit was hard for many teachers to accept.

“Your first reaction is to defend yourself,” Darling said. “But I haven’t heard anyone say we can’t gain from this. They are willing to make the changes -- they are just waiting for someone to lead them there.”

Small adjustments already have taken place. Rodriguez, who is bilingual, has made it clear that his door is open to all parents, and he organized a parent meeting last week to share the audit results.

Efforts are underway to expand the school’s PTSA, which has a mere 40 members, said past President Laura Phillips. The organization can do a better job of connecting parents and teachers, she said, as well as providing mentors to students.

The audit “makes it kind of obvious that communication needs to be improved,” said Phillips, who has a son at Isbell.

In the classroom, Darling said she has tried harder to maximize the time she spends on actual instruction in each class period.

Karalee Johnson, who teaches special education classes, said she immediately posted the state standards in her classroom and gave each student a copy. “This is a vehicle to change,” she said. “I would like to see it move faster.”

On a recent school day, there was evidence of progress but also evidence of the status quo.

In one eighth-grade language arts class, a teacher roamed around the room as students worked individually.

Some were copying spelling words from a book, but others were doing math homework. One girl was cleaning out her book bag. Another read a novel.

Across campus in Phillisann Morten’s seventh-grade life science class, however, all students were focused.

Using colored markers, they drew cells on flashcards and wrote descriptions on the back.

Without such hands-on activity, the teacher said, “The concept of a cell can be hard to grasp.”

Morten said the audit results were disconcerting until she read the report.

Then, she said, the recommendations seemed “absolutely doable.”

“I really wasn’t bummed,” she said. “I got a sense of ‘Wow, we can really do something here.’ I saw it as a positive way to make things better for these kids.”