Plans to Improve School Detailed

Changing the bell schedule, coaching teachers and communicating with parents are among the steps Century High must take to overhaul its academic climate and boost student achievement, according to a state audit of the Santa Ana school.

Century’s failure to meet academic targets for four consecutive years triggered the audit, conducted by the California Department of Education and released at a school board meeting late Tuesday.

School administrators need to better communicate with the entire educational community -- parents, teachers and students -- audit team leader Craig Heimbichner said.

More than half of Century’s 2,700 students are not fluent in English, so corresponding with parents in the appropriate language is essential to engage them in their children’s schooling, the report said.

Academically, teachers should be coached in using test data to tailor instruction to students’ needs so that learning time is used most effectively, Heimbichner said. The campus bell schedule should be changed to eliminate unnecessary interruptions and class switching, and reduce distractions.

Century was cooperative with auditors’ suggestions, Heimbichner said. “It’s a learning process. They positively embraced these changes and in some cases, change was already underway.”

Century, the first Orange County school to be audited since the state program started two years ago, will have its progress monitored for 18 months, with auditors visiting the school every three months. If the school fails to meet its benchmarks by then, federal sanctions under the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal education law passed in 2001, may apply.

Since auditors first visited Century last fall, nearly all of the administrative staff has been replaced, including its principal. The school’s first Parent Teacher Assn. was created, its membership growing from 25 in October to more than 100 now.

Interim Principal Lewis Bratcher said that to improve its scores, the school received a $900,000 state grant. The money was used to buy textbooks and provide staff training.

“We are working on a common focus,” Bratcher said. “There was a certain amount of complacency before. A lot of it came from lack of communication.”

Bratcher also said that school staff is using its time more wisely, shaving minutes from the daily schedule to “bank” time for teacher teamwork and remedial instruction.

“That was the kind of thing that was not going on before,” he said. “It is not something we can turn around overnight.”

Century was among 11 schools in nine California districts to be audited this year. The yearly reviews are conducted under the federal Title I program, which provides about $9 billion a year in funding to disadvantaged schools, but requires steady academic score improvement.

Since 1999, Century’s Academic Performance Index score has increased 17 points, to 504 last year, far below the state target of 800. Of last year’s students, only 13% scored above the state average in reading and 30% above the state average in math.