Plans Target Troubled L.A. Schools

After months of study, Supt. Roy Romer will unveil plans today to revamp the Los Angeles Unified School District’s most troubled campuses with moves that already are generating controversy, including reassigning staff, hiring outside consultants and rearranging large schools into smaller, more personal educational programs.

Romer’s proposals, obtained by The Times, come as the superintendent finds himself under increasing pressure from the Board of Education and the federal government to deal with low-performing secondary schools. Some board members, frustrated by what they see as the slow pace of reform in the nation’s second-largest district, have introduced their own proposals designed to improve lagging campuses.

Romer said he believed his plans for the lowest-performing nine schools across the district would satisfy board members who are eager for major changes at campuses that have continually faltered.

“All of these plans are aimed at producing a better learning experience for youngsters and have them be successful not just in high school but in the next steps in their careers,” Romer said.

Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, Romer is required to take action at each of the campuses that have failed to meet state achievement goals for seven years in a row. For some of those schools, it will be the second time in five years that Romer has made administrative and other changes.

Romer and his staff are developing similar blueprints for another 63 schools that have missed their targets on standardized math and English tests for the last six years.

Some community groups complained that the superintendent’s plans don’t go far enough for meaningful reform, mainly because the district has not offered troubled schools enough resources or support. And some teachers criticized the lack of community input in the district’s plans.

In some cases, the district still must find funding for some of the proposed changes before they can take effect. Ronni Ephraim, the district’s chief instructional officer, said Romer would discuss that issue at today’s board meeting.

Among the changes that are being proposed or have already begun:

* At Samuel Gompers Middle School in Watts, Romer is seeking to reconfigure the 2,100-student campus into smaller learning centers of 150 to 200 students each. In addition, each grade would be divided into separate “houses.” The school is also trying to recruit more qualified teachers and hopes to hire an outside specialist to oversee the reforms.

* Horace Mann Middle School in South Los Angeles was divided into academies organized by grade level in 2002, and a new principal was brought on in 2003. But officials say that in order to boost student achievement, they must improve student discipline programs and campus safety, and some administrators and teachers still must be reassigned.

* Mount Vernon Middle School in the Crenshaw district underwent a series of changes after takeover by the state in 2002. The campus already has been divided into four small learning groups. School officials plan to provide more mentoring opportunities for teachers and more professional development for administrators.

* Sun Valley Middle School will open three so-called academies in July, focusing on visual arts and film production, humanities, and math and science. The entire school administration was reassigned or replaced in 2001.

* At Fremont High School in South Los Angeles, the district is considering contracting with First Things First, which has boosted student achievement, graduation and attendance rates in the Kansas City, Kan., Public School District by placing secondary students in small, themed programs and pairing students with individual teachers for an extended portion of their schooling. Two co-principals were hired to oversee the smaller learning centers, but under the plan, the district will add staff and administrators, including two new assistant principals, several new teachers, a teacher coordinator and an attendance counselor.

* Locke High School in South Los Angeles has divided into two groups -- one serving ninth-graders, the other 10th-, 11th- and 12th-graders -- and has hired co-principals to oversee the two groups. But school officials hope to solidify those changes by making each group semiautonomous, with its own funding and staffing, among other things. In addition, the 10th- through 12th-grade program will be further divided into five thematic learning communities of about 400 students each. Those communities include a liberal arts academy, a school of social empowerment, and a visual and performing arts academy.

* Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights began dividing its campus into 13 small learning centers, focused on such themes as performing arts, environmental and social policy, and math, science and technology. In order to complete that division, the 2,600-student school plans to hire three assistant principals of instruction, an on-site technology expert and a counselor for each of the learning centers, among other positions.

* Woodrow Wilson High School in northeast Los Angeles has opened several small learning centers, including one focused on police enforcement training and law and justice. The school also established two “houses” to educate ninth-graders apart from the rest of the campus and hopes to offer them the chance to participate in similar small learning centers next year. Officials plan to reassign some teachers and hire others, including a school psychologist, campus security aides and a youth relations assistant.

* At Jefferson High School in South Los Angeles, teachers and/or administrators will be reassigned, and an effort to divide the school into smaller, more personalized programs will continue.

Whether board members believe Romer’s plans go far enough, however, has yet to be determined. Because the board already granted Romer the authority to determine how to fix low-performing schools, members do not have to approve Romer’s plan.

School board member Mike Lansing -- who wrote a resolution calling for staff reassignments, increased security and more control over campus budgets for troubled schools -- said he would accept Romer’s proposals if they addressed what he considers vital issues of teacher quality, safety and inadequate facilities, among other things.

“I just want to see that we do the right thing by schools,” Lansing said.

“If [Romer’s plan] includes the major tenets of what I and most of the board have agreed to, then I am willing to withdraw my motion.”

Additionally, questions have been raised about the superintendent’s push for smaller learning centers at all campuses. Romer has said converting large, impersonal campuses into smaller educational programs would solve many of the district’s most intractable problems, including high dropout rates.

But some community groups, charter school leaders and others have said that simply dividing up a troubled campus does not in and of itself reduce the serious educational problems on these campuses. They say it takes much more thought and support to turn around a troubled high school of 5,000 students.

Romer, who has spent months studying how to address the problem schools, said he believed the smaller campuses would enable students to have more contact with teachers and staff, and reduce the impersonal approach at many of those schools. In addition, he has said he was unafraid of making some tough choices, including reassigning staff. He said, however, he planned to consult teachers, administrators and others in the process.

“There are some folks who have not done well, and we need to find a location where they will do well,” Romer said. “We need to give them the resources and training to do well. There’s a very sensitive area here. We need to protect the rights of employees, but at the same time, we need to have the right people in the right place to do the right job.”

School board president Jose Huizar, who had not yet reviewed Romer’s proposals, said he hoped that board members were presented with “something that is bold and aggressive and simply doesn’t rearrange the deck chairs. There is a need for real change.... The superintendent can’t hide behind the teachers’ contracts.”

The head of the Los Angeles teachers union complained that the district had not done enough to include teachers, staff members and parents in its reorganization plans. At some schools, said John Perez, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, “they spring this restructuring plan on a faculty that has not had a single day of working with the district or its mini-district in deciding how the school will be restructured. Our contention to them is that when you go through this process, as mandated by federal law, you’ve got to include the entire community.”

Mat Taylor, the union’s representative at Fremont High School, called his school’s restructuring plan “a total sham. It’s very frustrating,” he said. “There’s just a lack of inclusion in this district.”

Taylor said that some of the union’s school site representatives have been told not to endorse their school’s specific plans because they had not participated in the document’s preparation. At least one teachers union representative, Kiri Baranwal at Gompers Middle School, had already refused to do so.

Scott Schmerelson took over as principal of Mount Vernon in 2002, after the school was audited by the state. Since then, he said, the school has made great progress. It has moved from a year-round calendar back to a traditional schedule and has improved aging facilities, he said.

The district, he said, has suggested how the school might focus its latest round of changes, including more training for administrators and increased mentor relationships among teachers. But, he urged, those changes will not take effect overnight.

“Change takes time,” Schmerelson said. “Every year, we make more and more change. But you need five good years to really implement a reform.”