Laguna Beach Schools Trying to Focus on the Whole Child

As they do each year, Laguna Beach teachers spent the week leading up to the first day of school preparing their classrooms and lesson plans and attending training sessions required by the district. On one of those September mornings, however, district administrators had something else in mind.

Talk of standardized tests, grades and teaching techniques gave way to a daylong discussion on the emotional and social roller-coasters students ride through school. Session leaders implored teachers to remember that there is more to school than academic success and discussed ways to help children navigate the minefield of growing up.

It was, said Supt. Theresa Daem, a day well spent.

“We’re not just creating a robot,” she said. “We want to look at the whole child.”

The training day arose out of a continuing effort in the district to focus on more than textbooks and test scores. Capitalizing on Laguna’s small size, its Quest for Excellence program aims to better monitor the overall well-being of students.

Conceived three years ago by Daem, the program today involves more than 100 parent, teacher and administrator volunteers on various committees who are studying how teachers and counselors can best address students’ emotional and physical needs, while also tailoring teaching techniques to students’ various learning styles.

Tangible results have been slow to materialize from the committees’ late-night meetings and data collecting, but Daem hopes that will change by the end of the school year. In the spring, she expects to launch a computer system that will track students’ evolving strengths and weaknesses from kindergarten through graduation.

Gary Greene, an education professor at Cal State Long Beach hired by the district to design the program, said that eventually computerized files will be established for each of the district’s 2,650 students.

Accessible on the Internet to students, parents and teachers, the profiles will contain a range of information, including the students’ physical and emotional health, and the teaching techniques that have proved most effective for them. As children advance from grade to grade, teachers and counselors will update their profiles.

The tracking system, Daem and Greene said, was inspired by the lesson plans that school districts are required to draft for special education students.

Greene said he was unaware of any school district attempting to monitor individual students’ progress -- emotionally, socially, physically and academically -- through the years.

The idea crystallized, Greene said, when he saw a presentation about a computerized tracking program for special education students. The Internet application, he said, became the framework for Laguna’s project.

The profile of a child struggling with obesity, for example, would include recommended eating plans provided by school health officials, nutrition information and health services offered by the school and other local providers. A student with exceptional musical talent would be directed toward teachers in Laguna willing to provide instruction.

“This is not just for kids with problems,” Greene said. “Whether they are good, bad or average, we want to hook them up with the resources that can help them.”

It is a project, Greene and Daem said, made possible because of Laguna’s affluence and intimate size, and the willingness of people to volunteer their time and expertise.

Lisa Padgalskas, who has volunteered with the program for more than two years, anticipates the benefit to her daughter when teachers learn from her profile that she thrives during hands-on lessons but struggles to concentrate during lectures.

“As a parent, it means a lot to me that these issues are taken into consideration,” she said.