Students Now Must Learn the Hard Way

SANTA PAULA — For decades, Santa Paula High School held to their academic hierarchy: one system for the advanced placement and honor students, another for college prep students and a third and by far the largest group in standardized courses, designed to teach just the basics.

Not anymore.

Determined to boost academic performance in a district that has for years landed at the bottom of county test scores and four-year college attendance rates, administrators are eliminating the standard courses next year and pushing the students into the more rigorous college prep courses.

In September, students from the bottom of the academic totem pole can expect to sit next to the straight-A students. Standards will be raised, said Principal Tony Gaitan. “You’ll know what it’s like to be in a rigorous program. You’ll know what it means to be challenged and you’ll know what it means to study hard.”

Teachers are deeply divided over the plan, worried that the timeline is too quick and that the system will set students up for failure. But the school is already making changes for next year’s transition.

The campus recently began holding tutoring/homework periods from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday. For the first time, administrators will require freshmen to attend summer school if they are behind in math or reading skills. A remedial math and English class will be offered to freshmen who are still below grade level.

Campus administrators have also been consulting with Los Angeles’ Garfield High School, made famous by the 1988 movie “Stand and Deliver,” about math teacher Jaime Escalante’s quest to raise standards. Garfield has a similar student demographic to Santa Paula High, although it moved more slowly, switching over in seven years.

The change next year has some students both excited and nervous.

“I think it’s going to be difficult,” said freshman Evelyn Martinez. “They’re going to be giving us more work and I don’t think the teacher will be able to explain it to each of us.”

But Evelyn also thinks she’ll learn a lot faster.

While the plan is a hotly debated matter on campus, at least one class eliminated standard classes a decade ago. Science teacher Ray Sepulveda’s classroom could be a model for the rest of the school.

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Here junior Esiquio Delgadillo whips easily through his zoology anatomy exam, identifying parts of a clam, such as the kidney and foot. Esiquio’s classmates range from A students to those who read at the third-grade level.

All students in this college prep course must master the same material.

Ten years ago, with permission from the administration and department, Sepulveda eliminated the less challenging standard track course and allowed all students to enroll in the college prep course, which requires additional homework and places greater emphasis on problem-solving skills.

“We’ve been doing it the way the whole school should be,” Sepulveda said.

Esiquio, currently enrolled in all college prep classes, envisions that students from standard classes will benefit from the push.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Esiquio said. “You’ll be able to learn more. There are some people [in standard classes] able to do it, but they just don’t want to do it because they’re lazy.”

At the 1,314-student campus, the honor students typically scooped up top awards in county contests, while the majority of the student body lagged behind. Honor students this year landed first place in the county’s Knowledge Bowl, second place in the Geography Bowl and won the $1,000 Amgen award at the county science fair.

But teachers and parents hungered for a change, something that could boost the performance of the entire student body.

In the mainly blue-collar town, typically 5% to 10% of students enroll in four-year colleges, far below county average. The campus usually is at the bottom of the pack in standardized test scores in the county. Even when compared with other state schools with similar ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, the campus still ranked at the bottom quarter on last year’s SAT.

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“If we’ve been the lowest for so long, something needs to change,” said school’s activities director Lisa Salas, who also graduated from the school.

The change won’t be easy.

When school administrators in February announced the decision to drop all standard courses by next year, a number of teachers left the conference room fuming. Others left as if in a state of shock.

It wasn’t that they disagreed with raising student standards. Teachers said there just wasn’t enough time to implement a plan like this by next school year, and the result could be widespread student failure or the watering down of difficult college prep courses.

The college prep courses require more work than students in standard classes may be accustomed to. For example, students in the freshman standard English course were required to read a literature textbook and one additional novel “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The college prep course requires the same textbooks as well as four or five additional novels accompanied by book reports.

“The English department really and truly agrees with the idea that standards need to be raised, but we don’t think that by calling [students] all college prep that that’s going to change things,” said English teacher Jeri Cook.

Students who receive an A in college prep courses next fall will also be encouraged to move up to the advanced placement and honor class, a move that has teachers worried that the quality of honor classes will be diluted too.

Teachers wonder how a student can catch up with three or four grades worth of reading in a summer or a few tutoring sessions. How does the school prevent a student from falling on his or her face and quitting school, discouraged that the material is suddenly too difficult for them?

How can the quality or pace of a college prep class remain the same if the teacher must take more time for students not used to the more rigorous standards?

“It will be chaotic,” Cook said. “Either we dilute our program or a large number of students will fail. If someone’s reading at the sixth-grade level, they can’t read “The Crucible”, analyze it and write an essay on it. In 11th grade college prep, I already have to teach them about nouns and verbs. I can’t imagine what it will be like next year.”

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Some teachers want the school to move more slowly, starting the first year with the freshmen, then moving up.

Garfield High adopted their plan piecemeal, starting first with math classes and working through the rest of the departments. The Conejo Valley School District also phased out its standard classes over a seven-year period.

But administrators and teachers who support the plan argued that the school should not wait another year while more students slip through the old system.

“I agree with the administrators,” Sepulveda said. “Let’s do it now. You can talk about it forever, but until you’re in the middle of it, you’re never going to develop it, not to say there aren’t frustrations.”

Sepulveda said he understands why teachers would want to resist it: “The bottom line is that it will be harder on the teachers,” he said. If you took a vote at most schools to do something like this, he said, “I bet 99.9% would vote hell no because what you’re asking is that the faculty work a whole lot harder.”

Tony Perez, chairman of education for the Latino Townhall in Santa Paula, suggests the school go full speed with the plan.

“I think we have to immerse [the students],” Perez said, “It will be a shock to those who lack the capability, but their brains will be stretched to the point of accepting it.”

Sepulveda knows the move will be difficult. During his first year, students from the standard classes often worked against the teacher.

“At the beginning, the lower-level kids were disruptive because they were used to fighting the situation,” Sepulveda said. But he soon came to realize the importance of academic peer pressure.

Students from the standard level class began performing at a higher level to live up to the expectations of their peers, many of whom were straight-A students, he said. If they are left in standard classes, the students typically continue to perform at a minimum level, because they aren’t surrounded by as many ambitious students, numerous teachers said.

“You have to play on the part that kids are extremely peer-oriented,” Sepulveda said. “Elementary school kids want to please the teachers. For high schools kids, the parents are the enemy. The teacher is enemy No. 1. What they look to are their peers. Their peers are everything. They can’t resist that.”

At Garfield High School, administrators point out that putting all students in college prep courses provides them with more of an opportunity to attend college.

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Take for example, a high school senior, said Garfield Principal Antonio Garcia. “If you don’t prepare the kids and he says he wants to go to college, you can’t say now go back to ninth grade and take a college prep course.”

But over the years, low scores in standardized tests at Garfield High School have not changed dramatically. In 1991-92, students posted a 420 in math and 325 in verbal. Last year’s math scores were 30 points lower, while verbal scores rose 50 points.

The number of students attending college has not changed significantly either. In a survey taken in 1992, 80% of the graduating seniors said they would be attending either a four-year or community college. Last year, 79% said they would attend college and 5% said they would enter the service.

Yet, administrators argue that by providing students with college prep courses, you provide them with more options in life.

“Do we give our graduating students choices in life or do we just say this is all you’ve got and something, such as a job, will choose you,” Garcia said.

While administrators are still debating the plan, a few students are already gearing up for next year’s change. For freshman Becky Johnson, the transformation at Santa Paula High School is both intimidating and welcome.

“I’m going to be nervous,” Becky said, “but I’ll get used to it. It’s going to be fun. I want the opportunity to work with other people.”