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| Counselor Carolyn Brooks doesn’t just wait for students like Stacy Lyons and Jessica Estrada to drop by her office. She goes to them. |
When ninth-grader Jessica Herrejon learned that Lawndale High School routinely sends home a report card every five weeks, her jaw dropped. School had started just four weeks earlier.
“They do?” she asked. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” responded a few students in her English class.
At Lawndale, staff are determined not to let students fall through the cracks or just “get by” in their classes. In addition to keeping parents constantly updated, students can see their grades posted in class every two weeks. And while other schools might accept a D as a passing grade, students know Lawndale won’t.
Call it “tough love,” but the approach at this small, ethnically diverse high school is raising test scores and has earned the campus a Title I Achievement Award. The school’s API score went from 589 in 2003 to 733 in 2006. This is considered remarkable for a high school, which is typically the most challenging of school environments when it comes to closing the achievement gap.
Students sign a contract when they enroll at the school, stipulating that they will do their best to succeed. Tardies are not acceptable and instruction begins the second the bell rings. For new students, the strict environment can be a bit overwhelming.
Herrejon doesn’t think the “No D” policy is fair and says D’s were considered passing grades at her elementary and middle schools. However, she admits, she will definitely work harder in high school. Seeing grades posted every two weeks “will give me a chance to push up my grades if I’m failing.”
The school, which is part of the Centinela Union High School District, was closed for many years due to declining enrollment and reopened in 1998. Students are selected at random from a districtwide lottery. Teachers admit that when students or their parents “choose” to apply to the school, it gives students a slight edge academically. Still, many other factors are also at play, say members of the Centinela Valley Secondary Teachers Association (CVSTA) who work at the site.
“The fact that it’s a smaller site is a huge part of it,” says CVSTA President Sandra Goins, an art teacher at the school. “We are close-knit as a staff, close in proximity to each other, and with fewer students to know, it’s easier to nurture and keep track of them.”
The school, which has approximately 1,400 students, also has an award-winning counseling department. There are three fulltime counselors, making the ratio of students to counselors 460 to 1, compared with the state average of 934 to 1. For the fourth consecutive year, the counseling department has gained statewide recognition — Best in the West — for its work with students. The award from Los Angeles County was based on the school’s Support Personnel Accountability Report Card (SPARC).
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| Lawndale High tries to maintain a college-oriented culture, says English teacher Regina Flores-Kincaid. |
“We are trying to avoid just being schedulers here, although that’s a part of our job,” says counselor Carolyn Brooks, who has been with the school since it reopened. “We are working here to make the profession more than it has been in the past. We’re trying to shift the emphasis of counseling to being pre-ventative instead of responsive.”
Counselors are highly visible on the campus. They don’t just wait for students to drop by and visit. Counselors visit homerooms for presentations on Thursdays. As part of their “comprehensive” counseling program, they cover three areas in each homeroom:
Lawndale high tries to maintain a college-oriented culture, says english teacher Regina Flores-kincaid.
- Academics, which may include information about the High School Exit Exam, testing, college readiness and financial aid.
- Career development, which includes filling out a job application, writing a resume, interviewing and career aptitude.
- Personal and social development, with subjects ranging from goal setting to dealing with peer pressure, substance abuse and date rape.
“Counselors go into classrooms all the time, which is something you don’t often see in high school,” says Brooks. “That way the middle kids don’t get left out. Otherwise we only tend to see the high-achieving kids in our office who don’t leave you alone because they know you can help them, or the low-achieving kids who are not there by choice.”
Other “success factors” at Lawndale include the AVID program (Advancement Via Individual Determination), which helps prepare students for college; a literacy coach who works with teachers and provides feedback; and an emphasis on mastering “study skills” throughout the entire four years. Instead of having students take a course on study skills, they work on them during advisory periods. Teachers have time set aside for collaboration, which includes developing their own “pacing schedules” for subjects at each grade level to keep everyone on the same page.
“Because the goal of Lawndale High School staff is to prepare all students for college, we try to maintain a college-going culture,” says English teacher Regina Flores-Kincaid. “We don’t accept late homework in the English department unless students have a medical excuse. We expect students to meet high standards. We try to help them if they are falling behind or getting into trouble. Our faculty is strict, but we are very sympathetic and always have our doors open if students need to talk.”
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| Grades of D are not acceptable, says math teacher Chris Morales, nor is late homework. |
“We have very high expectations here,” says math teacher Chris Morales. “Because Lawndale is prepping every kid for college, letting them pass with a D is doing them a disservice. We wouldn’t be doing our job if we sent kids off to college thinking that getting a D was okay.”
In order to keep students from getting D’s and F’s, the school offers intervention programs. Most are targeted toward ninth-graders with the goal of getting them on track so they can keep up throughout the rest of their high school years. Nearly all incoming students attend a summer school “Bridge” program after eighth grade to prepare them for the transition to high school.
“I can always tell the first day of school which students went to Summer Bridge because they are comfortable on campus, know the procedures and have even learned Cornell note-taking,” says Dallas Waxler, a reading intervention teacher and coordinator of the school’s ELL program. “These kids are definitely off to a stronger start.”
