SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Schools OK Broad Education Plan

After more than a year of work involving hundreds of people, trustees in the Capistrano Unified School District have adopted a preliminary plan to guide the district into the next century.

What started out as 14 separate plans for goals such as teaching students marketable career skills, second languages and appreciation for human diversity has turned into “21 Plans for the 21st Century,” Supt. James A. Fleming said.

At the core of the 128-page plan, known as “Capistrano 2000--A Blueprint for Excellence,” is the goal of making sure that the 30,000 students in the district “demonstrate competency in challenging subject matter, including English language arts, mathematics, science, social science and the arts.”

Methods for achieving such broad-based goals include increasing parent involvement, emphasizing career education, offering more school choices and finding alternative funding for, among other things, computers for every classroom.

Another important part of the plan involves a shift toward giving educators at individual schools the ability to make more decisions.

“This is a complex plan,” said Barbara Smith, director of curriculum and instruction. “I think we will be gray when we’re done, but we’ll be proud.”

One of the first actions that could come from the plan is creating a fee-based preschool program at local schools, which is part of a larger goal to work with parents in better preparing children for learning at crucial early ages.

Other strategies would be developed and started over the next three years.

Both a final vote on the plan and a proposal for the preschool program are scheduled June 7.

Work on the plan began in January, 1992, with three Town Hall-styled forums. Since then, more than 400 parents, community leaders, students, teachers and school district employees have been involved in developing the specific action plans in the document, which has also been the subject of numerous public meetings.