For Those Who Fail 8th Grade, a School of Second Chances

In their blue polo shirts and khaki pants, the teenagers look like typical students in the Long Beach Unified School District. A teacher asks them to tuck in their shirts as they trudge to class.

But these kids are different. They failed two subjects in eighth grade and are now part of a social experiment called the Long Beach Preparatory Academy in the adjacent city of Signal Hill.

School officials believe that Long Beach is the first district in the nation to open a special campus dedicated to helping students who have failed the eighth grade and are not academically ready for high school.

“Some of these kids test very bright,” said Principal Miguel Lopes. “Some of them are reading beyond the 12th-grade level. These kids can still be successful.”

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Long Beach has joined a growing national movement aimed at stopping the practice of simply promoting failing students to the next grade. School districts in Chicago, Houston and Portsmouth, Va., are also adopting this philosophy, Lopes said.

At Long Beach Prep, the principal said, “we are going to help them achieve academic success. It will be a rigorous academic program.”

The phoenix, the mythical bird that rises from its ashes to start another life, will be the school mascot.

“We chose it for obvious reasons,” said Lopes, who once taught math at Boston Latin High School.

Poor academic achievement--rather than poor academic ability--is the reason many students are now enrolled at Long Beach Prep. “We have a lot of kids who are very bright, but for some reason did not complete their work,” said history teacher Pamra Ishaeik. “The concept that this is a school of dummies is very wrong.”

Teachers will focus on mathematics, science, English and U.S. history, with smaller classes and emphasis on individual instruction. Faculty members will adapt their teaching methods to individual students, determining whether the youngsters absorb new information best by seeing, touching or hearing.

The school is rich in technology, with 100 computers linked in a campuswide network. Each classroom is equipped with a television and a videocassette recorder.

Lopes said students will be able to produce their own Shakespearean plays and show them on the campus TV network.

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Viewing each other on screen “is so powerful in terms of how you see your classmates,” Lopes said, adding that students will realize that their friends are really talented. “Kids get away from superficial evaluations of each other.”

Long Beach moved to the forefront of national efforts to restore discipline while boosting academic performance when it began requiring elementary students to wear uniforms three years ago.

Opening the remedial middle school has not been without controversy. Some residents of Signal Hill have been up in arms, complaining that the school district is dumping troubled youths in their city. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge recently denied a request that would have blocked the school from opening, Lopes said.

The principal objects to the characterization of his student body as a group of juvenile delinquents.

“Youngsters with consistent and severe behavior problems are already culled out,” he said, adding that they are sent to continuation schools.

Long Beach Prep differs from a typical middle school in a number of respects. It has a handpicked faculty that volunteered for the assignment, specialized instruction on study habits and life skills, a full-time psychologist and a full-time social worker.

Class sizes will be kept down, to about 20 students, and the youngsters will have four main teachers who will get to know them as individuals.

“In most junior highs it is very easy to become invisible,” said Cindy Wechsung, a reading specialist. “Here there is a family feel.”

With 90-minute periods for math and science one day, and English and history the next, teachers are able to give more personal instruction, she said.

These extended class periods, called “time on task,” will be the key to helping the students realize their potential, Lopes said.

But on the second day of class Friday, students were definitely confused by their new, longer schedules.

“Any school on opening day has lines and chaos,” said school psychologist Jack Correia.

Natalie Yarter, a blond 13-year-old, seemed to agree. “We’ve had a rough day. The schedule is all messed up,” she said. “But I like the teachers a lot. They are really friendly and understand how you feel.”

Jason Moore, 15, calls Long Beach Prep “an all-right school because the teachers are nicer, and we have computers. Last year the teachers did not even care.”

The school’s narrow goal is to move the children from the eighth to the ninth grade, Lopes said.

“But when you peel that back, there is so much work to be done,” he said. “You begin to look at the whole child. They need both the academic and social maturity to move ahead.”

Students who are successful at Long Beach Prep will have the skills to catch up to their peers, he said. They will be able to attend summer school, take extra classes in high school and earn college credits.

However, students who fail at Long Beach Prep will not repeat the year. They will have to attend a continuation school, Lopes said.

“They only have one opportunity here,” he said.