Opposites On Track

THOUSAND OAKS — At Wildwood Elementary, about 40 first-graders test their high, creaky voices on songs to practice phonics. “Ice cream, ice cream, mmm, mmm, mmm. M, m, m,” they chant in unison, while one student keeps time by shaking a blue pompom.

Three miles away at Meadows Elementary, a second-grader hunches over thick-lined paper and a bag of animal crackers--his crumbly, tasty muse for a sentence incorporating at least four of the five senses.

These are two very different schools--one traditional, the other a little more funky--that produce similarly pleasing results: parental participation, strong test scores and children excited about learning.

And this year, these two Conejo Valley Unified School District campuses are the only Ventura County schools in the running for national Blue Ribbon status--the nation’s top award for public schools.

“These schools are almost exact opposites in their approach to teaching,” said trustee Dorothy Beaubien. “But they both score tremendously high and parents love them.”

As the old saw goes, it’s just an honor to be nominated, school officials say.

The prestigious national award offers no money but bragging rights aplenty. Blue Ribbon status brings just that--status to schools, particularly important for Meadows, which is a little offbeat for some in this buttoned-down city.

School district officials are crowing over their good fortune, which they say is indicative of the area’s overall good schooling.

“We’re really proud of them,” said Rich Simpson, assistant superintendent for instructional services.

Beyond validating individual schools, the nominations lend cachet to the Conejo Valley’s school choice program that allows parents to pick from among neighborhood schools for the one that best suits their children.

“Each school develops its own personality based on the staff, students and parents, so some schools are more traditional in their approach to teaching the skills we want students to learn and other schools take a less traditional approach,” said Barbara Ryan, the school district’s director of elementary education.

Clearly, she said, parents want that choice. And clearly the two different options are embraced by the Blue Ribbon panel.

Awarded by the federal Department of Education, the National Blue Ribbon School designation means that a school demonstrates high academic standards, student achievement, strong teacher qualifications, insightful school leadership and vigorous parental involvement.

Last year, 39 schools nationwide received the much-coveted designation. The two Conejo Valley schools are among California’s 46 nominees to the program.

To even fill out a Blue Ribbon application, a school must first possess California Distinguished School standing. Then comes a daunting, 40-page application, which is screened this month by a panel of educators.

Schools that survive the paper screening will be visited by members of the panel in February. National Blue Ribbon Schools will be announced by June 2.

If Wildwood and Meadows make it to the site visit cut, evaluators will glimpse two thriving school environments with two distinct versions of innovative learning.

At Wildwood, it’s a safe bet that evaluators will find first-graders pecking away at Macintoshes, crafting their own stories with 1990s flair or using a mathematics program with colorful, cartoon-like graphics.

Taking a breather from their phonics practice are Matthew Curry and Stephanie Bonds, both 6.

“I like my teacher, I think she’s good,” Stephanie says. “I like to go to school ‘cause it’s fun.”

Sure, the gap-toothed Matthew says, the teacher and school are nifty. But “the thing I like about school is that I like to do lots and lots of math,” he confides. “That’s my favorite thing. We learn to do a lot of things here.”

In a nearby sixth-grade classroom, disk drives are humming as well.

Looking for information to supplement a reading assignment, Michael Doherty deftly types.

“We’re reading a book--’The Cay,’ it’s called--so I’m researching the time period and the location where the book takes place,” said Michael, 12. “We’re looking up the Caribbean on the ‘Time Almanac’ CD-ROM.

“They have a lot of good teachers here,” Michael says as the desired information pops up on his screen. “I really like technology, and this is, i think, one of the top schools for technology.”

He’s right.

Although Michael doesn’t know it, Wildwood is set to become one of the Conejo Valley’s first fully wired, totally Internet-capable schools, possibly by fall. This is due in no small part to Principal Linda Spellman, a technophile’s technophile.

“Mrs. Spellman has done wonders here,” said parent Sandy Haga. “We’ve gotten all these computers, and we have a lot more school spirit.”

Spellman gladly rattles off the numbers: Primary grade classrooms have at least two computers; upper grades, four. With 500 students and 50 computers, the student to computer ratio is 10 to 1.

And those computers are used daily, Spellman says, for research, for reading, for writing. Using them just last year, a group of Wildwood students scored third in the nation in the Knowledge Master Open--a computerized academic competition.

This is Wildwood’s version of traditional schooling: presenting the basics in fresh and hands-on ways, with an emphasis on technology.

“I don’t think there’s a single right way to do anything,” Spellman said. “You use multiple strategies to teach students because they don’t all learn the same way. . . . What you’re looking for is good teachers and learning. And good teaching and learning can take place in a variety of environments.”

Judging from the colorful classrooms, the absence of assigned seats, and the students curled up in bean bags while practicing oral reports on the Colonial period, Meadows is a decidedly different environment.

For the last four years, the school’s buzzwords have been “meaning-based learning,” shorthand for teaching subjects in a way that has demonstrable real-world applications.

Teachers also weave lessons around themes--such as ecology or the community. Young students may listen to and study stories about frogs, swish around in the school’s outdoor pond for science lessons, write about threatened wetlands and practice on math problems that ask them to multiply five frogs times four legs each for a total of 20 frog legs.

Instead of copying “See the dog run”-type practice sentences, Judy Bowers’ first-grade class learned about wetlands. For the purposes of the lesson, the 6-year-olds were told that the City Council was about to pave over a marshy area.

The result: shakily penciled, heartfelt letters asking the council to reconsider.

“We don’t just write because the teacher says to write,” Bowers said. “We write to a real audience.”

And that’s the point, said Principal Tim Stephens.

“Our goal is to create a school that bridges that gap between school and other things that go on outside of school,” he said. “I learn math so that when I go to the grocery store someone won’t cheat me. I write so I can tell the City Council that I’m concerned about endangered wetlands.”

In his third-grade class, Derek Stanton nibbles on animal crackers so he can find inspiration for his descriptive sentence.

“The coolest thing about our school is they have nice teachers,” the 8-year-old said. “They teach well.”

Elsewhere, fourth-graders gaze solemnly at grainy black-and-white overheads of Angel Island. Shortly, they will be asked to compose poems about arriving in America from the viewpoint of a new Chinese immigrant--scared and without family.

“What you won’t see is children sitting stoically in rows and staring at the teacher--that’s the way we used to do it,” Stephens said. “Drudgery, boredom, sheet work, reading the chapter and answering the questions at the end, that’s not what learning is all about.”

Instead, Meadows focuses on using creativity, imagination and personal exploration to help children get excited about the basics, according to Meadows PTA president Lynne Kelsey.

“I like to think that I grew up to be a pretty good writer--I make a living at it,” Kelsey laughed. “But my daughter is going to be way better than I am. Words are her friends, not her enemies. Words are more than something you have to pile up to make sentences.”

No, it’s not a traditional school.

“That’s what I like about it,” Kelsey said. “The learning, I think, is more concrete and less abstract.”

Kelsey isn’t alone in her affection for the school. She boasts that Meadows parents have put in at least 40,000 volunteer hours in each of the last three years.

But those who dislike Meadows--some parents and school officials alike--tend to dislike it with as much fervor as Kelsey adores it.

Trustees Elaine McKearn and Margaret Lynch have frequently criticized the school, starting with its oversized progress reports that use academic descriptions of “consistently” or “requires support” instead of the expected As, Bs and Cs.

Saying Meadows skimps on the fundamentals, the two have tried unsuccessfully to make Meadows a more traditional place. Their back-to-basics call has gone unheeded, and the school remains the district’s only alternative elementary school.

Stephens says he doesn’t expect everyone to like his 450-student school.

“To me, you should be able to have 18 different flavors of ice cream. We have 18 different elementaries,” he said. “Each school and each community should have their own vision of what they want--whether it’s a traditional school or a nontraditional school, a fundamental school or a magnet school. Let the community decide so parents truly have a choice.”

Without making predictions, the two principals say they are hopeful about their chances at earning a Blue Ribbon, something a Conejo Valley school has never done.

For Stephens, the award would be something concrete to show critics.

“I would hope that the Blue Ribbon would give us some validation, some credibility with the people who want us to get out of town.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Elementary Blues

Two Conejo Valley elementaries--Meadows and Wildwood--are the only Ventura County schools in the running for National Blue Ribbon School standing.

MEADOWS

Built: 1963

Enrollment: 417

Population: 0.1% Native American, 3.8% Asian American, 1.7% black, 3.8% Latino and 90.6% white.

Students with disabilities: 30

Staff: 25 full-time and 19 part-time

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WILDWOOD

Enrollment: 500

Population: 0.2% Native American, 7.5% Asian American, 0.8% black, 8.5% Latino and 83% white.

Students with disabilities: 15

Staff: 25 full-time and 16 part-time

****

Spring 1996 Stanford Achievement Test percentile rankings:

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MEADOWS WILDWOOD School District School District mean mean mean mean GRADE TWO Reading 65 67 67 67 Math 75 81 74 81 Language 71 67 75 67 GRADE THREE Reading 68 66 69 66 Math 82 77 82 77 Language 67 73 71 73 GRADE FOUR Reading 88 67 67 67 Math 95 78 77 78 Language 91 78 75 78 GRADE FIVE Reading 69 69 73 69 Math 77 77 -- 77 Language 73 79 80 79 GRADE SIX Reading 69 75 82 75 Math 80 80 83 80 Language 68 78 82 78

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