Continuation Schools

For years, Johnson Community Day School has been the second, third or last chance for students kicked out of other middle and high schools. And many have thrived in a setting with small classes, counseling and close supervision to overcome truancy, drug use or brushes with the law. But now Johnson itself is being booted. Next month, the school must vacate its longtime South Los Angeles campus, pushing students already on the edge of failure into a cross-town commute.

Traditional school didn't work for Ben Aldridge. "I was bored and lazy. And I never had a good work ethic," said Ben, 18, of San Jose, explaining how he fell far behind in class credits. Yet today Ben, a senior in one of the San Jose Unified School District's alternative education programs, is back on track to receive his diploma -- on time.

As the sun slipped behind the clouds, Isaac Castillo pulled his black-tinted shades over his eyes and stepped into a rainbow of caps and gowns. Chest puffed out and royal blue tassel swinging, he strutted past exuberant spectators holding teddy bears and bouquets of balloons. A year ago, Isaac, then 18, cried as he watched what should have been his Birmingham High School graduation ceremony from behind a chain-link fence.

By the 10th grade, Mario Galindo said, he had begun to make bad choices -- following a path where he dropped out of school and got involved with drugs and in trouble with the law. But on Saturday, Galindo, 18, was a star of his high school class, speaking at his graduation ceremony less than a year after a judge ordered him back to school.

Little Ramona High School has long prided itself on being an oasis of calm for teenage girls. For more than 50 years, the alternative school has been a haven for pregnant teenagers, wards of the court and others in danger of dropping out. Rows of infants sleep in cribs inside the school's child-care center. The courtyard blooms with zinnias and daffodils planted by students, and girls clutching notebooks stroll past bird feeders suspended from trees.

When she wanted to be a detective, Carleen Mylers studied criminal justice and took a job as an investigator. When she thought she might become a lawyer, she worked in family court. Now that she has an internship in a local middle school, people are asking if she plans to go into teaching. No, Mylers says. What she is actually doing is spying, using her observations as fodder for a novel. "I look at the kids who are always reading, walking around with a book in their hands," Mylers said.

The inequalities between public schools in working-class neighborhoods and more affluent areas have served to deny students an equal opportunity to compete in the public school system. The poorer schools are overcrowded, with many of their teachers untrained and without credentials. The restrooms are dirty; the classrooms lack technology or teachers trained to use it, and fine-art classes like drama and music are limited or nonexistent.

These are the dreams of Eric Loera: to attend College of the Canyons in the fall and, eventually, become an elementary schoolteacher. But dreams can fade when you earn $6.75 an hour and, at 18, are expecting the birth of a child. Now Loera's prospects are about to grow brighter. On Tuesday, the senior from Independence High School in Van Nuys will receive a scholarship to help pay for his first year of college, a gift from parent-turned-benefactor Fred Heim.

The state Department of Education made official what leaders at Hillview High School have known for several months: The school has been named a Model Continuation School by the state and the California Continuation Education Assn. One of only 16 continuation high schools in the state to win the designation, Hillview will keep the title for five years. State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin said the schools help teenagers unable to continue at their regular high schools avoid failure.

Amanda Barry couldn't have cared less about school when she started at Oak Park High. Flunking almost every class, Amanda couldn't stand the academic or social environment. "I don't think I was thinking about anything, except sleeping through my classes," she said of her first semester of high school. And her 0.08 grade-point average was proof that something desperately needed to change. She decided to transfer down the road to the district's continuation high school.