Private Schools Orange County

In a surprise move, the Southern Section's executive committee approved Santa Margarita High School's appeal Wednesday to be included in a league with Orange County public schools for the 1992-94 seasons. The committee, chaired by Corona del Mar Principal Tom Jacobson, voted, 12-4, to accept Santa Margarita, a Catholic high school in Rancho Santa Margarita, into the county's geographic area.

On that first day in September, as her mother's beat-up station wagon wound its way out of her working-class Santa Ana neighborhood and up to the ocean bluffs and the bright clean air of Newport Beach, 14-year-old Beatriz Arreola felt the fear in the pit of her stomach. "What if I don't fit in?" she asked herself. "What if they don't like me?"

The first step toward forming an Orange County high school athletic section in the California Interscholastic Federation is scheduled Aug. 20, when the county's superintendents will meet at the Anaheim Union High School District offices.

Spin it a little and you could say that the boys on the Saddleback Valley Christian football team have enjoyed a storybook season. Storybook in that they're like football's version of the make-believe Bad News Bears or Mighty Ducks. There's just one flaw: With an 0-6 record, there is no hope of a comeback leading to an unlikely championship when the Warriors play their final game today against Riverside's Bethel Christian.

It began with the behavioral problems of several boys at St. John's Lutheran School--smart-alecky talk during classes, disrespect toward teachers and disregard of school rules. But in the year since two of the boys were expelled, these disciplinary problems have turned to legal ones amid allegations that teachers hit and shoved them and the pastor belittled and humiliated them.

Despite opposition from property owners, council members on Tuesday approved, on a 3-2 vote, the expansion of Fairmont Private School on Maple Street into the surrounding industrial complex. The council agreed to allow Fairmont to convert a 14,775-square-foot industrial building into an addition for the school. School officials said the extra space is needed to accommodate Fairmont's 695 students, who range from preschoolers to high school seniors.

The private Kline School won permission from the Planning Commission this week to add two classrooms, a move that will allow the school to expand its enrollment from 45 to 75 children. Susan Kline, a former teacher and owner of the Kline School, said that she turned away about 30 students last year. Kline added that although the additional classrooms will allow her to immediately increase enrollment to 75, the growth may be gradual.

In South County, new students are enrolling in public schools faster than the campuses are built. So one private school here is taking steps to meet that demand. In just five years, St. Anne School has seen its student population grow from 124 to 500. The school, once housed in trailer classrooms on Rancho Niguel Road, moved two years ago to larger portable buildings on Bear Brand Road.

President Bush will present officials from the Fairmont Private Schools with a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence award during a White House ceremony on Wednesday. U.S. Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander will join in the presentation, which will take place during a luncheon. Founded in 1953, Fairmont Private Schools is reportedly Orange County's oldest and largest nonsectarian private school. With three campuses, it educates more than 900 children between preschool and eighth grade.

Tarbut V'Torah Community Day School will be holding orientation meetings this week and an open house for parents considering enrolling their children in the school. The meetings will be held today, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday at its board of directors' homes in Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Tustin and Villa Park. Parents whose children currently attend Tarbut V'Torah will be present to talk about the school program, along with the school director and members of the school board.

Eastside Christian Church's school will be able to enroll at its main campus 80 high school students who were displaced after a lease fell through for campus space in Anaheim. The City Council voted last week to allow the displaced students to attend class locally while a new site for the high school is sought. The church school had rented a site in Anaheim for its high school, but that agreement expired this year.

Calvary Chapel of Yorba Linda will be expanding its preschool to accommodate children in grades K-6 and will place three temporary buildings on the church grounds for use as classrooms until a permanent 45,000-square-foot school building is built. The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to uphold a decision by the Planning Commission to approve the school's plans for expansion.

Southern California Christian School in Orange has closed its doors for the upcoming school year because of low enrollment, an official said Monday. The junior and senior high school, in existence for 24 years, is a nondenominational school that relies for funding on annual tuition of $5,500 per student and on fund-raisers. Officials said an enrollment of at least 90 students was needed to continue operating; as of last week, only 59 had enrolled.

Organizers of a private Islamic elementary school, who withdrew an application from Rancho Santa Margarita after contentious hearings last year, are now hoping to open in Irvine. Irvine planning commissioners will discuss the New Horizon School's designs, which planning officials said meet city guidelines, at their meeting Thursday.

The soul of Mater Dei High School lives behind the gym, in a slightly tilted trailer he shares with a scrappy stray cat. Josef D'Heygers is 84 now and stooped, but he gets around campus much like he has for the last 45 years, taking care of this and fiddling with that--fussing over the Santa Ana private school he has made his home. D'Heygers watches over what, with 2,100 students, is the largest coed Catholic high school in the West.

The school is only three years old, but people here have all felt, at one time or another, as though they owned a part of it. They have seen the roaches and mopped the floors and sat through class as rain leaked from the ceiling into uncountable pails.

The boys at St. Catherine's Military School are under the tutelage of an interesting mix of leaders. Lay teachers conduct most of the regular classes, which run from kindergarten through eighth grade. Nuns run the dormitory, act as administrators and oversee religious life. Ex-military men teach the boys discipline, a spit-and-polish lifestyle to go with their Army-style uniforms and ranks.

The Pegasus School recently celebrated the opening of a new classroom complex and technology center as well as a renovated middle school and science lab. The school launched the $1-million project, known as Building Our Future, last year. Fund donations included $75,000 from the Weingart Foundation. Plans are underway for an activities building and gymnasium. The Pegasus School, at 19692 Lexington Drive, is a private, nondenominational school serving children from preschool through eighth

The City Council this week approved plans for an 11.6-acre, 275-student, temporary private school in Oso Ranch. Saddleback Valley Christian School, scheduled to open by September, will consist of 10 modular classrooms, a parking lot and two play fields. The school eventually will be replaced by a 55-acre permanent school that will house more than 500 students.