54 SCHOOLS EARN AWARDS ON-SITE STAFFS WIN CASH FOR STUDENTS' SCORES.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Fifty-four Antelope Valley schools will receive nearly $2 million and their employees another $2 million as a reward for the schools' improving their state academic test scores.

Teachers, counselors, janitors and cafeteria workers each stand to receive $591 as part of the School Site Employee Performance Bonus announced Monday by Gov. Gray Davis.

``I think it's a great thing, anything to support us,'' said Wynne May, a kindergarten teacher at Palmdale School District's Ocotillo School, which will receive $94,682. ``Sometimes we always feel like we are being dogged on. I think it's a good thing. For instance, just this weekend, I spent $100 for supplies for my classroom.''

A total of $350 million in bonus money will go to schools and staffs where schools improved their Academic Performance Index scores. Half of the allocation will fund the school-site employee bonuses and the other half will go to the schools themselves.

The amount of money allotted to each school was based on the equivalent number of full-time positions at the school. Part-time employees will receive an amount proportional to that received by full-time workers.

The state will send the money to schools in April.

To qualify for the awards, schools' 2000 API scores met or exceeded their growth target, all ethnic and economic student ``subgroups'' scored at least 80 percent of the growth targets, and at least 95 percent of pupils in elementary and middle schools and 90 percent in high schools must have taken the Stanford 9 test.

The growth target is 5 percent of the difference between last year's score and 800, the statewide goal.

Under the one-time money announced by the governor Monday, more than 529,000 school employees, from custodians to principals, will receive bonuses.

The average bonus will be around $400 after taxes, state officials said.

Created by a 1999 state law, the API is designed to show how California schools compare with one another. Each school received a single score - between 200 and 1,000 - based on pupils' composite test scores.

Lori Custodio, a secretary at Ocotillo School, said she will spend her bonus money to help pay for her son's college tuition. She also said teachers truly deserve the money.

``I think it's nice, but it's not fair to the teachers. They are the ones that do all the work,'' Custodio said. ``I do the support work. They are the ones that work with children.''

But May said nonteaching staff deserve the bonuses as well. May said she spent $100 on potting soil for a gardening unit she's teaching, sand toys for the kindergarten playground, and ``multicultural'' crayons and paints, which come in colors of skin tones.

May briefly mused that $591 would pay for a ``nice little weekend trip'' but said she probably will spend her bonus on school supplies and work clothes.

Ocotillo Principal Kathy Wehunt said she was thrilled with the half of the money that is going to the school. How the money is spent will be determined by the school's site council, Wehunt said.

A school wish list includes improving technology, buying materials for the accelerated reader program, a digital camera, playground equipment, CD and cassette players, keeping the computer lab and library open during the evening, providing after-school tutoring, and pay for teachers attending conferences.

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