CHARTERED WATERS SCHOOLS ENTICE LAUSD TEACHERS EDUCATORS FIND CREATIVE FREEDOM.

Byline: Naush Boghossian Staff Writer

After teaching nearly two decades at Los Angeles Unified schools, Fred Chapel felt stifled by a system that told him what to teach and how to teach it.

So he left LAUSD in 2001 and went to work for a charter school, where he not only gets to decide his own curriculum and select the textbooks, but has input on the campus' staffing and budgets.

``I could never really go back to a traditional public school now after having tasted this,'' said Chapel, who teaches seventh-grade science at CALS Charter Middle School in northeast Los Angeles. ``I'm back to working with kids, listening to what they have to say, getting to know them and knowing the material in a much more rigorous way.''

The burgeoning charter school movement has allowed Chapel and hundreds of teachers like him to work in what they say is a more supportive climate - one that not only encourages but expects its educators to experiment and implement new ideas.

Los Angeles Unified, the nation's second-largest school district with 727,000 students, has 86 charter campuses serving about 38,100 kids, with thousands more on waiting lists.

Enrollment is dropping about 2 percent a year in LAUSD while its charter enrollment is booming, with charter students expected to account for 10 percent of the district's population by 2012.

While Los Angeles' charter schools have hired rookie teachers and even retirees, the greatest number of their educators are coming from LAUSD itself.

The California Charter Schools Association - the membership and professional organization serving the 574 charter schools in the state - surveyed 890 teachers and found that 42 percent of those at Los Angeles charter schools came from LAUSD or a nearby district, and 10 campuses had at least half their staff from LAUSD, spokesman Gary Larson said.

Caprice Young, a former Los Angeles Unified board president who now runs the association, said the district is working to improve but doesn't do enough to support creativity or innovation.

``There are some phenomenally awesome, great things going on at L.A. Unified,'' she said. ``L.A. Unified could be brilliant if we could embrace our entrepreneurs - entrepreneur teachers and parents.

``People inside the schools are thinking outside the box, but they're not getting the support they need. It's when the entrepreneur is crushed they want to leave.''

Los Angeles Unified officials conceded that teachers might leave because they feel frustrated by a mandated curriculum that reduces autonomy, but said the system still allows for creativity.

``When you're responsible for a district with 460 elementary schools and the achievement of a very diverse student population, it's important that you have a common curriculum,'' said Ronni Ephraim, LAUSD's chief instructional officer.

``I know that the district's theory of action does not equate to giving up creativity. We see throughout the district that thousands of teachers bring creativity to the classroom.''

Of the nearly 36,000 teachers in LAUSD, 327 have asked to go on charter leave, Ephraim said. They can return within 39 months with no loss of benefits.

While public school districts are required to work within the guidelines set by the state, charter schools - the administrators, teachers and even parents and students - have greater freedom of choice: Teachers choose to work at a charter based on its mission statement, which is crafted by the administration. Parents and students choose the schools they will attend.

``The schools draw the people who are pioneers, or as we called them in one study, 'outlaws,''' said Penny Wohlstetter, a USC professor and co-director of the Center on Educational Governance at University of Southern California.

``These (are) rebels of the public system and they find that through charter schools they not only get a lot more respect and decision-making authority, but they look around and there are people of like minds who are their colleagues.''

Charter educators say LAUSD's top-down hierarchy leaves individual teacher performance at the mercy of individual administrators. One principal might be receptive to a teacher's creativity, while another might want to quash it.

Kelly Jean Hanock, an English language arts teacher at James Monroe High School who was named a California Teacher of the Year in 2005, said she's still able to be creative within the LAUSD system because of a ``really forward-thinking principal.''

In Hanock's case, the principal encouraged her to take the lead in breaking up the 4,700-student school into smaller learning communities of 500 students each.

``Within the small, we have a lot of freedom to do different kinds of things because the principal encourages us to take chances,'' she said.

Despite its growing popularity, the charter movement faces criticism that there could be greater social pressures and more limited extracurricular activities at smaller schools.

Teachers union President A.J. Duffy said he believes LAUSD should cap the number of charters allowed, and the state should limit its funding to the charters, which he fears could ``destroy'' public schools by draining the district's general fund, which pays for teacher salaries and benefits.

``The more money charters drain from the general fund, the less money there is for things like salaries and benefits, which attracts good teachers,'' said Duffy, who heads United Teachers Los Angeles.

He also accused charter schools of getting rid of disruptive students - an allegation that charter administrators deny - and said there is a problem with high teacher turnover.

``They take young, inexperienced teachers, expect them to work 10 hours per day, and they willingly do it because they're excited, but the problem is they're gone within five years.''

But charter supporters say the schools attract more qualified teachers and students are achieving at a quicker rate. More than one-third of full-time L.A. charter school teachers have advanced degrees or doctorates.

Charter teachers insist it's the freedom to veer from the standards that make kids learn at a higher level.

Chapel teaches his seventh-graders about biochemical processes in the cell, protein synthesis, atoms and elements - eighth-grade standards - because that's what the kids need to know.

``Charters say go for it. Public schools would have said they're not part of the standards and I would have spent more time arguing and reasoning with district officials than teaching,'' Chapel said.

Susan Cornell is another longtime LAUSD teacher who resigned from the district - and gave up her lifetime benefits - to teach third grade at Fenton Avenue Elementary, a charter that opened in 1993.

``I worked with wonderful, innovative teachers and principals at LAUSD, but they didn't have the ability to be what Fenton is,'' she said. ``We were told what we had to do from downtown. Our hands were tied by the rules and regulations of being in a big district, and we didn't have the freedom.

``Fenton offers the chance to be innovative and give kids what they need.''

Naush Boghossian, [phone]

naush.boghossian(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

7 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Mary Gunckel, a science teacher at Fenton Avenue Elementary charter school in Lake View Terrace, answers a student's question in science lab.

(2 -- color) Students have computers at their desks at Fenton Avenue Elementary.

(3) Fifth-grade teacher Barbara Aragon works with student Vivian Matute, 10, on a math problem at Fenton Avenue Elementary.

(4) Raheem Wright, 10, answers a question in his fifth-grade classroom at Fenton Avenue Elementary charter school.

David Sprague/Staff Photographer

(5 -- color) - Judy Burton

(6 -- color) - Brad Koepenick

(7 -- color) - Carolyn Strom