EDUCATION STANDARDS IN SPOTLIGHT; PANEL WANTS BENCHMARK.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer

In a bid to halt ``social promotion,'' high school trustees want eighth-graders to meet uniform academic standards and make up any academic deficiencies at summer school before advancing to the ninth grade.

The Antelope Valley Union High School District board directed its superintendent at a meeting Wednesday night to work with officials of the seven local elementary school districts toward establishing uniform eighth-grade graduation benchmarks.

``My specific concerns were that we should work together on a standardized assessment process where criteria (are) the same for promotion to high school,'' said high school board member Bill Olenick. ``We now have seven different standards. We believe if we had one set of standards that were uniform throughout the Antelope Valley, (it) would help to assure consistency for incoming freshmen.''

The high school trustees' discussion on social promotion was prompted by what they believe is all-too-common occurrences of eighth-graders sent on to high school unprepared - at times, they say, students who have been expelled from junior high are nonetheless graduated to ninth grade.

Officials from the seven Antelope Valley elementary school districts were invited to Wednesday's meeting. Four districts - Eastside, Westside, Hughes-Elizabeth Lakes and Lancaster - sent representatives.

Policies on retaining and graduating students differed among some of the school districts. Lancaster, for example, requires a 1.83 grade-point average and a 70 percent score in citizenship.

On average, 10 percent of Lancaster eighth-graders are not promoted, said trustee Mel Kleven. They are told to attend summer school.

At Eastside, the minimum GPA is 1.5 but more emphasis is placed on passing a series of performance and proficiency tests, and the district typically does not retain students, officials said.

If students do not meet requirements, they are referred to alternative schools operated by Los Angeles County, said Colleen Larson, assistant superintendent for educational services.

``We all need to work toward some consistent goals for children,'' Larson said. ``I would be very careful about the requirement of summer school. If we agree on summer school, we all have to agree on some very high standards.''

Kleven said he likes the idea of valleywide uniform academic standards but said creating them will be a laborious process.

``I like the idea. It will be a bit of a chore to get all of the districts agreeing to what those requirements would be,'' Kleven said. ``The basic notion is probably a good one if we can get some agreement.''

High school Superintendent Robert Girolamo said local school officials have been working on academic standards for about a year through a curriculum council.

``There will be basically, with some variation to each school district, common standards throughout the valley,'' Girolamo said.

Another concern common to all school districts was a high turnover of students, which school officials said ranged between 25 percent and 50 percent. That means a quarter to half of students who graduate from eighth grade have received at least part of their schooling in another district.

Olenick said using state standardized tests or other types of tests and minimum GPAs would be a good start at forming uniform standards.

``There might be other benchmarks that could be used,'' Olenick said. ``The key is to standardize and have consistency throughout all of the feeder districts.''