SCHOOLS RUN THE GAMUT, TRADITIONAL TO FUTURISTIC.

Byline: Connie Llanos 

Staff Writer

A school with no textbooks, tests, report cards or grades.

It may sound like a kid's dream but it's actually a highly praised private elementary school that is just one of several educational options available to parents in the Van Nuys area.

Children's Community School in the Civic Center area of Van Nuys opened 27 years ago under the leadership of founding director Neal Wrighton.

The self-proclaimed progressive private elementary school doesn't adhere to traditional ways of teaching.

"Our mission is to educate children to be citizens in a democratic society," Wrighton said. "This is education for the rest of their lives and we measure success in happiness, competence and civic engagement."

Wrighton founded the nonprofit school with a handful of kids in the back rooms of a historic 1920s Van Nuys church.

Now the school has expanded -- just this year it opened a new, two-story building complete with a hardwood-floor multipurpose room and an outdoor glass-case art display -- and next year it plans to enroll 120 students.

Wrighton said students learn the same things as kids in more traditional settings -- but this school just approaches the subjects differently.

"If we are going to teach our kids about California history we will teach them about the art, dance and food of that era," Wrighton said.

"We study the literature and that incorporates language arts, we make clothing and that requires math skills and geometry lessons, we will then perform the music of that time, we incorporate all the necessary skills into that topic."

Nearby Sylvan Park Elementary, a traditional public school, may not approach its lessons in such a creative manner, but the little school has plenty of stories to tell.

The 1,300-student school was established in 1924, just two years after development kicked off in the Van Nuys area. Back then, the campus included three or four bungalows, an office, bathroom and auditorium and had about 100 students.

Over the years the school has gone through its share of name changes. In 1924 the school was called Van Nuys Elementary #3. In 1925 it became Lemona Avenue School and by 1948 it adopted its current name.

From the oldest school to the most futuristic, perhaps in a few years all schools will adopt the curriculum of affiliated charter High Tech High School Los Angeles.

Marsha Rybin, principal of the four-year-old school housed on the Birmingham High School campus, said the school finds ways to weave technology into every subject and class. "We have our own server and our kids save their work into folders there, we communicate by e-mail and our kids use programs like Powerpoint and Excel in every class," Rybin said.

Teachers at this smaller 320-student campus also use interactive white boards in every class, have started a popular robotics program, and can take computer programming as an elective.

As an affiliated charter, the school is financially dependent on the district but is exempt from its curricular mandates. Rybin said this allows more academic freedom.

This also means Rybin has imposed certain graduation requirements that she feels give her students a more real-world education.

And her approach has not interfered with the academic performance of her students -- who had an API score average of 819 last year.

But Rybin insists her school is not just a technical option for kids. "Our purpose is to have a small, personalized environment for kids where they are well known and have a lot of real-world experience and connections."

connie.llanos(at)dailynews.com

661-257-5254

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Photo:

Music teacher Ruth Belonsky plays her guitar while kids in her kindergarten class dance and sing at the Children's Community School in Van Nuys on Wednesday.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer