SCV SCHOOL FACING LOSS OF CHARTER TEST SCORES, DROPOUTS AT ISSUE.

Byline: Sue Doyle Staff Writer

VALENCIA - Low test scores and an unimpressive dropout rate might mark the end for one continuation school that serves the Santa Clarita Valley.

Opportunities For Learning, an independent academic program with facilities sprinkled throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties, could lose its charter with the William S. Hart Union High School District if performance standards don't stop their downward trend.

Hart district officials said the charter school system also hasn't provided enough documentation demonstrating that certain performance standards have been met.

Furthermore, academic information available through the state Department of Education about the school system has district officials alarmed, said Leslie Crunelle, assistant superintendent of education services.

``It's less of an issue that they didn't provide data and more of an issue of what the data says,'' Crunelle said.

In 2005, the charter school system serving the Santa Clarita area earned an API score of 597. The state's API goal is 800, and schools scoring lower than that need to show improvement in the years that follow.

Whether it's an improvement from the past is unknown, because not all students at Opportunities For Learning took the state exams last year so API results were not tallied.

Still, these API scores aren't the lowest for the district.

Bowman High School, a continuation school for juniors and seniors, had an API score of 476 last year. However, it was a 103-point improvement from 2004.

At the same time, dropout rates are higher among students enrolled at Opportunities For Learning than at the district's other high schools.

In the 2003-04 school year, 393 students, or about 26 percent, dropped out. That number actually declined from the previous year when more than 600 students dropped out.

In comparison, fewer than 10 students dropped out from Bowman High School from 2002 to 2004.

The Hart district has agreed to meet with officials from the charter school system to review performance standards and has given them three months to explain the results and show classroom improvement. Results will decide whether the district will renew the charter.

Opportunities for Learning annually serves about 2,500 Santa Clarita students and has had a charter with the district since 1999, with seven sites reaching from Canyon Country to Palmdale and Ridgecrest.

William Toomey, director of instruction for the charters, said they will provide documentation to the district to show that students are performing at least equal to that of their peers in the school district.

``We want to be a valuable partner to students in the district,'' he said.

Reasons why students attend the charter school vary. Some were expelled from traditional high schools. Others dropped out of school to work and support their families. A handful were home-schooled and sent there as an alternative to traditional high school.

The school system is structured for independent study, with students coming to the sites twice a week to meet with teachers to review the assignments. Students meet for a minimum of one hour each time.

While test scores might seem daunting, students at Opportunities For Learning facilities in Santa Clarita have fared better on some tests than in other regions.

The site that serves the Baldwin Park Unified School District, for example, had an API score last year of 540.

At the same time, the charter school serving the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District had a score of 548. Last year, that school district did not renew its charter with Opportunities For Learning. Officials from the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District were unavailable Tuesday to comment.

Opportunities For Learning has also previously come under fire from the state Department of Education for not providing adequate information about its board of directors and how its funds are spent.

Because the school system refuses to fully release this information, it was denied membership into the California Charter Schools Association, a professional organization that represents about 70 percent of the state's charter schools, said Gary Larson, spokesman.

Larson said Opportunities For Learning was also discounted for membership because of its quality of instruction and that too many questions remained unanswered regarding their program.

There have only been a few cases where membership into the organization has been denied, he said.

``I'm not saying it's a shoddy organization that's not doing good work,'' Larson said. ``But obviously we take quality very seriously. We're committed to our members being a cut above the rest.''

Opportunities For Learning filed a lawsuit last week against the California Department of Education to challenge a law that decides funding for schools based on the amount of time teachers instruct students.

Options for Youth was included in the lawsuit against the Department of Education, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Sue Doyle, [phone]

sue.doyle(at)dailynews.com