STUDENTS SET PACE AT PRIVATE SCHOOL : ROSAMOND CHRISTIAN UNCONVENTIONAL.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

A teen-age boy sits at the keyboard of an upright piano playing Beethoven's sonata ``Fur Elise'' as children and teen-agers cluster around the carpeted but unfurnished room, chattering and giggling.

Then, break over, they disperse to their classrooms - ``learning centers'' here - where each pupil - kindergarten to high school - sits at his own pull-down desk, which lines the walls of the room.

Teachers and aides - ``supervisors'' and ``monitors'' - circulate among the pupils, explaining a hard passage in a social studies assignment or a difficult arithmetic problem.

Tiny Rosamond Christian School is unlike nearly every other school in the Antelope Valley. Here there are no classrooms filled with rows of desks, no blackboards, no teachers' lectures.

``The kids teach themselves, and we are kind of like guides - to help them if there's something they don't understand,'' said Gary Preston, a retired Air Force senior master sergeant who is the principal. ``It's a self-paced program. . . . It builds into them life responsibility and discipline.''

Rosamond Christian started 21 years ago with children of members of the town's Wayside Chapel Community Church, whose board continues to run it. The school today has about 70 pupils, from kindergarten to high school, and 20 other students on home-study programs. The students come from as far as Quartz Hill and Palmdale.

Using an individualized ``accelerated Christian education'' curriculum developed by a Texas organization, School of Tomorrow, the school draws pupils whose parents want a private, Christian education with an individual approach, Preston said.

The small size and individualized approach means a low pupil-to-teacher ratio: about 10-to-1 in second- through fourth-grade classes; about 6-to-1 for high school students. Students use computer and video programs to help them with algebra, geometry, chemistry and other subjects.

At the end of each academic quarter, pupils who have made a quarter's worth of progress on their studies get to go on a field trip as a reward. On Monday, the second- through fourth-graders were at Dimples family fun center in Lancaster.

About 50 percent to 60 percent of graduates go on to college, Preston said.

Last weekend, the school sent five high school students for the first time to a statewide environmental competition, the California Environthon, where they analyzed pond water for microorganisms, identified animal skulls, and offered hypothetical solutions for farmers trying to avoid chemical pest controls.

The team finished 21st out of 22 schools and chalked it up to a learning experience.

Ninth-grader Angelena Worley, who has attended public and traditional private schools and has been at Rosamond Christian six years, said she prefers the individualized study.

``It gives us a chance to work on our own pace, if we're ahead or if we're behind, so we don't get lost,'' said Worley, 14. ``I like it better. I think most kids would say that.

``You become like family with the rest of the school.''

Megan Ogden, 15, has attended Rosamond Christian since she was 6 years old. She likes the individual attention from the teachers, who don't have to be asked to lend a hand.

``If you don't ask, they'll (still) come along and help you,'' Ogden said.

But she noted that switching to a large school and standard teaching approaches can be difficult.

Her older sister had a hard time adjusting to taking notes during classroom lectures after she began attending Antelope Valley College. That sister is now a senior at California State University, Fresno.

Volleyball, basketball and softball teams compete against other small private schools. The older students take part in community projects and last week cleaned the home of an elderly couple outside Mojave.

``We do just about everything the bigger schools do, but at a smaller scale,'' Preston said.

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3 Photos

Photo: (1-2--color) A message on a wall, above, offers inspiration to students studying at Rosamond Christian School. At left, Rosamond Christian students taking part in the California Environthon last week in Oakhurst near Yosemite were, from left, Angelena Worley, Kristy Kientopf, Becki Kenngott and Megan Ogden.

(3--color) Rosamond Christian's lone senior, Ruth Ferrell, works on a geography lesson.

Shaun Dyer/Special to the Daily News