Three Schools to Try Basics Plus Program

The school board this week gave its backing to a pilot program called Basics Plus at three elementary schools.

Starting this fall, Foxborough, Carl H. Hankey and Ole Hanson elementary schools will use a curriculum that emphasizes reading, writing and arithmetic, and also promotes a safe and orderly school environment.

“At this level, this is what’s important,” said Don Mahoney, principal at Foxborough. “We need to teach them basic skills and make sure they are literate.”

Based on the concepts that students cannot be academically successful unless they can read well, the two-year pilot program will focus on language arts and mathematics.

In addition, the seven virtues of compassion, giving, self-discipline, responsibility, respect, honesty and perseverance will be emphasized, and dress regulations will be implemented.

As a condition of the program, parents and students will be required to sign a contract listing the rules that each agrees to follow before the student can be enrolled at the school.

James A. Fleming, superintendent of Capistrano Unified, said that, while all schools in the district teach the basics, the difference is that the three elementary schools “will have a contract that others do not as a condition for continual participation in the program.”

Programs similar to Basics Plus are being used in the Santa Ana and Irvine unified school districts.