Estancia asks for federal grant

Estancia High School has applied for a federal grant to help implement smaller learning communities on its campus, becoming the third school in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District to embark on such a project.

Last year, both Costa Mesa High School and Newport Harbor High School applied successfully for the grant, which is administered through the Orange County Department of Education. Estancia is one of four Orange County high schools applying for the grant this fall, along with San Clemente High, El Modena High and Orange High.

In smaller learning communities, schools divide teachers into groups that share the same students throughout the day. Two students in a community, for example, would most likely have the same teachers for English, math and other subjects.

The system allows faculty to better track student performance, Estancia Principal Tom Antal said. In addition, smaller learning communities are meant to improve attendance and behavior.

“It’s just a way to get kids connected to the school and know that somebody’s watching,” Antal said.

The federal grant for all four schools totals $3.7 million over five years, according to a spokeswoman for the Department of Education. Estancia and the other schools are expecting to hear the results by early fall. The funds would help schools pay for professional development, substitute teachers and research periods for faculty members to help coordinate the learning communities.

Regardless of whether it receives the grant money, Estancia plans to implement smaller learning communities for the upcoming school year. When class begins on Sept. 5, Antal said, all the school’s ninth-graders would be in a designated group, led by a faculty member and teachers who coordinated extracurricular activities.

Michael Vossen, the principal of Newport Harbor High, said his school would be implementing smaller learning communities for all ninth- and 10th-grade students this year. Last year, the school held them on a limited scale.

“From this point forward, what we’re going to do is measure the improvement and achievement of all these kids,” Vossen said. “By the year 2010, we will be wall-to-wall smaller learning communities.”

Antal said that students might not notice their learning groups at first, but the new system would become apparent over the course of the year. In October and November, the school plans to hold Challenge Day — a lengthy workshop in which students discuss personal differences — for each community.

“It’s all about making the students do better,” Antal said.