Changing to Charter. Rebecca A. Shore
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Journeys of Adventurous Leaders
Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, 2004
By Yvonne Chan
Under the leadership of Dr. Yvonne Chan, Vaughn Street Elementary School in Los Angeles became Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, the nation’s first independent, urban, conversion charter school. Chan and Vaughn Next Century have gone on to push the idea of school reform to its limit, creating inspired solutions to many endemic urban school problems. She has led a transformation that has seen dramatic increases in student achievement and attendance, a sharp reduction in crime, and the creation of the Family Center to provide for the needs of the school’s primarily low-income, minority families.
Additionally, Chan has been instrumental in mustering the support and resources needed to expand the school from its original elementary grades to a pre-K–12 learning center. Vaughn families have become involved in their students’ education as well as in the larger community, thanks to the efforts of Chan and the Vaughn staff. Vaughn was named a California Distinguished School in 1995, a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education in 1996. It has been visited by Hillary Clinton, U.S. legislators, and dignitaries from around the world. Chan, who immigrated alone to the United States from Hong Kong at the age of seventeen, has worked since 1968 in various regular education, special education, and administrative capacities within the Los Angeles Unified School District.
On March 6, 1999, seventeen-year old Francisco was shot to death in front of his home, apparently the victim of gang rivalry; he was a block away from his elementary school. His younger brother Eddie, a fourth-grader at the school, now named Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, is a member of the student council and is determined to go to college. The brothers led a different life because their school offered them different types of opportunities.
Vaughn is a neighborhood public school located in Pacoima, a designated “Empowerment Zone” in the city of Los Angeles, due to its extreme poverty and high-crime status. Since 1951, Vaughn Street Elementary was cited as one of the worst schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Single-digit test scores and poor attendance were a pattern. It served 1,050 K–6 students: 94.9 percent Hispanic, 5 percent African American, 0.1 percent Asian; 80.5 percent were Spanish-speaking English learners; 97.4 percent received free or reduced-price lunch.
“Francisco was shot to death in front of his home . . .; he was a block from his elementary school.”
Francisco attended Vaughn beginning in kindergarten. He was always in classrooms with thirty-two to thirty-five students. The school provided 163 instructional days on a 3-track schedule due to overcrowding. Francisco was bused briefly to another school in 1991 for four months because of a court-ordered desegregation plan. Francisco had special needs that were not identified until grade three.
Vaughn had a psychologist only one day per week; counseling and after-school tutoring were not available. As soon as he was identified as a severely learning-disabled student, he was bused to another district school for special education services. Vaughn did not offer a special day-class program, due to lack of classroom space and personnel. In order for Francisco to return to Vaughn, his neighborhood school, his parents had to waive the right to intensive special education services beginning in grade four. Chronic asthma prevented him from maintaining regular attendance. He did not qualify for public health care, and Vaughn had a school nurse only one day per week.
During Francisco’s entire education at Vaughn, he was taught by only one fully credentialed teacher. All his other teachers were on emergency permits. Vaughn was a “hard-to-staff” inner-city school. Each year, the school lost 30 percent of its thirty-nine teachers. Every week, Francisco’s classroom was vandalized. New computers were stolen before they were unpacked. Student suspension rose to 12 percent, and fights between Hispanic and African American students occurred daily. When Francisco was transferred to the neighborhood middle school, he had not passed the bilingual redesignation test and was still reading in Spanish with limited skills in English.
Vaughn converted to an independent charter school in 1993. Francisco’s brother Eddie started at Vaughn Next Century Learning Center at the age of three in 1994. Prior to entering kindergarten, Eddie had two years of preschool education at Vaughn, which provides space to the sponsoring district and the Los Angeles County Office of Education to operate the State Preschool and the Federal Head Start programs. The class size at Vaughn is kept at twenty students in all grades. An extended school year provides Eddie with a full 200 days of instruction as well as daily after-school academic and enrichment activities until 6:00 p.m. Overcrowding is no longer a problem; Vaughn has eliminated the multitrack schedule by building an additional fifty-six classrooms since the charter school conversion.
“Vaughn, which failed Francisco miserably, provides Eddie with a world-class education. . . . The student demographics have not changed, but the adults at Vaughn have.”
Though Eddie was also identified as a learning-disabled student, he received intervention as early as kindergarten. Services are provided in an inclusive setting that includes co-teaching by general and special education teachers, speech therapy, peer tutoring, after-school tutoring, family counseling, and attendance and motivation activities. Eddie successfully exited from the special education program in grade three. When Eddie has health-care needs, Vaughn’s site-based clinic operated by the Los Angeles County Health Department provides immunization, medication, medical tests, and various primary care services.
Along with his friends, Eddie enjoys surfing the internet during class to conduct research, write reports, and email overseas pen pals in China. Eddie’s mother takes a GED class at Vaughn offered by the district Adult Education Division. Her classroom is right next door to Eddie’s. She usually waves to her son after her class. On her way to the Vaughn Family Center, where she volunteers child care services, she keeps an eye on the new construction site. She knows that Eddie, after completing grade five at Vaughn, will continue his middle school and high school education at this Little School That Could.
Vaughn, which failed Francisco miserably, provided Eddie with a world-class education. Vaughn Next Century Learning Center is located at the same site, serving 1,300 students from special education infants to grade five: 95.3 percent Hispanic, 4.6 percent African American, 0.1 percent Asian; 76.5 percent are Spanish-speaking English learners; 97.6 percent receive free or reduced-price lunch. The student demographics have not changed, but the adults at Vaughn have.
Out of the Box: We Could Do No Worse
Vaughn Street Elementary was a typical large, urban public school impacted by multiple social stresses. I was assigned to Vaughn in May 1990 amid twenty-four teacher grievances, two lawsuits, ongoing intergroup disputes, and three death threats directed toward the principal. Vaughn was the third public school where I assumed leadership. My main role was to promote racial-ethnic harmony and improve campus safety. Vaughn needed a battlefield sergeant, not an instructional leader. Student achievement was never on the radar screen of anyone, including the parents. Who had time for teaching and learning? Besides, there were no consequences for failing kids.
Staff morale was low, especially during the 1992–1993 school year when all district staff members were notified of a 10 percent pay cut, which followed a 3 percent pay cut from the year before. Waiver applications for increased personnel and fiscal autonomy were rejected by the school district and the teacher’s union. A group of teachers began to investigate other means to achieve more flexibility in the operation of our school. Parents of special