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County scraps at-risk campus in HB
by Robb Fulcher
Educators have scrapped a plan to place a campus for at-risk students in Hermosa Beach, after neighbors' concerns prompted the city council to withhold its approval for the alternative school.
"Since this issue came up we decided to reevaluate our needs," said David Flores, alternative education director for the Los Angeles County Office of Education. "...We reevaluated the site itself, and our needs, and we are eventually looking at opening a site, but not necessarily in Hermosa Beach."
Flores said it is not unheard of for the county to abandon plans for a specific alternative education site, even after applying for the necessary permits from a city.
"We have done this other times," he said.
The matter came before the city council in the form of a parking plan for the campus, which was to be housed in an empty storefront at the western end of the Pic 'N' Save strip mall on Aviation Boulevard. The parking plan already had been accepted by the city's planning commission, and was forwarded to the council for what would typically have been a routine final approval.
But a handful of neighboring business owners said they wanted to know more about the campus, and the council unanimously agreed to withhold its approval. The council set a public hearing on the matter, which now is moot.
The county operates more than 100 alternative education campuses, including a successful one at the edge of the Riviera Village portion of Redondo Beach.
"We haven't had too many problems with them," Redondo Beach Police Capt. Jeff Cameron said.
He cited two incidents last school year.
A fight in the back parking lot "was of no real consequence, and was easily taken care of," and a couple of students left campus during lunch period, bought beer and returned to the classroom with the smell of alcohol on their breath, Cameron said.
"These incidents would not be unusual for a regular high school campus," he said.
The county's alternative campuses serve more than 3,000 students, almost all of them in high school and middle school. About half the students have been expelled from other schools, and others have been referred by courts or by their regular schools.
Flores said the alternative campuses have not caused problems for nearby residents and businesspeople.
"We are good neighbors," he said.
State lawmakers in the mid-90's began requiring the public school system to provide education for those students, whose other options are home study or the slim chance of admission to a private school.
At the Alternative Academy Riviera Village, located in an office building along Pacific Coast Highway, students use academic computer programs as well as schoolbooks to complete courses for their high school equivalency diplomas.
The students also use the Internet to link up one-on-one with long-distance "academic coaches," active or retired teachers who help the students over obstacles, and to connect with "career mentors" across the U.S. and abroad.
The academy's next-door neighbor, the Bucca di Beppo restaurant, held a reception for educators and the press in December 1998, celebrating large improvements in students' test scores after less than two months at the school.
The academic test scores had risen an average of 29 percent, including a 36 percent increase in social studies scores, a 35 percent gain in science scores, a 31 percent increase in math scores, and a 22 percent increase in English scores.
The Epson America Company donated more than $100,000 worth of computers and equipment for the program. ER