Opportunity Program applies for Community Day School designation

On Tuesday, January 16, the Fallbrook Union Elementary School District (FUESD) board of directors endorsed a move by the district to apply for Community Day School status for its existing Opportunity Program. If approved, the designation would result in an additional per-pupil funding of about $5,000, according to District Superintendent Janice Schultz in a presentation December 4.

The Opportunity Program, in existence since the mid-1990s, operates out of the Iowa Street School facility but is not part of its home school outreach. According to Assistant Superintendent Jim Whitlock, approval of the application is nothing more than a shift in funding and will not disrupt the existing program.

The California Department of Education says, “Opportunity Education schools, classes and programs are established to provide additional support for students who are habitually truant from instruction, irregular in attendance, insubordinate, disorderly while in attendance or failing academically.”

A Community Day School is slightly different in that its primary objective is to serve the needs of high-risk students, including those referred by expulsion, probation or a School Attendance Review Board. The programs apply to grades one through 12 and are an alternative that places students in a small, supportive environment with specialized curriculum, often necessary when a child falls behind due to disciplinary problems. At the Fallbrook district, the same curriculum taught to the seventh and eighth grade students at Potter, for example, is offered to seventh and eighth grade students attending the Opportunity Program because “it’s often the students who get behind academically who are the ones who get in trouble,” Whitlock says.

The objective of an Opportunity Program is to help a student return to traditional classes. When placed in small classes of 12 to 15 members with an instructional aide, students at Potter frequently have success they can’t find in a larger class. “I don’t think [some students] would even have passed eighth grade without the Opportunity Program,” Whitlock adds. “It’s remarkable how well kids behave once they’ve been through the program.” Although the program name may change, its description and benefits to its students will not.

Adding an additional funding source for the district Opportunity Program will enable them to break the existing program into two class sections: a new one for upper intermediate learners in fifth and sixth grades and its existing classes for seventh and eighth grade students. At present, students from fifth through eighth grades are in classes together; however, when separated it will enable teachers to more closely focus on the needs of the individual grade levels.

Students who successfully complete the program have an improved self image and better skills for scholastic success and achieve the ability to assume responsibility for their own learning and behavior in the regular school program.

The home school education program at Iowa Street School is not affected by the application for Community Day School status, nor will its activities and curriculum be disrupted.