New High School Has Healthy Outlook

Ninth-grader Gerber Reyes had a reason to be thankful, and he stood right in front of it Thursday.

He spoke at the dedication of the Orthopaedic Hospital Medical Magnet High School, the Los Angeles Unified School District’s first newly constructed high school in 14 years. When classes start in September at the $41-million campus south of downtown, Gerber and his classmates will receive early preparation for careers in healthcare and special mentoring from the hospital staff next door.

“This is a community where the needs of students are great,” Gerber, dressed for the occasion in a suit and tie, told an audience that included his parents, his future principal and the district superintendent. “Thank you for making my dreams, and everyone else’s dreams, come true.”

The district celebrated the school’s completion with a ceremony Thursday that included a somber high school color guard presentation and a performance by preschoolers from the Wadsworth Early Education Center. A parade of adult speakers noted that the new medical magnet is one of 18 new high schools, although one of the smallest in the district’s ambitious construction plans.

Supt. Roy Romer described the overall campaign to construct 160 schools by 2012, using $14 billion in bond money, as the largest economic enterprise in California. The project, he said, will create 174,000 jobs and generate $9 billion in wages.

“What a difference it’s going to make in the life of Los Angeles,” he said.

The Orthopaedic Hospital magnet, a modernistic two-story campus surrounding a courtyard, will open with 400 ninth- and 10th-graders and grow over the next two years to enroll 760 students in the ninth through 12th grades. It is the first school constructed in the district since Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet in Lincoln Heights opened in 1990. Before that, the last high school built in the district was John F. Kennedy in the San Fernando Valley in 1971.

For the new magnet school, Orthopaedic Hospital donated a portion of the 4.27-acre property, on West 23rd Street in the shadow of downtown high-rises, in a neighborhood of large warehouses and a few old houses. Other parts of the school site had been occupied by businesses, mostly in the garment trade. The school district acquired those properties and relocated the businesses, mostly within the neighborhood.

Had things been different, a brand new high school would have arrived much sooner. The Belmont Learning Center had been slated to open in 1999 just west of downtown. Instead, that project was stalled midway because of problems stemming from its location over an old oil field and an earthquake fault. The school board voted earlier this year to finish the project by 2007 in modified form -- for a cost of about $286 million, more than quadruple its original cost.

Since then, the district has changed its construction practices. Among other reforms, a new professional facilities staff has sought out partnerships like the one with Orthopaedic Hospital; other schools built in cooperation with Cal State Northridge and the California Science Center are soon to open.

James V. Luck, the president, chief executive and medical director of Orthopaedic Hospital, said the school was a perfect opportunity for the hospital to expand its educational outreach. Previously, high school students came to the hospital to work on specific research projects. Now, the magnet school students will be able to learn through hospital internships in a wide spectrum of healthcare jobs as well as participate in ongoing research. “What a great chance for a high school student to be experienced like that,” Luck said.

Principal Anthony Sandoval joked that he had taken a course in how to pronounce the extra-long name of the school in one breath. He’s calling it “Ortho” for short.

He said he expected the school would draw half of its students from the neighborhood and half from the district at large. Students from the second group must apply to the school and be selected by lottery.

“This is the first example of what LAUSD can do for our children in an urban setting,” Sandoval said. Teachers and staff, he said, hoped to show their students that “college isn’t something for someone else.”

Many of the neighborhood students would otherwise attend Jefferson High School, an overcrowded campus on a multi-track calendar to accommodate its more than 4,000 students. They said they are relieved to be in a new facility and a traditional school year.

Student Saira Juarez, 14, also will start at the new school Sept. 9. She said she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to go into medicine yet -- she just was hoping the school would offer her more opportunities.

But as she stood looking at the campus, her father explained why he is so excited about the possibilities “Ortho” offers.

“The potential in her studies is great,” said Sergio Juarez. The school “offers a different kind of vision to a traditional high school, a different kind, with a better future. What I like most is that she’s interested in it.”