Myth Busters aims to dispel safety rumors at Newport-Mesa schools

When Larry Haynes picked up his then-freshman daughter from Estancia High School after one of her first days, he asked if she ever felt unsafe.

The question isn’t unusual. After all, student safety is entrusted with teachers and administrators when kids are in classes instead of at home.

“It took her about seven minutes to stop laughing at me,” he recalled to a room of roughly 100 parents during an informational “Myth Busters” session at Estancia High School Thursday evening.

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District sent mailers to 11,000 residents in the Estancia High School zone, targeting families who live near the high school, TeWinkle Middle, and California, Victoria and Adams elementary schools, in an attempt to dispel longstanding misconceptions that drive away families.

Haynes said the rumor mill and his own perception that “there must be gang-bangers roaming the hallway” blurred his reality. Instead of worrying about gangs, his now-sophomore daughter is more concerned with her Advanced Placement classes and what college she’ll be attending in two years.

“That terrible, ignorant, hateful, stupidity is based on nothing but racism, and I couldn’t be more ashamed,” he said.

Many of the students at Estancia are the children come from families where English is a second language. But those factors, parents, teachers and administrators say, do not prevent more-advantaged children from receiving a top education, parents, teachers and administrators say.

Race and socioeconomic factors are palpable — though rarely addressed head-on — when discussing why families choose to leave the Newport-Mesa district in favor of private school or public schools across the Santa Ana River in Huntington Beach.

Families fleeing Newport-Mesa is a decades-old problem. The trend is especially profound at Adams Elementary, which sits on Club House Road in the largely upscale Mesa Verde neighborhood.

Mesa Verde families have been leaving their community schools for nearly two decades, beginning when the U.S. Department of Education directed Adams Elementary to enroll students from Costa Mesa’s largely low-income Westside.

However, in recent years, the district has also seen families leave California and Victoria elementary schools, as well as TeWinkle Middle and Estancia High, often before enrolling their children for a single day.

Parents’ explanation for abandoning their neighborhood schools vary. Some point to lower test scores and a perceived reputation of subpar academics. Others place weight on often-outdated stories of violence at the middle and high school when making their decision.

Estancia High School Principal Kirk Bauermeister explained to parents Thursday night that they should pay attention to subgroup data in order to get a better idea of how their own students would perform at a particular school.

When the scores are broken down into subgroups, students perform just as well as those enrolled in other cities, district officials have said.

The California Department of Education categorizes students by race, language, disability and economic standing when releasing scores.

More-advantaged students in Westside schools, for example, have higher API scores than English-learners, students who are economically disadvantaged and students with disabilities, according to data published by the department of education.

The reputation of schools on the Westside is often overshadowed by factors that lower the overall API scores.

Estancia’s overall API score in 2013 was 760. Compared to schools like Edison, which had an API score of 864, it appears low. However, when comparing the data of economically advantaged subgroups the data show much higher scores.

Bauermeister also pointed to a high number of varsity sports that make room for even the least-athletic students, as well as the school’s rigorous academic programs, such as AP courses and the newly implemented signature academy, E-Tech, which focuses on science, technology, engineering and math concepts.

“What I thought might be a weakness is a strength,” Haynes said of the school. “I’ve never been let down one day here.”

Although his daughters are too young to begin public school, Mesa Verde resident Matt Hartloff attended the informational session Thursday night.

Hartloff and his wife have been warned by neighbors to avoid Westside schools.

The information session, particularly testimonials from parents, changed his mind.

“I’m leaving here confident that unless something changes with the quality of the schools in the next few years, all of this is the right path for my family,” he said.