As noted in the previous post, an unsigned, printed flier left on the doorsteps of some residences near DeMille Middle School says a proposal to convert the campus to a small high school would create a "holding tank for dropouts." But a spokesman for the Long Beach Unified School District disputes the flier's arguments.
The flier features a Press-Telegram logo but is not affiliated with this newspaper.
The district plans to convert DeMille to a career and technical education high school, designed to prepare students both for entrance to college and directly to the workforce after high school graduation. The school would train students to get jobs after graduation in fields like law, health care and engineering, categories that district officials believe will be areas of growth in the labor force.
The Long Beach Board of Education has yet to give final approval to use the DeMille campus for the new high school, but district officials have been studying the site extensively.
The flier argues that the proposed new school would be made up of "problematic students who have given up on attaining an academic education. They refuse to learn and are behavior problems for their teachers."
Chris Eftychiou, spokesman for the Long Beach Unified School District, said that the school is designed to train students to enter high-demand career fields after graduation while also offering all the courses needed to apply to state universities.
"The two are not mutually exclusive," he said.
Continued after the jump.
The flier features a Press-Telegram logo but is not affiliated with this newspaper.
The district plans to convert DeMille to a career and technical education high school, designed to prepare students both for entrance to college and directly to the workforce after high school graduation. The school would train students to get jobs after graduation in fields like law, health care and engineering, categories that district officials believe will be areas of growth in the labor force.
The Long Beach Board of Education has yet to give final approval to use the DeMille campus for the new high school, but district officials have been studying the site extensively.
The flier argues that the proposed new school would be made up of "problematic students who have given up on attaining an academic education. They refuse to learn and are behavior problems for their teachers."
Chris Eftychiou, spokesman for the Long Beach Unified School District, said that the school is designed to train students to enter high-demand career fields after graduation while also offering all the courses needed to apply to state universities.
"The two are not mutually exclusive," he said.
Continued after the jump.
The school would function as a kind of magnet program that draws student applicants from across the district, he added. He denied that the school would consist of students with behavior problems.
"The flier states that it would be a repository for dropouts," he said. "That is simply not true."
The high school, which at 1,080 students would be of a small size for the LBUSD, would not be a traditional high school, he said. "It will not have a football team," Eftychiou said. "It will be focused completely on careers and higher education. These will be students who are ready to apply themselves and take advantage of some new and exciting opportunities."
Kevin Butler has been covering education for more than five years at the Press-Telegram. Previously he was a reporter at the Los Angeles Independent weeklies and in the Washington, D.C., bureau of Investor's Business Daily. A native of Houston, Butler graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor's in economics and government. 
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