SANTA ANA — Long before it landed on a list of the worst-performing schools in California, Century High School was something special – a source of pride and a sign of hope for some of Orange County’s most embattled neighborhoods.
It was the school of the future when it opened just 20 years ago, with classrooms so cutting-edge that visitors came from as far away as Russia to have a look. But reality hit hard and hit fast; today, fewer than a third of Century’s students are proficient in English.
The school has always been a part of the neighborhood, and the problems that grip its corner of Santa Ana have a way of following students to class. Many come from homes where the work day is long and English is a new language, in dense apartment blocks where the streets aren’t always safe after dark.
The state now says that Century has to do something extraordinary to turn itself around – whether that means replacing staff, converting to a charter school or shutting its doors altogether. But administrators and teachers, parents and students say the challenges facing Century run much deeper than test scores.
“We’re set up to fail,” said Susan Mercer, the president of the Santa Ana Educators’ Association, the teachers’ union. The state, she added, is “trying to find a one-size-fits-all (solution). But the issues they have in Irvine are very different than what we have in Santa Ana.”
Century spends more per student than higher-