TeWinkle hosts PR night to ‘bust myths’

School administrators hosted their annual TeWinkle Community Night Wednesday, also known as “TeWinkle MythBusters Night.”

“This is an unabashed, unapologetic PR campaign about TeWinkle,” said principal Kirk Bauermeister. Wednesday night administrators, teachers and parents hyped the school’s positive programs and hoped to dispel misinformation regarding the school.

Bauermeister was quick to address concerns over test scores.

The scores are not where he would like them, Bauermeister said, but they have been on the rise in recent years.

TeWinkle critics generally point to the school’s state and federal test scores. TeWinkle’s state Academic Performance Index score of 718 is closing in on the state standard of 800. The state scores are on a scale of 200 to 1,000.

According to federal standards, 36% of TeWinkle students are proficient in English, and 30% in math. Proficiency is another way of saying a child showed sufficient knowledge and skills in a particular subject.

Bauermeister has set an admittedly ambitious goal for TeWinkle — to make it a California Distinguished School in four years.

To do that, he said, students must have every available learning opportunity and be in a safe environment. You cannot have the former without the latter, he said.

“We’ve got great kids and really don’t have discipline problems at this school,” Bauermeister said. They have a reliable at-risk counselor in Pepe Montenegro, and enough campus security to stop incidents before they start, he said.

Bauermeister addressed concerns about non-English speaking students being in regular classes and “dragging down” the rest of the students’ learning. It does not happen, he said. There are three English-language development classes for students learning the language. They progress through each as they become more fluent, eventually the goal is to join the regular classes, he said.

Teachers highlighted TeWinkle’s Advancement via Individual Determination program, known as AVID. The seventh- and eighth-grade program prepares average students to go to college and not drop out.

Many of the 131 students would be the first in their family to go to college, teacher Kandy Byron said. She said 90% of AVID students have at least a 3.0 grade-point-average.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at [email protected].