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Crestview Prep in La Canada Offers Individualized Teaching
Arcadia Weekly Sep 09, 2016
Adults having fun at the photo booth. – Courtesy photo / Kidspace
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Crestview Prep has a strong program that comprises reading and language arts, math, social studies, and science. – Courtesy photo
By May S. Ruiz
There is a small, quiet, and picturesque community nestled between the San Gabriel Mountains and the Angeles National Forest that not too many people outside of Southern California are familiar with. It’s La Canada-Flintridge (otherwise known as La Canada), which is home to the world-renowned Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Descanso Gardens.
For the past 30 years, Crestview Preparatory School (Crestview Prep or Crestview), a kindergarten to sixth grade co-ed school, has also called La Canada home. With a total student population of 160, it is dwarfed by three other educational institutions (Flintridge Prep, a seventh to 12th grade school; La Canada High; and St. Francis High School) on this stretch of Foothill Boulevard.
Crestview Prep is the only elementary school in this area and will remain so by design. Baudelia Chavez Taylor, who is in her third year as headmaster, declares, “We only have 5- to 12-year-olds on campus. And while it would be financially lucrative to offer a middle school program, we have no aspirations to do so. Our kindergarteners as well as our sixth graders will be read to in the library. We believe strongly that children should be children. This is a foundational time for them and we want to provide a space for their innocence.”
Established by in 1986 by Vicki Dempsey and Marge Hanna, with Dempsey acting as chief financial officer and Hanna serving as head of school until her retirement in 2007, Crestview’s mission is to provide academic excellence while encouraging students to discover their unique talents as they face challenges with confidence.
Today Crestview exhibits the same beliefs and values its founders imbued the school.
As Taylor relates: “We celebrated our 30th anniversary this past school year. It was interesting to reconnect with folks who have a history with the school and find that there were such commonalities in people’s ideals of 30 years ago that attend to the present. Then, as now, it was the sense of community that was most important, and it was the first thing everyone wanted to talk about.
“They reminisced about the traditions – tried and true events on campus like the walkathon, where people get up early and convene to have a great time – that parents and students enjoy to this day. They spoke about balancing the academic, social, and emotional development of the child. Hearing that sentiment was validating for me. It was yet another reason that this feels such a good fit.”
Continues Taylor, “My first year at Crestview was lovely but fast-paced and quite overwhelming. There were a lot of things to become familiar with – not just the culture, but the inner workings of the school as well. But I found everybody to be open and helpful; where there were questions I didn’t ask, they filled the gaps.
“My knowledge of Crestview before I came onboard was just in passing because my training was mostly with west LA schools,” Taylor explains. “While we live in Pasadena, I wasn’t a parent looking in the area when my children were getting ready to go to school. Then my son decided to go to Polytechnic in seventh grade and I wasn’t able to attend any campus event because I was on the west side. That compelled me to find a job closer to home.”
Taylor had only worked at large institutions so this career move to Crestview was a big change. Previous to this post, she spent 14 years at the Center for Early Education in West Hollywood where there were 543 elementary-level students. She taught early childhood education through third grade, before being named a division head, a position she held for five years. Prior to that, she worked at Bellagio Road Newcomer, an LAUSD specialty school that focused on introducing new immigrants to the American education system before being mainstreamed into the district. This is the third school she’s worked at and her first headship.
“Now that my daughter goes to Westridge, I am only 10 minutes away from my two children. As an educator, it’s something I’ve always had to consider – my role as a parent,” explains Taylor. “As a mother, I have always been pulled by my children. Consequently, as head of an elementary school which is foundational in a child’s development and learning, it’s my parent hat that’s front and center. It helps me understand their needs and life experience because I live it.”
Taylor says about Crestview, “We’d love parents to understand that our focus is on the academic, emotional, and social needs of the child at all times. Parents will see that some classrooms will have very traditional teaching; and in the next half hour they will witness exceptionally innovative, hands-on, forward-thinking approach in education. We’re reflective of how we’re teaching and why we’re teaching that way. It is a method or strategy that works and we’ll constantly be providing that. It’s a place of balance – it will ebb and flow into that traditional and progressive space all day, every day, but always with the best interest of students at heart.”
With so many outstanding educational institutions in the Pasadena area, Crestview nevertheless manages to shine. Taylor expounds, “What makes us different is the way we deliver curriculum; it isn’t stagnant and it’s individualized teaching. We make adjustments, as needed, throughout the year so our curriculum is constantly evolving. We may adopt a different method from one grade level to another, based on the class dynamic. We use a program called balanced math that gives us the flexibility to target students’ need. We employ our ERB scores to look at systematic areas where we need to improve.”
Individualized teaching is the norm at Crestview which has small class sizes – the student-teacher ratio in the classroom is 10:1. Crestview has 12 master teachers, nine specialists, and five teaching assistants. Twelve teachers hold master’s degrees; all the others have bachelor’s degrees; and assistants are currently in credentialing programs. The faculty’s
average length of service is 10 to 15 years, with four teachers who have been there for over 20 years.
Crestview Prep has a strong program that comprises reading and language arts, math, social studies, and science. It offers a character education curriculum, in addition to its robust specialist programs including technology integration, music, art, physical education, library, and Spanish. Chromebooks and iPads are used in all the classrooms to enhance students’ learning experience.
The demographic make-up of Crestview’s student body is 40.5 percent predominantly Armenian, 34.3 percent multi-race, 18.5 percent Asian, 4.5 percent Latino, and 2.25 percent African American. Graduates successfully matriculate to highly selective schools like Chandler, Flintridge Prep, Polytechnic, Westridge School for Girls, Campbell Hall, Harvard-Westlake, and Marlborough.
While Crestview Prep occupies a tiny sliver of land that’s leased from the city, it uses the property as efficiently as possible. Reveals Taylor, “We’re getting ready to embark on a very modest capital campaign to expand our facilities. Mindful of strict building codes which limit the height of structures to preserve the views, we have to be creative in how we grow and change, utilizing space laterally. We previously did it with modulars and we will continue to use them; happily, today’s modulars are better looking. We have more choices for improving the facilities that are aesthetically pleasing and that blend with the environment.
“A recent improvement is the introduction of the science lab which we inaugurated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony,” Taylor adds. “Ideally, we would also want to make the library and music areas to be contiguous. Right now our library shares the space with the tech lab. While it works well because they co-teach so there’s no real issue, it would be nice to have a larger dedicated room. We have 10,000 books in our collection and we have been ingenious in how we display them and keep them fresh.”
As Taylor commences her third school year as head of Crestview, she ruminates, “The role of a headmaster 15 years ago was programmatic but shifted because of demographic changes. For economic reasons, heads in the past 10 years became more finance-focused. However, what has fallen short is the attention to the program, the families, and students themselves. I think there is a tipping point that will force heads of school to change course. We can’t lose sight of our mission to educate and nurture a child. While we need the skills related to finance and fund-raising, priority needs to be put on families. Where before meeting with a headmaster would have been a tall feat, now it’s going to be a regular part of everyday activity.”
That’s the one thing that truly sets Crestview Prep apart from all the excellent schools in the area. When parents come into the office to get answers to even the simplest of questions, like what forms they need to fill in, they ask the head of school.
For Crestview parents, Baudelia Chavez Taylor is always their first resource. And she embodies the kind of high-touch headship all caring school administrators ought to model.
