No school site suffered more as a result of the San Simeon Earthquake than Flamson Middle School. Flamson, located at the corner of 24th and Spring streets, was one of several buildings in the city deemed to have suffered major structural damage.

As a result, classes were moved from the main building to a fleet of portables. The main building was subsequently demolished and, in the five plus years since the earthquake, has yet to be completely rebuilt.

The effect of being without a main building and the way it’s changed public perception of the school hasn’t gone unnoticed by the staff.

“The impact was visible when I got here,” said principal Frank Galicia, who is in his fourth year as principal. “There is a psychological impact on the school community as a whole — from the staff to the teachers to the students, everybody. Kids have called it ‘The Homeless School.’ It was just sad to hear them talking about not having a building and the teachers have felt it too. It’s just an unfortunate situation.”

None of the students currently enrolled at the school attended a class in the main building before it was torn down, nor did any of the eighth graders who graduated in June 2008.

But as construction continues and school officials target the fall of the 2009-10 school year as the opening date for the new building, there is a sense of excitement on campus.

“I haven’t had one person complain [about the ongoing construction on campus] because there’s this sense of anticipation,” Galicia said. “We’re all willing to put up with the noise, the smell of the welding and traffic because we all know it’s going to be good to have our home built.”



Site Facts

Flamson wasn’t always a middle school. When it opened in 1928, it was the site of Paso Robles’ high school. The school is still linked to its high school roots, as War Memorial Stadium, home of the Paso Robles High School football and soccer teams, sits to the west of the main campus along Vine Street.

Students said they appreciate the history of their campus.

“The school’s been here forever,” said eighth-grader Amanda Franklin. “There’s a lot of history at this school. People have a lot of memories of people who were at the school who’ve gone on to be successful.”

The site is named for George Flamson, who first began teaching at the high school in 1928, then became district superintendent in September 1945. He served in that post until 1961.

When the current PRHS campus was built in 1981, Flamson became a middle school site. It was officially dedicated in George Flamson’s honor on April 5, 1981. It is one of two middle school sites in the district, serving students in sixth through eighth grades.

Flamson boasts an enrollment of 727 students and has a staff of 65.



Site Demographics

Flamson Middle School, which draws from Bauer/Speck and Georgia Brown elementary schools among others, has a large English language learner population. The school has 25 percent ELL students and 43 percent of the students on campus are Hispanic, Galicia said. The site is also home to the middle school Dual Immersion program, allowing students enrolled in the program at Georgia Brown to continue the process.

A big part of the focus for the staff at Flamson is making sure they work to meet the needs of the large ELL population. One of the unique ways the school handles that challenge is through its Newcomer Program.

“These are kids that have been here less than 12 months,” Galicia said. “We have a real structure for the way that English language learners progress through our school. We have them in a single class the first year they’re here. Some of the kids come from parts of Mexico where they’ve had real limited education, they don’t know their ABCs in English or Spanish. Other kids come from parts of Mexico that read at their grade level and do Algebra like our kids do. So to make the assumption that all English language learners are the same doesn’t make sense.”

Instead of having students new to English struggle to learn alongside more advanced speakers, they are grouped together in an intensive program that aims at providing language acquisition while teaching them core content. The students have physical education and an elective with other students, but they learn math, English, reading, science and social science in a contained environment.

Teacher Peter Perneel has run the Newcomer Program the last three years. He has the students in the program four periods a day, and said his first goal is to help students master spoken English.

“I like seeing students at this age level coming in eager to learn and then being influenced in their progress, which happens more rapidly than younger students,” he said. “With these students you can see rapid growth.”

Having students for a large block every day helps Perneel form a deep connection with students and to help push their progress daily.

“The goal is for the students to be able to re-read texts with fluency after we’ve dissected all the bits and pieces of grammar and sentence structure,” he said. “Using reading and language arts as a basis, students are able to apply that to their science and social science and they gain confidence the more that we practice it.”

Perneel’s classroom is nearly covered floor to ceiling on all walls with word charts and aids to help students in the Newcomer Program succeed and move on. Perneel said he has a great empathy for students and can identify with their struggles because he went through the same thing trying to acquire English when he came to this country.

“Being here really gives them the confidence that they’re in an environment where they belong, they are part of the school just as much as everyone else,” he said. “It’s a very structured environment, but they get a lot of opportunities to engage.”

And the program has generated strong results. Galicia said he commonly sees students come in with no English skills at all that progress throughout the course of the year and can carry on conversations fluently by summer break.

“It’s amazing,” he said.

As students progress through the ELL support program, the concentration shifts from language acquisition to language mastery so that students can not only understand and comprehend English but also succeed on state standards testing for their grade-level.



Campus Life

Flamson has an array of offerings for students, including art and drama, Gifted and Talented Education activities and a sports program that features volleyball, basketball, wrestling and track. The school will also be hosting its annual 5K fundraiser event on Friday, March 27.

Another thriving program at Flamson is the Mathematics-Engineering-Science-Achievement, or MESA, program.

Led by teacher Ayen Johnson, the program is aimed at getting students interested in math and science through classroom activities and competitions.

“Basically you’re taking these kids and doing activities you enjoy and sharing them with students,” he said. “The students and I both enjoy the projects, so it’s a fun learning experience for us both. A lot of times they don’t realize the math and science aspects they’re putting into the projects until after it’s done.”

The mission of the program, according to the school’s Web site, is to “support the national science and mathematics education agenda by ensuring that all MESA students excel in mathematics and science so they can play a leadership role in an increasingly technological world.”

Half the battle, Johnson said, is just getting students excited about learning, and the program excels in that by offering a variety of hands-on projects.

“It starts with written work, but after that they apply the lessons to hands on activities,” he said.

Students in MESA work on Web sites, bridges and mouse trap cars, among other things. The most recent project involved catapults, while a project last year tackled the similar topic of building trebuchets. The program is open to seventh and eighth-grade students who also participate in two competitions a year. The next competition is set for March.

But what Galicia said he likes best about the school is its students.

“I love middle schoolers, they’re great,” he said. “They say the funniest things. The diversity of the kids that are here is wonderful.”

Students agreed, saying the campus is a warm, friendly place.

“I like that the teachers are fun and outgoing,” said eighth-grader Molly Donovan. “And the counselors and administrators participate in fun activities with us and they’re really supportive. We’re like a big family here.”

“It’s just a fun campus to be on,” Franklin added.

Galicia also said there’s a unique style and unique set of challenges that comes with educating students at the middle school level.

“I’ve often said you either are a middle school teacher or you’re definitely not,” he said. “You can have some really mature conversations with these kids and two minutes later they’re outside playing tag and running around. There’s a real dichotomy at this age.”

There is a big emphasis on creating unity and a family atmosphere, Galicia said. That’s evident by simply looking at this year’s school sweatshirts and T-shirts which read “Team Flamson: Every Kid Counts.”

“A school building itself is nothing, it’s just a shell; it’s really all about the people,” he said. “The loyalty that families and staff has toward this school is impressive. Any negative thing that is said about this school, the teachers take it personally. They adore this school. This staff has an ownership for this campus and these children that’s unparalleled.”

For more information on Flamson Middle School or any other school site in the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District, visit www.paso schools.org.