MIX:Kicking myths out of schools

Every year the TeWinkle Middle School administration conducts a "Myth Busters" night.

The officials invite fourth- and fifth-graders, parents and the community to come learn for themselves what TeWinkle is about. They tell the parents what the school has to offer and what colleges students go off to after Estancia High School. The information is meant to help people separate the truth from the fiction.

Principal Dan Diehl, who will move Costa Mesa Middle School in the fall, said there's plenty of misinformation to combat.

First of all, he said, the rumors about it being a violent campus are not true. He said there is fighting sometimes like on most middle school campuses, but when something does occur school officials deal with it swiftly.

He said for the most part TeWinkle deals with basic middle school issues like gum chewing and graffiti.

"The goal is prevention," he said.

Diehl said TeWinkle has 12 people on lunch duty and probably more importantly, educators keep the kids active during the break with a three-on-three soccer tournament.

The school also offers a program called Challenge Days — you may have seen it on Oprah Winfrey's show. Teachers gather about 100 students for each session and get them to discuss how they treat each other, why and how it affects each of them.

On the issue of how kids treat each other, an interesting thing that the principals at TeWinkle, Costa Mesa and Ensign middle schools said was that there aren't racial tensions.

They said the kids tend to hang out with the kids they grew up with — which is sometimes along racial lines, and sometimes not.

I had heard a rumor that students at Ensign were self-segregating.

Ensign Principal Ed Wong showed me around the campus and, of course, the groups gathered on the basketball courts were intermixed. I have a feeling plenty of the groups end up looking pretty race-based, but according to the principals, that's mainly a result of neighborhood configuration and gets pretty jumbled when they mingle in school.

"They grew up intermixed in classes, in sports and in school activities," he said.

TeWinkle doesn't have a problem with children self segregating, Diehl said, adding the school has a lot of programs and within those programs there are children from all backgrounds.