Tomales High may be overcoming its reputation as a school for "hicks and jocks."

So said Principal Jim Patterson this week. Patterson used to lament the high school's low enrollment. "Now we can't handle all the students who want to come here," he said. "We're turning them away."

This fall, interdistrict transfers represent about 11 percent of the school's student body. Transfer students commute to class from Novato, Petaluma, Santa Rosa, and Sebastopol.

Attracted by the school's small size, rural location, and "on-line [Internet] access," teens are "crying to get into Tomales," Patterson said. "But we don't have the room or the funding for all of them. We can't take any more than 75 students per class ... This enables us to keep our classroom sizes small."

Over the past three years, Tomales High has beefed up its technology program, expanded its library, upgraded its science lab, and added to its curriculum.

"There were only four computers here seven years ago when I became principal. Now we have 50 computers on-line," Patterson said. "We've received a $25,000 grant to buy books for the library, and we're using another grant for an on-line library research service. Now the school isn't being knocked for its isolation because students have access to everything on the Web."

In addition, the school's "upped" its graduation requirements. "Students must take more math and more English," he said. "This gives them more of an opportunity to go to college."

He added that 75 percent of graduating seniors go on to college - many with scholarships - which has also helped enhance the school's reputation.

The principal credited much of the trend to the school's "strong" advisory council of parents, teachers, and students.

The council was established two years ago. "Our focus is the academic climate of the high school," said parent and council chairwoman Carol Friedman, who is also executive director of the Dance Palace.

"Any time you get parents working with teachers, there's a lot of good energy, and this makes the school a place where people want to send their children. The whole experience is productive and fun."

Petaluma parent Cheri Plattner said her daughter, 16, transferred to Tomales High last March "because she needed a small setting and liked the school's FFA [Future Farmers of America] program" which her larger public school couldn't offer her.

"But she couldn't tell me exactly why she liked Tomales until she came home from school one day and said, 'Mom, I think I've nailed it. The teachers at Tomales care. They care whether or not I learn, and whether or not I succeed.'"

Continued Plattner, "If one person in the classroom doesn't get something, the teacher will explain it again until everyone understands. You don't get that in a larger school."

The principal expects another flood of interdistrict transfer applications next year. His advice to interested teens: "We want highly motivated students. We want kids who are contributors."