Keeping kids in school for the summer

Angelique Flores

Beefed up academics and filled classrooms are the scene at summer

schools around the area now that the state’s student retention program is

in place.

Last year, the state ended social promotion for students and required

schools to create standards for advancing students to the next grade

level. As a result, a number of students who may have moved up in the

past now are in danger or -- or are -- being held back.

Some schools have started making summer classes mandatory for at-risk

students. Others have strongly encouraged students to attend and made

more academic classes available.

In 1999, 1,600 students enrolled in summer school at Ocean View School

District. This year’s enrollment jumped to 2,300.

The district has focused more on academics in its summer school

programs, which they have renamed “literacy academies.”

“More than ever this year, our skills are very specific,” said Michel

Hsiang, principal at College View Elementary School. “It doesn’t seem

good to be using taxpayer money to run a summer camp.”Although the 604

Ocean View students who will be retained in the fall were not mandated to

attend, summer school enrollment was strongly recommended. The literacy

academies have more individual instruction with a 20-2 ratio of students

to teachers, Hsiang said .

The College View literacy academy, in its second year, focuses on

bringing students up to their proper reading level. Being able to read at

the right level affects students’ success in other subjects, fourth-grade

teacher Amie White said.

“Here they know they’re all at different levels. They don’t stick out

like in regular school,” White said. “The goal is they’ll take that

confidence back to their home school.”

Students seem to be taking the classes more seriously because the

stakes are higher, Hsiang said.

That seriousness can also be seen at Fountain Valley School District,

which implemented a remediation program for at-risk students last year.

The program has become a large portion of the summer program this year,

Supt. Marc Ecker said.

About 375 of the 800 or so students in summer school are in the

remediation program. Students in last year’s remediation classes

volunteered to enroll, but this year the district required at-risk

students to attend.

Ecker said the remediation consists of a four-hour program in the area

where the student is weak. Classes have no more than 10 students.

“They are very quiet and have a more serious tone,” Ecker said,

comparing them to regular enrichment classes, which have more students,

are louder and can have more variety.

The serious tone may come from the students’ desire not to be held

back.

At-risk students in Fountain Valley School District have one more

chance to keep from being retained, depending on how well they do on the

exam administered at the end of summer school.

“Attendance is much better this year because they know they’ll take a

test,” Ecker said.

Although students at the Huntington Beach City School District don’t

get a second chance as those at Fountain Valley do, the 40 who will be

retained are required to attend summer classes.

Students who are at risk of retention were recommended to attend.

Those on conditional promotion -- where they would be promoted based on

summer school attendance and other varying criteria -- were highly

recommended to attend.

Like Fountain Valley’s remedial summer program, Huntington Beach City

has a proficiency program for at-risk students.

“We’ve had proficiency for a long time, but we’re offering more of it

now,” said Lynn Bogart, the district’s director of curriculum and

instruction. “The student intervention plan is more intensive.”The

classes have 20 to 22 students and focus on the individual student needs.

Core classes can have more than 30 students.

Besides the normal four weeks of summer school, Huntington Beach City

School District has added an additional two weeks for students in first

through fourth grades, with a focus on literacy learning.

“Summer school is just one piece of monitoring achievement,” Bogart

said. “Student intervention has been going on all year long.”