Pasco: How to avoid summer school

How to avoid summer school

About 1,200 students in 19 Pasco schools will attend an extra three hours of class a week until April.

By KENT FISCHER

The halls are dark and empty outside Sue Beddow's classroom. In the commons area, a troupe of cheerleaders practices their routine for a coming basketball game. Outside, sweaty kids slash through a game of roller hockey.

But as the clock ticks toward 5 p.m, the 16 seventh-graders in Beddow's class at Bayonet Point Middle School are busy calculating prices from a fast food menu. The students are all struggling in math and need the extra help to avoid a failing grade.

They are among an estimated 1,200 students around the county who have opted to attend class an extra three hours a week from now until April to avoid a stint in summer school. It's part of the district's new push to help remediate low-achieving students now, rather than sending them to summer school after they have already failed.

"I know a lot of kids where if they just had that extra hour or two a week, they'd get it," said Cliff Taylor, a Bayonet Point Middle School language arts teacher tutoring seventh-graders. "We've only been doing this two weeks, and already there are kids in my class who have brought up their grades."

Nineteen schools are running the new tutoring sessions at a cost of $1.75-million. It's money that, in years past, would have gone toward summer school classes, but a change in how the state allocates aid to schools has allowed them to spend the money now. Some schools offer the tutoring after school; some open their doors before classes start in the mornings. All of the sessions are voluntary.

Several other schools are using federal education money or extra aid they got from the state for good test scores to offer their students after-school tutoring, too.

Just about every school has some sort of free tutoring program for struggling students this academic year, although they are available only to those students so far behind that their teachers have written an "AIP," or academic improvement plan for them.

"We're trying to be proactive and not just waiting to try and get the kids caught up during a 19-day summer school," said Sandy Ramos, the district's assistant superintendent. "But we need kids who will be committed to regular attendance, and (the tutoring) needs to be connected to what's happening in class."

Teachers have recognized an early key to the tutoring sessions: small class sizes.

With only about 12 students per class in the elementary school sessions and about 15 students in the middle and high schools, teachers say they're able to work with kids one-on-one, a refreshing change from the typical school day. Beddow said she has as many as 34 students in her math classes at Bayonet Point. Calusa Elementary teacher Janet Tolson as many as 32 fourth-graders in her math class during the school day.

"When you have classes that big, you just can't give a lot of individual attention," Tolson said. "Think about having 32 10-year-olds in the same class. It's just not possible."

Students in Beddow's tutoring session agreed. Seventh-grader Deanna D'Elia said she gets one-on-one help from her teachersonly once or twice a week during the school day.

"Every desk in here is filled during the day, and everyone's got their hand in the air," she said.

Taylor, the Bayonet Point language arts teacher, said he can't overstate the importance of small class sizes.

"I know a lot of people don't think it matters, but let me tell you, it does," he said. "When you've got 30 kids in class, lot of your time is spent handling discipline problems."

Several students at Bayonet Point said they didn't mind going to school an extra three hours a week. Most said they would probably be at home talking on the phone or watching television anyway, so it's not like they're sacrificing much, several said. And they like the more relaxed atmosphere of the tutoring sessions where they can be more at ease with their teachers.

"I thought it was going to be boring and not very interesting, but I actually like it," said seventh-grader Kathy Quintal. "Except that I don't get to watch Seventh Heaven after school anymore."

All the kids in the sessions took tests on their first day of tutoring. At the end of the program, they will take another exam that district officials will use to see how much the students learned. The district will also track their test scores and summer school referral to see if the tutoring had any impact on their achievement.

One disappointing aspect of the program, several principals said, is that only about half of the students invited actually showed up. Calusa Elementary sent letters home inviting about 70 students to attend, but only a half-dozen replied, principal Chris Dunning said. School staff members ended up calling the others at home to try and get them to enroll. In the end, only 26 families took them up on the offer.

"Honestly, I'd have liked to see more," Dunning said.

- Kent Fischer covers education in Pasco County. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6241 or (800) 333-7505, ext. 6241. His e-mail address is kfischer@sptimes.com.