PointsSouth: Articles 2007

Summer school. Those two words used to carry weight -- the threat of spending vacation months in a stuffy classroom, the risk of being held back.

Today, there's no such thing in St. Petersburg, Fla. Summer school -- that mandatory last chance -- has been replaced by "Extended Learning."

Classes are voluntary. No one is forced to go. Teachers are on hand as resources but not instructors, while students work at their own pace.

Anjelica Jackson, 16, is spending four mornings a week this summer in a classroom at Lakewood High School, repeating ninth-grade algebra. She got an F in the class two years ago, and though she is entering her junior year, she still needs that freshman math credit to keep up her average and graduate.

"I want to go far," said Jackson, who hopes to study music in college.

Extended Learning is one of an array of programs that now give students a chance to make up failed classes and earn enough credits for a diploma. Students can enroll in night school, in remedial courses during the school year or in a GED test program.

In Florida, budget cuts squeezed out traditional summer school nearly a decade ago. Previously, the state gave districts specific money for summer classes. Now, general remedial funds go directly to the schools, and there are no requirements for how to spend it.

The budget that funds Extended Learning pays for a variety of academic supplements to the school day. With less money and time, fewer teachers and classes, schools are expected to provide more options for struggling students.

Still, remedial curriculum doesn't get the same attention as standardized testing or class-size reduction, said Kathy Fleeger, Pinellas assistant superintendent for secondary curriculum.

"When you only have so much money in your checkbook," Fleeger said, "you have to determine your priorities."

This summer at Lakewood High School, second chances only come in math and English. Chantella Moore, the Extended Learning coordinator, also wanted to offer science and Spanish, but there weren't enough funds.

Moore has three teachers, three classes and about 90 students this summer. The program runs four days a week, for five weeks. Any student in the district can attend.

After the first week, all the slots were full. But not everyone sticks with it. English teacher Nikki Holcombe said by the end she would have 10 to 15 students, down from 25.

Aaron Reed, 15, just finished his freshman year at Dixie Hollins High School. He's retaking Algebra 1B at Lakewood to replace an F.

Ninth grade was full of bad decisions, Reed said. Too much slacking off and talking during class, hanging with the wrong friends. At midyear, he realized he was failing.

"It scared me," he said.

Reed and Jackson arrive every Monday through Thursday at 9 a.m. They spend three hours working independently through a semester's worth of chapters and the tests that go with them. When they need help, they ask a teacher at a desk up front.

Eric Thurman taught summer school math in Pinellas County for 11 years. He remembers how there used to be teachers for each subject, since only a few schools were designated host sites. Classes looked the same in June as they did in November.  

Now, Thurman is that teacher at the front of room. Standing at the blackboard doesn't make sense when his classroom has students taking two levels of algebra and geometry.

Some students tune out, popping in earphones while they work. Others tune in, talking with friends and text messaging on cell phones.

Occasionally, Tara Fowler, head of Lakewood's math department, tells the room to quiet down or moves a disruptive teen to a desk in the corner. "You have to keep on these kids," said Fowler, who is volunteering her time.

The diligent students are often seniors who are running out of time. Underclassmen slack off and drop out, Holcombe said, because few realize the gravity of falling behind.

In Pinellas public schools, more than 50 percent of students fail to graduate on time from high school, according to a national study sponsored by the Gates Foundation in 2006. For students in Extended Learning, five weeks of plowing through math and English packets could determine which side of that divide they land on.

Jackson, the Lakewood junior who bombed freshman algebra, shrugs at the decision to enroll in Extended Learning.

She wants to graduate. She wants to attend college.  

Back in ninth grade, she couldn't focus. Writing music was her passion, not math. With time and encouragement, she honed a work ethic. In Extended Learning, she likes progressing at her own pace. "I don't have to wait on no one else," she said.

Between assignments, Jackson jots down rap lyrics in a composition notebook. She records them at home. Some of her best creative thinking is done in class. But for now, math problems get priority.