Many Students Back In School To Catch Up, Or To Get Ahead
Heather Reynen finished her junior year at Central Valley High School last Friday afternoon.
On Monday morning, she was back in school, eager to get ahead.
Reynen is one of 138 students enrolled in West Valley School District’s summer school program.
Both West Valley and East Valley began summer school classes on Monday. Central Valley begins on June 26. Most summer programs enroll students from a variety of districts.
Reynen wanted to get a civics class out of the way this summer to make room for more math and science courses during her senior year. She plans to study oceanography in college.
Reynen, 17, is taking civics in the learning opportunity center, where students work at their own pace.
“I can learn a lot faster when I’m doing it myself,” Reynen said. Last year, she took geometry during summer school to free up her schedule for a chemistry class.
Reynen is an exception to the rule. Most students in summer school are making up classes they’ve failed or missed due to illness or other problems.
Two-thirds of the students are in summer school for remediation, said Joe Dawson, director at West Valley. The other third is there for enrichment, he said.
At Orchard Center Elementary, a group of 20 younger students was having a blast in an enrichment course on computers.
Not one of the yellow plastic chairs was empty as the class of kindergarton through sixth graders glued their eyes to the screen, fixated on a variety of reading games.
Luke Shollenberger, 10, learned about the “a” sound in the word cake by guiding a small green “muncher man” around the computer screen, eating other words that had the same “a” sound, such as bake and way.
But he had to watch out for the monsters that tried to eat him as he proceeded through the lesson.
“So far I haven’t gotten eaten yet,” said Shollenberger, who’ll be a sixth grader in the fall. “My mom wanted me to come here, but I kind of wanted to come, too,” he admitted.
The computer courses, so popular that an extra class had to be added, contributed significantly to the growth in summer school enrollment this year.
Last year, said Dawson, 121 students registered for 270 classes. This year, 138 students are taking 306 classes, a 13 percent increase. The program usually grows about 5 percent each year, Dawson said.
Enrollment also is bursting at East Valley School District, which has 725 students enrolled for summer school classes and sports camps.
About 80 students enrolled in high school programs at East Valley last year. This year, that number jumped to 125, said summer school director Ken Woolf. Elementary school enrollment is about the same, but sports camps have grown. The district’s basketball camp grew from 28 students last year to 40 this year.
Enrollments at Central Valley, where classes don’t begin until Monday, are still piling in. Summer school director Roger Fox said additional sports camps and exploratory classes for younger children should bring more students to the district.
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