Summer School

Summer school is a luxury of the past in the financially strapped Newport-Mesa Unified School District, which has been forced to lay off dozens of teachers and make more than $13 million in cuts as the state reduces funding. High schools in the district are only holding summer school for seniors who are failing their classes and need to catch up to graduate on time, school officials said. Paul Reed, Newport-Mesa deputy superintendent and chief business official, said the district doesn't have the funding for the sorts of summer school classes that went off without a hitch a decade or two ago. "Nobody has run a full-blown summer school for about 20 years," Reed said.

Summer school may be cut given the state’s financial disaster, but it is alive and well at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Students from the Nicholas Academic Centers in downtown Santa Ana and from the campus at Valley High School in Santa Ana are spending their summer being exposed to the performing arts as the result of a special partnership between the two organizations. The Henry T. Nicholas III Foundation has donated nearly $4 million to the Orange County Performing Arts Center, opening the door to enrichment programs for urban children otherwise not exposed to the classic performing arts, including theater, dance and orchestral music.

NEWPORT COAST — Most local teachers, well aware of districtwide budget cuts, don't expect to see students in class this summer. Then there's Joni Summer. The Newport Coast Elementary School teacher found herself in class Tuesday, teaching mathematical concepts to at least a half-dozen children in what is the only summer school class for miles in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District. Already in its second week, the summer school is still taking students from first through sixth grade, she said.

Here are some items the board will consider tonight: JOINT-USE AGREEMENT In January, the Costa Mesa City Council approved a revision of the joint-use agreement, governing fields and athletic facilities at Newport-Mesa schools, that the district and city signed in 2002. The original agreement gave the schools top priority for field use during the school day and other pre-arranged times, while the city had authority over the fields on weekends and during non-school hours. Under the new agreement, the city would pay the district up to $170,000 annually for use of the fields, with the district assuming full responsibility for field maintenance.

INSIDE THE SCHOOL DISTRICT Here are some of the decisions coming out of Tuesday's school board meeting. LINDA MOOK HONORED WHAT HAPPENED The board honored Linda Mook, the outgoing president of the Newport-Mesa Federation of Teachers, with a starfish plaque for her 35 years of service. Receiving two standing ovations, Mook gave an emotional thank you to the board for appreciating her work. "I truly think this honor is less about me and more about who we've become together," Mook said.

GAY GEISER-SANDOVAL Rumors abound about Dennis Rodman running for the Newport Beach City Council. I hope they aren't true. I hope he runs instead for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District Board of Education. This year, there are three school board seats up for election. So far, the only announced candidates are the incumbents. Not too many years ago, there were nine people who ran for the school board. That gave the voting public a choice.

Set aside the suntan oil and flip-flops. It's time for summer school. Touch-tone telephone registration for OCC's summer classes is currently underway. New students must file an application in OCC's Admissions and Records Office on campus, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Fees are $11 per unit. High school students are not charged tuition. However, they are required to pay $25.50 for the semester. Telephone registration ends May 31, when in-person registration begins.

Jessica Garrison NEWPORT-MESA -- The stakes are very high. Because of a new state law that takes effect this year, students who perform poorly in school and also score below the 40th percentile on standardized tests will have to attend after-school programs or summer school, and could even be held back a year in school. School officials say they do not know how many Newport-Mesa students are in danger of being held back, but if last year's test scores are any indication, it's a sizable minority.

ON THE AGENDA FRANCE STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAM The board will hear a presentation from six members of the Newport Beach Sister City Assn., which has joined the Newport-Mesa Unified School District over the past few years in hosting exchange students from Antibes, France. Members from the association, as well as exchange students from Antibes and their Newport-Mesa chaperons and host family members, will share information and their experiences about the exchanged program with the board.

Why do some schools fail to continually meet academic expectations? And how do you break the pattern? The response, at least to the second question, was clear and simple during Tuesday's school board round table: time. There's not enough of it. "I've come to the conclusion that it really isn't rocket science," said Costa Mesa High School Principal Phil D'Agostino. "There are just some very simple things we need to do. " Principals of Newport-Mesa Unified's 11 Program Improvement schools focused on extending school days and years as they presented proposals to bring their students up to grade-level proficiency.

There's a price to be paid for sitting in the back of a high school algebra classroom and devouring issues of Sports Illustrated strategically hidden behind your textbook. That price is called summer school. And I paid it in 1960. Because I read SI as a sophomore in a Costa Mesa High School algebra class in the spring of '60, I sat in an algebra class at Newport Harbor High School that June, July and August. While my more disciplined classmates went to the beach that summer, or to Yosemite, or to see Aunt Agnes in Iowa, I was puzzling over polynomials on the campus of my high school's most hated rival.

COSTA MESA — To lighten parents' paperwork in signing children up for the next school year, the Newport-Mesa Unified School District this summer will test an online registration system at Costa Mesa and Corona del Mar high schools. If the pilot run is successful, officials said, the program will be expanded to other campuses. The school board approved a contract Tuesday night with Jireh Information Systems Inc. to try a school registration and student management software program, K-12 Online.

NEWPORT COAST — Most local teachers, well aware of districtwide budget cuts, don't expect to see students in class this summer. Then there's Joni Summer. The Newport Coast Elementary School teacher found herself in class Tuesday, teaching mathematical concepts to at least a half-dozen children in what is the only summer school class for miles in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District. Already in its second week, the summer school is still taking students from first through sixth grade, she said.

Summer school is a luxury of the past in the financially strapped Newport-Mesa Unified School District, which has been forced to lay off dozens of teachers and make more than $13 million in cuts as the state reduces funding. High schools in the district are only holding summer school for seniors who are failing their classes and need to catch up to graduate on time, school officials said. Paul Reed, Newport-Mesa deputy superintendent and chief business official, said the district doesn't have the funding for the sorts of summer school classes that went off without a hitch a decade or two ago. "Nobody has run a full-blown summer school for about 20 years," Reed said.

Summer school may be cut given the state’s financial disaster, but it is alive and well at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Students from the Nicholas Academic Centers in downtown Santa Ana and from the campus at Valley High School in Santa Ana are spending their summer being exposed to the performing arts as the result of a special partnership between the two organizations. The Henry T. Nicholas III Foundation has donated nearly $4 million to the Orange County Performing Arts Center, opening the door to enrichment programs for urban children otherwise not exposed to the classic performing arts, including theater, dance and orchestral music.

Angelica Sonora was having so many problems at home she started to slip badly at school. She failed her classes as a sophomore at Newport Harbor High School and basically had given up. But then a friend of hers who had similarly fallen behind credits managed to make them up with help from a program designed to assist struggling high school students in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District. So Angelica figured she’d give it a try. “I thought it was going to be the same like a regular school,” she said.

Editor's Note: Daily Pilot reporter Michael Miller spotlights two outstanding students from five area schools. For more student profiles, click here . For the first 17 years of her life, Jaspreet Kaur lived with her family in the Punjab region of western India. Her father was a farmer while her mother worked as a housekeeper. America seemed like such a faraway land that, according to a popular saying in her region, the country had no sun or moon. Before her sophomore year, Kaur's parents moved the family across the Atlantic to give their children better opportunities for the future.

Here are some items the board will consider tonight: JOINT-USE AGREEMENT In January, the Costa Mesa City Council approved a revision of the joint-use agreement, governing fields and athletic facilities at Newport-Mesa schools, that the district and city signed in 2002. The original agreement gave the schools top priority for field use during the school day and other pre-arranged times, while the city had authority over the fields on weekends and during non-school hours. Under the new agreement, the city would pay the district up to $170,000 annually for use of the fields, with the district assuming full responsibility for field maintenance.

This week we asked our parents: As summer ends, a new crop of high school seniors is getting ready to apply for college. What suggestions do you have for these seniors and their families as they get started on this pressure-packed endeavor? One solution to maintain sanity in the process of selecting a college is to hire a professional educational consultant who specializes in college counseling. Finding the right college for a child can be very time-consuming and stressful during the busy senior year.