SUMMER SCHOOL DAYS

Some 71 students in three sections, including Chelsea White, foreground, and Michaelyn Burns, are taking a summer session of keyboarding at Central High School. Many students do not have the time to take the course during the regular school year.

Many schools are opting to offer summer school programs as the benefits to students, parents and school districts continue to grow.

Summer school used to be solely remedial, providing assistance to students needing extra help in a subject area. Students who had poor attendance, discipline problems or had failed coursework were the ones relegated to classrooms during summer.

Today, however, many school districts are providing course work for credit or special study emphasis in addition to remediation classes so that any child who wants to can attend summer school.

Applications must be submitted to the Department and Elementary Education before a district is eligible for state funding in the summer, but it's worth the trouble. Most schools have expanded their programs to include enrichment classes because the state pays double the amount normally given during the nine-month school calendar for each student who attends daily.

"I don't think anyone would argue that summer school is a money-maker for most school districts," said Duane Schindler, Meadow Heights schools superintendent. "We're trying to do everything we can to make the kids and parents want to be in summer school."

More than 200 students attended Meadow Heights' 15-day summer school program. In addition to the skills students gained from the program, first-time students also benefited from a prekindergarten class held to acclimate those students to a school environment.

"You have to make summer school somewhat fun and interesting to attend because there's no mandatory attendance," Schindler said. "The parents would have to see this as a situation where we've got their kids for about 15 days, where we're supervising them and educating them and feeding them -- I'm sure they have to see it as a good deal."

Despite the emphasis on special activities, summer school is still all about academics. Every activity enhances skill development for students to prepare them for the next school year.

School officials said everything is geared towards helping the students stay on track while they are out of the regular classroom.

Randie Fidler, principal at Central High School, runs one of three summer school programs operating in Cape Girardeau schools. About 80 students also are gaining credit in keyboarding classes during the 19-day program, while the rest of the 219 students are enrolled in remediation classes.

"What we try to stress to them is it's not the end of the world. They're still going to have a summer break," said Fidler. "They see they can get it done by June 30 and still have July and part of August to be out of classes."

Unlike other districts, Cape Girardeau schools don't profit from operating summer school. The district's status as a hold-harmless district means the money received per attending student is barely enough to help the program meet its expenses, Fidler said.

"We have to maintain at least 15 students in a class for this to be funded by the state," he said. "Districts with lots of (state funding) do make a lot of money on summer school, but even when we double our funding, we're a lot lower than other districts."