For 32 Students and Teacher, Algebra’s a Hot Subject : School Daze: Summertime, and the Learnin’s Not Easy

Room 305 was hot, a windowless cubicle with no air conditioning.

Nearby, the sleek, fast cars of Newport Beach teen-agers wheeled by on Jamboree Road. The beaches of Balboa were just a few miles away.

Inside Room 305 at Corona del Mar High, Jason Sytnyk, 16, was trying to learn Algebra I.

“The hardest thing about summer school is trying to stay interested, when you’ve got other things on your mind,” he said.

But for Sytnyk and 31 other students in this class, what was competing for their concentration were exponents and common factors and A squared and B cubed. The class runs four hours, from 8 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday for seven weeks.

“This isn’t the kind of class that I can show a movie every now and then,” said the teacher, Allan Waterman. “These are good kids, but by the time of the last hour, it’s pretty tough on them. Four hours is a long time for any type of class.”

Nonetheless, Waterman taught a lively algebra session, overcoming the heat, hard subject matter and teen-age restlessness.

“He really tries to make this as interesting as he can,” a student said.

And despite the swelter and students’ inclination toward boredom, Corona del Mar High School had a waiting list for summer school this year.

It was not always so popular. In the past, summer school had the connotation of retribution: fail a course, go to summer school.

But in recent years that image has faded. Administrators say students now regard summer school as extra help rather than punishment. Many take the courses to help meet graduation requirements or improve their grades.

“I needed to come here in order to take a higher math course next year,” said Nathan Shaw, 16, who will be a junior at Newport Harbor High. “I’m not being forced to come here, though. My parents just said, ‘It’s up to you.’ So I chose to come. I guess I could walk out any time, but I’m here.”

Amy Beck and Julie Rogers, both 16 and juniors this fall at Newport Harbor High, said that they were taking Algebra I a second time for a better grade.

“I didn’t fail it, but I wanted to take it over to get a better grade so it would look better on my GPA (grade-point average),” Beck said.

Rogers, who got a C the first time, said that she is hoping for an A this summer to help her get into college. She also plans to attend summer school next summer “to get more subjects out of the way.”

Debbie Birman, 16, who will enter Newport Harbor High in the fall, came to the United States eight months ago from Israel, where she had lived for eight years. She said that she needed to catch up in math.

Other students, Waterman said, had simply failed algebra during the regular year. Whatever their reasons for being in this breezeless cubicle for four hours, all 32 students “are pretty mature about it,” he said.

“We have a shorter amount of time to cover the same amount of material, so we have to push the kids real hard,” he said.

Waterman’s aide, Tim Galusha, said: “One day’s class is like a whole week of covering this subject during regular school. If you miss three days in summer school, you’re kicked out. You just miss too much material.”

The class takes a break every hour, Waterman said, because “the brain will only absorb what the seat will endure.”

Like many of the students, Waterman wore shorts to cope with the heat. Pacing in front of the blackboard, he worked his audience.

“Do you ever watch Johnny Carson on TV?” he asked. Around the room, eyes at half-mast began to open.

Waterman continued: “Well, one of the funniest things Carson does on his show is play an Answer Man, where he holds an answer up to his head and then tells you what the question is. This is what we’re going to do now. What you are given is the answer, and you break it into the questions.”

When attention waned, and whispered conversations began, Waterman stopped and asked the whisperers, “Hi. How are you doing?”

Sheepishly, one of the students replied: “Fine, how are you?”

“Not too well,” Waterman said. “Someone was talking just then.”

Waterman, a 15-year veteran of teaching, is director of student activities at Corona del Mar High during the regular school year. He said that he volunteers to teach summer school to “get back into the classroom.”

In a summer classroom, he said, “you have to be a little creative, a little bit more flexible. But you still push them.”

It’s the last hour, students say, that seems the longest.

“The worst part of the day is when it’s 11 o’clock,” Julie Rogers said. “At 11 o’clock, the clock doesn’t move any more. It just sits there.”