Specialty School Has Its First Enrollment : Education: The California Academy of Mathematics and Science will offer a rigorous program for 120 students. Private contributions help finance the Dominguez Hills campus.

John Paul Houssels admits to some pangs about not being able to go out for the soccer, baseball and tennis teams at the Long Beach high school he would have attended.

Adriana Diaz will miss her friends and the clubs at Dodson Junior High in San Pedro, and Sasha Mosley regrets she won’t be around for next spring’s graduation ceremonies at Mann Junior High in Los Angeles.

But they all figure the trade-off is well worth it. They are among the 120 ninth-graders selected from 55 schools for the first class at California’s newest specialty high school.

The California Academy of Mathematics and Science opened Wednesday in a hastily erected prefab bungalow at the edge of the Cal State Dominguez Hills campus. The students, chosen from among nearly 500 applicants in six area school districts, will get a rigorous education with a strong emphasis on math and the sciences, plenty of individual attention and full access to university facilities.

Nearly half the academy’s $1.1-million annual budget comes from corporations--among them TRW, Hughes Aircraft Co. and Toyota USA--worried about a projected shortage of highly skilled workers. The rest comes from the state Department of Education and the California State University system. Additionally, Digital Equipment Corp., Apple Computer Inc. and IBM Corp. have donated more than $800,000 in computers and other technological equipment.

Although such extras as art, music and interscholastic sports will not be added until later, the students, who get free school bus transportation to and from campus, will receive accelerated courses each year in biology, chemistry and Earth sciences, math, English, social studies and foreign languages; smaller class sizes (14 students in math and 25 or fewer in other academic courses), and mentors in private industry to assess their progress.

Each classroom will have several Apple and IBM computers. IBM also has stocked a computer lab on campus, and Apple has provided 30 computers for students to take home for up to nine weeks during the school year.

“There’s a lot here I can benefit from--classes and teachers that aren’t boring, the college labs, help from the companies,” said John, expressing views echoed by many of his new classmates.

“I think I’ll get the best education here,” said Sasha, who added math and science are her favorite subjects.

Principal Kathy Clark, who previously headed the magnet schools program for the Long Beach Unified School District, said she and other recruiters who went to the “feeder” schools last spring were looking for “kids who are highly motivated, with either some good experience in science or a strong curiosity about it.”

The 150 applicants who made the first cut went through extensive sessions, which included producing portfolios of science-related work. Their parents were interviewed by academy officials. Once chosen, students were invited to campus for a weeklong orientation session and a special math program over the summer.

Academy recruiters also wanted an ethnic mix that reflected the varied demographics of the Los Angeles Basin and, because many science-oriented fields are lacking in women and some minorities, Clark said the academy made sure to get a wide representation of those groups. The school’s first freshman class has 62 girls, 41 Latinos and 32 blacks among its ranks.

The academy opened the day after the Los Angeles Unified School District launched a new magnet high school emphasizing preparation for health careers. The minority students’ presence reflects a recent push to better prepare more students for careers in science.

University officials said that in 1988 only one black and three Latino Ph.D. holders in math emerged from the nation’s universities, and the United States faces a shortage of 500,000 math and science professionals by the turn of the century.

A joint project of Cal State and the Long Beach and Compton unified school districts, the academy will be governed by them with the help of the other participating districts--Inglewood, Lawndale, Los Angeles and Torrance. An advisory committee of private corporations will help decide broad policy matters.

The academy plans to add between 100 and 150 students each year, until it has about 500 students in four grade levels.

But academy sponsors expect its influence will spread far beyond its own student body because of the teaching innovations it hopes to develop there. Its five full-time faculty members (supplemented by several part-time teachers) in core academic subjects are in essence on loan from their regular school districts. They will spend from one to five years at the academy (and earn their regular salaries), then return to their districts to share what they have developed. The staff will meet for daily planning sessions while students are in physical education or foreign language classes.

“I expect this will be a great learning experience for me, too,” said award-winning math teacher Jerry Flores, formerly of South Gate and Gardena high schools. Holding a video camera, he joined other teachers and Cal State Dominguez Hills President Robert C. Detweiler in greeting the new students as they arrived on campus Wednesday.

Once in the classroom, he and another math teacher put the students in small groups to work together on math exercises.

“If you venture out into the business world, you’ll be expected to work in a team formation,” Flores told the first-period class. “So here you’ll interact with each other a lot, help each other and learn as a team.”