Lazy Students In for an Awakening : Attendance: South County school district’s ditchers will soon be getting wake-up calls from senior citizens.

You’re a Capistrano Valley High School student, it’s 6 a.m. one Friday in May, and hitting the surf at 11 a.m. sounds a lot better than suffering through your 7:30 a.m. algebra class.

Who cares if you’ve skipped school the past three days?

So you turn off the alarm and roll over, when suddenly your dreams of the blue Pacific are shattered by your ringing telephone.

“Hello, Johnny,” the 60-ish voice on the other end says. “It’s time to get moving if you’re going to make it to algebra class this morning.”

While such calls aren’t happening yet, Capistrano Valley Principal Thomas Anthony says they soon will be, courtesy of a group of Leisure World and senior citizen volunteers. Any usually reliable student who seems to be developing a spring-induced pattern of tardiness or truancy will receive daily wake-up calls until the problem is corrected.

Anthony is betting that his Johnnies--he predicts 50 students will be on the receiving end of such calls--would rather contemplate quadratic equations than have a pre-dawn argument with a voice that reminds them of their grandmother.

“It’s getting late in the school year and a lot of students who haven’t been flakes become flakes, particularly seniors,” Anthony said. “They think, ‘I’ve already got that acceptance letter from Yale or Princeton, so why should I worry about making it to school?’ Well, they should worry about it.”

Anthony said the school is worried about it, on two levels.

First, students who normally get A’s find themselves getting Cs.

Second, absences cost the school district money. The Capistrano Unified School District, of which Capistrano Valley is a part, receives $16.69 from the state for each day a student is in attendance. If a student is absent without an excuse, the district loses that money.

“I also think the parents will be very supportive,” Anthony said. “I think they want their kids in school.”

The school district is recruiting volunteers for the program at Leisure World in Laguna Hills and other area senior centers.

Some Capistrano Valley students said Anthony’s idea has potential, although it won’t be a cure-all.

“It already works for me, because I have three friends call me to get me up,” said Trisha Pollock, an 18-year-old senior. “I think that if the person really doesn’t want to be here, they’ll just ignore the call. But for those people who are just lazy, it will probably work.”

Sheri Burkholder, also an 18-year-old senior, agreed.

“The person will have to get out of bed to get the phone,” she said. “That’s all some people need is the motivation to get out of bed.”