A Time for Growth and Anticipation : Thousand Oaks: James Azevedo’s sixth-graders at Park Oaks have been put to the test as they move toward the challenges that lie ahead.

With the last day of school just around the corner, sixth-grade teacher James Azevedo is trying to corral the wandering minds of his students, whose thoughts keep drifting from class at Park Oaks elementary school in Thousand Oaks into dreams of summer vacation.

Some stare vacantly out the window. Others jabber incessantly with friends. Only a handful of the 36 adolescents focus on the assignment at hand: fractions.

“It is not hard if you are paying attention,” Azevedo says, a hint of irritation in his usually calm voice. “Frank? Are you paying attention?”

Caught in a daze, the 12-year-old fidgets, glances at his math book and seconds later gazes out the window again.

As the school year wanes, the sixth-graders’ attention spans have virtually crashed to a halt. It is a familiar pattern that Azevedo greets with trepidation each June and has unaffectionately dubbed the Rite of Spring.

It was exacerbated recently by the annual screening of health videos detailing stages of sexual development--the coup de grace for the class’s already diminished capacity to concentrate.

On Friday, months of anticipation and a year’s worth of hard work will pay off when the 11- and 12-year-olds finish sixth grade and bid farewell to elementary school.

“I hope they had a year’s growth,” said Azevedo, who refuses to let end-of-the-year apathy take over his classroom. “You try to spark them. I have seen a spark in every one at some point this year.”

Gawky, nervous and small, Azevedo’s students entered Classroom 14 last fall uncertain about what would be expected of them in sixth grade--a pivotal year academically and socially, educators say.

Now, taller and more confident, the adolescents are setting their sights on

intermediate school and the challenges that lie ahead.

“My students now are basically early seventh-graders,” Azevedo said. “I look at their class pictures and go, ‘Wow, they were young.’ They are much more independent now.”

They have learned much since September--how to find the perimeter of a hexagon, how to spell multisyllabic words like ostentatiously , how to analyze current events by reading news articles.

In social studies--the group’s favorite subject--they learned how ancient Egyptians mummified kings: “How they take their brains out through their noses!” one student exclaimed.

In science, the class completed individual research projects, including reports on earthquakes and eclipses, and experiments on whether plants grew faster listening to Madonna or Beethoven.

They finished the year studying Greek and Roman civilization, taking a field trip to the J. Paul Getty museum to contemplate Greek and Roman art. Azevedo also read aloud various Greek myths, and the class performed a play of Homer’s “Odyssey.”

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They learned about Confucianism, Buddhism, yin and yang. And, school officials hope, they learned good study skills that will carry them through intermediate and high school.

Most of Azevedo’s students will attend Los Cerritos Intermediate School next fall, where the structured academic environment of one teacher and one classroom will give way to a more free-form approach with several teachers and many classrooms. They will join nearly 800 other students from six elementary schools in central Thousand Oaks.

Many students say they welcome the challenge.

“I’m happy because finally we’re over with elementary school and summer is coming,” said Heather Dillon, 11, who will attend Sequoia Intermediate in Newbury Park in the fall. “But, it’s kind of emotional because I’m going to a different intermediate school and will miss all my friends.”

“I don’t want her to leave,” said 11-year-old Courtney Johnson, grabbing her friend’s arm on the playground. Courtney, who will attend Los Cerritos, said she will miss the close-knit environment of elementary school. “This is where you start growing up, the end of sixth grade.”

Twelve-year-old Ryan Hansen, however, is less nostalgic. “I think I’m just getting kind of bored here,” he said with a shrug.

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Principal Rachelle Morga said that attitude is typical of most adolescents who have reached the end of their elementary school careers: “After seven years of any place you have reached a level where you are ready to move on.”

In Azevedo’s class, many of the students have known each other since kindergarten. Class size peaked at 37 students--nine more than the state average and the largest group Azevedo ever confronted in 18 years of teaching. Only one student left--a girl whose family moved at midyear.

And the class included two learning-disabled students being mainstreamed as part of a pilot program launched at two Thousand Oaks campuses this year--an experiment that has worked well, Azevedo said.

To prepare them for seventh grade, Azevedo assigned more homework than the sixth-graders had ever had before and graded harder than their previous teachers. His disciplined yet low-key style of teaching has been embraced by parents, who praised the veteran teacher during an open house in May.

“I can only rate him by my son’s performance, and he gives him an A,” said Bob Bailey, father of 12-year-old Ben.

“I want the kind of atmosphere that is conducive to learning and a teacher who is qualified,” said parent Joe Maffuccio, who said his son, Jeff, has benefited from both this school year. “From everything I’ve seen, I’d have to put an A on it.”

Azevedo, however, is self-effacing. “I really am my own worst critic,” he said after school recently. “You never know if you did enough, if you could have done more. There is no perfect.”

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In measuring their success or failure as students--and his as a teacher--he relies heavily on standardized tests as well as his own interaction with students. Azevedo has studied his students’ marks on the Stanford Achievement Test, which they took in April, and compared them with the students’ scores from previous years. He compiled test scores for each student and sent copies home for parents to analyze.

“I think it is nice to see a pattern as a parent, especially going into junior high,” he said.

For their part, the students say Azevedo has prepared them for intermediate school by being tough--but not too tough.

“At the beginning, he wanted to be hard,” Heather said.

“He’s a softy now,” Courtney chimed in.

Although most students also said they would give Azevedo top marks for instruction, many grumbled about the heavy workload in his class.

“I always went home with a lot of homework--I didn’t like that,” Heather said.

But for many students, the payoff from those long hours will be evident in sixth-grade report cards, which are more than just evaluations--they are tickets for admittance to top classes in intermediate school.

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A straight-A student, Heather is seeking placement in three honors classes at Sequoia for next fall. “I want to be a good student,” she said. “I want to go to a good college.”

With the tracking of students into honors-type programs beginning in seventh grade, some students want to go to summer school to prepare for tougher classes.

“I need to improve a little bit more in reading, science, mathematics,” said Teresa Ibarra, 11. “I don’t want to get bad grades.”

Although most students are excited about moving on to junior high, some also have fears of seventh grade. Rumors of gang violence and drugs can take on mythical proportions as the 11-year-olds pass around stories of guns and knives discovered in school lockers.

“It’s scary,” said Alejandra Pinto, 11, talking to a group of girls at lunch recently.

School officials acknowledge that safety is among the top concerns of entering students. But, they add, instances of violence are extremely rare. “It’s almost like folklore,” Los Cerritos Principal Jo-Ann Yoos said of the stories that filter down to the elementary grades. “It’s amazing.”

To help ease the transition, the sixth-graders have met with counselors from Los Cerritos. And they will have the option of attending an orientation session this summer before school begins.

“We talk about study skills and how to be successful,” Yoos said. “They have to understand they are not going back to the same classroom and looking at the same directions hour after hour.”

Just 16 days before the end of the school year, Los Cerritos counselor David Holmboe made a guest appearance at Park Oaks for a different kind of orientation--a sixth-grade-size dose of sex education.

In the conservative Conejo Valley Unified School District, sex education lessons are minimal in number and minimalist in content. For one hour each year in fourth, fifth and sixth grades, students are gradually introduced to information about sexual development. In sixth grade, for example, they view a 10-minute video that explains aspects of pregnancy and childbirth.

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“We basically are here to clarify any misunderstandings,” Holmboe explained. “We set a real serious tone.”

Divided into groups by sex--boys in one classroom, girls in another--Holmboe and district nurse Debbie Flickinger recently discussed human sexuality with Park Oaks sixth-graders. The instructors answered some questions but generally encouraged students to talk to their parents.

“We are not talking about sex, about sexually transmitted diseases,” Flickinger explained. “We have to be real cautious of what parents want. And we haven’t picked up any information from parents that they want more.”

But some students in Azevedo’s class said the last thing they want to do is talk to their parents about such issues.

“I am not going to ask my parents about sex,” one girl stated emphatically during lunch. “I know all I need to know,” she added.

“How do you know?” a friend challenged.

“It’s called television,” the girl countered.

In past years, giggles and gossip triggered by sex-ed day combined with end-of-the-year restlessness have all but destroyed the students’ ability to concentrate for the remainder of the year. But this class managed to avoid that problem, Azevedo said.

Last Friday, the teacher barbecued hamburgers for 18 students who had perfect discipline records and had turned in every assignment since May 1. He provides such treats throughout the year for those who perform well.

He has been fortunate to have a group of comparatively mature and academically eager sixth-graders, he said. And though their boundless energy still tests his stamina, the teacher said he does not feel too weary.

“The way I grade [the school year] is how I feel at the end,” he said. “If I am tired and frustrated and counting the days, it wasn’t a good year. I don’t feel that way at all.

“These years don’t always come along,” he added with a touch of melancholy. “In that sense, maybe it shouldn’t end.”