Class Project Probably Isn’t Wave of Future

Students concluding an industrial arts class typically have a metal ashtray or a wooden bowl to show for their efforts.

But the youngsters in Rick Walker’s 2:10 p.m. class at Thurston Middle School will have flashier prizes to carry home at the end of this school year: surfboards.

Walker is capping his first--and perhaps last--year of teaching youngsters how to make their own surfboards.

Having received notice last week that his duties for the Laguna Beach Unified School District will be reduced by 80% next year because of budget constraints, Walker is predicting that the surfboard-making class will be a casualty of the money crunch.

“Who around here, credentialed teachers, even knows how?” asked Walker, who started making his own surfboards when he was a teenager. “There’s no way they can do it.”

If the elective does disappear from the curriculum, it will be, well, a bummer, in surfer lingo.

The class “applies all the stuff we’ve learned in school to a real-life situation,” said Steven Wilson, 12. Besides, he said, “It’s fun.”

On Thursday, 19 boys and one girl fussed over final details of their projects. Some sanded intently, while others worked outside brushing coats of hot resin on their boards.

They have learned each step required to transform a strip of polyurethane foam into a wave-riding vehicle, from sketching the boards to applying the fins and logos.

For Danny Rademaker, 13, the aqua-colored surfboard he made this semester is something of a trophy. When he’s not riding it, Rademaker said, he plans to display it at home.

“You’ll be able to put it on your wall and be able to say you did that,” he said.

Walker said the students pay no more than $70 for supplies and end up with surfboards worth $350 to $500. Then all they need is a good wave.

Valerie Kubisak, the only girl in the class, said she has been waiting to learn to surf until she could use her own board.

Her sister, now in sixth grade, and “all of her friends want to do this too,” Kubisak said.

Whether they will have that opportunity is still not clear.

Thurston Principal Cheryl Baughn said that the industrial arts program will be cut in half for the 1996-97 school year and that surfboard making is scheduled to be taught only one semester, rather than two.

Baughn admits she’s not sure what will happen if Walker, who is looking for another job, finds one.

“If he doesn’t teach the class, I can’t guarantee there will be a class,” she said.