Summer School

Mission College's move to its new campus in Sylmar has prompted administrators to cancel summer classes for the first time in the school's 15-year history. College officials said this week that although they hope to have the new $20-million campus ready for fall semester students by Sept. 9, they haven't the staff or the time to hold summer classes. "We either move or we have a summer session," said Carlos Nava, Mission's dean of students. "It's very difficult to attend to both tasks.

The Las Virgenes Unified School District and the Las Virgenes Educators Assn. are in negotiations over summer school teachers' salaries, the first time the teachers union has ever represented the group. Teachers said they have asked the district to consider implementing a contract agreement to pay them their regular salaries during the summer, rather than the often lower salary the district usually pays.

American Indian students are being recruited for a free summer program that emphasizes math, engineering and science. The program, sponsored by the California Indian Education Center in Ventura, is open to Ojai, Oxnard, Santa Paula and Ventura residents entering grades one through 11 next fall. "We're targeting sixth- through ninth-graders," said Tom Smith, center director. "We're academically oriented in trying to get kids on the right course, taking the right classes to get them into college."

Bracing for an enormous growth in enrollment, University of California officials on Thursday announced that they would ask the Legislature to pay for year-round operations so more students will enroll during the summer. UC officials want lawmakers in Sacramento to supply an extra $50 million a year to lower student fees and offer faculty incentive pay so the nine-campus system can more than triple the number of students who enroll in summer classes by 2001.

With hundreds of students unable to attend summer school because of the bus strike, city school officials adopted a new policy Wednesday allowing students to make up class assignments and tests or to drop a course without getting a failing grade. Los Angeles Unified School District officials said in approving the change that students should not be penalized because of the strike. Previously, students who miss more than three days of summer school without valid excuses would get an "F" grade.

Summer school might be put on the chopping block this year as the Glendale Community College District gets ready for another round of state budget cuts. Administrators are looking at a variety of ways to make up a projected budget shortfall of 2% to 6% next fiscal year, including freezing or cutting teacher salaries, reducing operating costs, laying off temporary or hourly workers, and cutting back programs.

Leonard Matthews, the former Inglewood principal who was demoted this year after a police investigator accused him of embezzling school funds, was given one of the district's summer school teaching contracts this week. Matthews, who is assigned to teach English at the Inglewood Adult School, will receive top-scale salary and a 4% bonus for his 15 years with the district, said school board President Larry Aubry.

State funding will enable the Fountain Valley School District to operate two summer school sites this year to meet the demands of increased enrollment. Urbain H. Plavan Elementary, which was the first site to reinstate summer school three years ago, offered classes to more than 600 students last year. Most school districts have been hard-pressed to offer summer instruction since voters statewide approved Proposition 13, the property tax limit and reform measure, in 1978.

Despite pleas from parents that continued special educational services are critical to helping their children lead productive lives, the San Diego Unified School District board voted unanimously Tuesday to cut the length of summer school for the learning-disabled from nine weeks to six. Additionally, the board ordered summer sessions cut back from six to four hours, five days a week, at all schools except Revere Development Center in Linda Vista.