Not a minute of the school day is wasted at the Fresno Year-Round Achievement Center.

 

While students stand in the lunch line, a teacher points out nouns and adjectives on the menu. Students recite aloud: "Hot dogs, beans, graham crackers, orange wedgies."

 

"That's orange wedges, not orange wedgies," says Yia Ly, a member of the Fresno Teachers Association.

 

During the 20-minute lunch, talking is not allowed. Elementary school students watch a video. Between bites, they identify the title ("Madeline"), the setting (Paris) and the main characters out loud.

 

During recess, students recite their times tables while they jump rope.

 

About the only time students don't receive instruction is during bathroom breaks, jokes one instructor.

 

There's a reason for their diligence. Students at the achievement center are those deemed most at risk of failure at the schools they normally attend. If they don't make every minute count, they might not get promoted to the next grade level come fall. It's a race against time, and a race everybody wants to win.

 

The Year-Round Achievement Center is a permanent campus for an ever-changing population of students and staff. Students most at risk of not being promoted to the next grade at their overcrowded, year-round schools are bused to the center during intersession breaks to "catch up" with their classmates. Teachers who are "off-track" and substitute teachers offer instruction. Class size is 20 to 1. Attendance runs at 460 students per four-week session.

 

Paid for by the state's intervention funding at the rate of $3.68 per student per hour, the center has become so crowded that satellite classes are now held at other campuses. Since there's always a waiting list, the center tries to take what the principal calls the "lowest of the low achievers" as first priority - usually accommodating up to 2,800 K-6 students per year.

 

Teachers use the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) to diagnose students when they arrive and to measure progress when they leave. In most cases there is significant improvement, says Carolyn Morishita, a resource teacher who works at the campus full-time. Students improve by an average of three levels after each session. For math, there's less growth, and staff is working to address that.

 

At least 23 percent of students move up a proficiency level on the California Standards Tests compared with 15 percent of similar students who choose not to attend. The district is collecting data to see how many of the center's students actually avoid retention altogether.

 

"We see a lot of progress not only academically but socially and emotionally," says Morishita. "Some of these students are seeing success for the first time. They are grouped with students who have similar needs, and they are not struggling to keep up. For the first time they can be line leaders who bring attendance slips to the office. When they go back to their school sites, we get comments that they are not getting in trouble like they used to."

 

Some students are resentful when they first arrive. Staff explain to them that they are not being penalized; instead, they are being given a second chance to avoid being held back.

 

While many communities largely ignore the legislative ban on social promotion, Fresno has retained approximately 8,500 students in grades K-6 over the last six years. The fourth-largest school district in the state, it has more than 80,000 students, 75 percent of whom live in poverty. More than 100 different languages are spoken. The district's transiency rate is high.

 

The number of retentions is not going down, say district officials, because 6,000 new students enter the system every year.

 

Most retentions occur in grades K-3. Only about 100 seventh- and eighth-graders in the district are held back each year. In the upper grades, students are often socially promoted if the parents do not agree to retention.

 

The Achievement Center is just one of many intervention programs for students at risk of retention in Fresno. There are also literacy clinics, Saturday classes, before- and after-school intervention classes and a traditional summer school. Most are packed with students.

 

At Norseman School, intercession literacy clinic instructor Kristin Karlsson asks first- and second-graders the meaning of the word "gullible."

 

"Is Chicken Little gullible - or not gullible?" asks Karlsson, an off-track fifth-grade teacher and FTA member. The students, who are mostly English language learners, shout "gullible" out loud.

 

The teacher asks for other examples of gullible people. Brian suggests telling a friend that his shoe is untied to see if he is gullible. Classmates laugh, and draw some pictures demonstrating the word "gullible." Many of them are humorous.

 

Students see themselves as readers when they leave, says Cindy Schaefer, a resource teacher for the literacy clinics. Likewise, their parents see themselves as instrumental in their children's efforts to learn. Clinic workshops for parents include the services of translators.

 

While teachers try to make learning fun, students know it's important that they do well. "Some children are promoted or retained depending upon our intervention," says Schaefer. "This is serious."

 

It's also successful: Nine months after the conclusion of one literacy clinic, tests showed that 81 percent of the students were continuing to improve.

 

At Tenaya Middle School, early-bird students arrive for extra help in Mike Thurston's classroom between 6:40 and 7:40 a.m. The intervention program is intended to help students at risk of retention, but is open to all. Afternoon intervention classes are also available.

 

"I see kids all the way from the lowest-level classes

Getting extra help in learning to read at the clinic are first- and second-graders Amalia Madrid, Anahi Lopez and Jesus Millan.

through those taking geometry and algebra," says Thurston, a history and math teacher. The intervention program has become more popular now that there's an online system for parents to check their child's grades.

 

Student body president Barton Perry comes for early morning help in algebra. "If I didn't get it in class, Mr. Thurston explains it as if he were my teacher. That's why I'm getting A's. Sometimes when I get home and look at it, I'm lost." He prefers help outside of regular school hours so that he can take three electives - drama, jazz band and regular band.

 

Shelby Rosenwinkel, on the other hand, has gone from having an F to a D in math in just a few weeks, thanks to early morning intervention. She expects that her grade will soon rise to a C.

 

Unfortunately, says Thurston, many failing students skip out on before- and after-school intervention because it's voluntary. They have the ability to do the work, but lack the motivation. They know they're probably going to be promoted to high school anyway.

 

"Voluntary interventions are helpful, but sometimes they just aren't enough - especially when they go on to high school and have to pass the High School Exit Exam," he says. "There should be some type of accountability.

 

"You have to make it hurt sometimes."