A year after implementing a new unified school calendar with a shortened summer vacation, education officials are considering going back to a longer break.

It has become clear that the six-week vacation didn't leave enough time for students to get extra credits in summer school.

"There's the possibility of looking at changing the calendar, and the effect would be to have the summer break be at least one week longer," said Greg Knudsen, spokesman for the state Department of Education.

Even if action is taken now, however, changes to the calendar wouldn't take effect until the summer of 2009.

That means two more short summers in which students will have to scramble to find the classes that are increasingly scarce. It also means two more years in which schools will have to improvise a variety of summer-school alternatives, such as Web-based makeup classes during the regular school year, extra classes after school, or what is being called "twilight school," with late afternoon or evening classes.

"We have to rethink summer school," said Keoni Inciong, the department's program manager for summer school.

In the higher grades, summer school traditionally has been a last chance for students to make up courses they've failed or get a jump ahead on credits. In the lower grades, it's a chance for academic enrichment that helps students retain what they've learned.

But for the third year in a row, there's been a drop in the number of schools offering summer school. Numbers have fallen from 75 schools two years ago, to 60 last year, to 41 so far this year.

Officials said one factor is the difficulty of finding teachers who want to spend their shortened six-week break teaching summer school instead of taking a respite.

At Moanalua High, vice principal Julie Toyama said, there are calls every day from parents trying to find summer-school space for their child. While Moanalua can take about 900 summer-school students every year, the classes are almost full already.

The school has been referring students who can't find space at Moanalua to other schools, as well as to the DOE e-school, which offers classes online, she said.

"It's just really difficult all around," she said. "How can we accommodate more students — it's getting worse and worse every year."

Parent Cindy Tanaka said she was upset earlier this spring to learn her daughter's school, Kaiser High, plus most of the other Honolulu high schools, had planned no summer programs even though there were students who wanted to leap ahead in their academic curriculum by taking summer classes. It left an expensive private school summer program as the only option.

But last week all that changed, she said, after complaints from parents.

"Kaiser said because of the number of complaints and concerns by parents and students, they made the decision to have a mini summer session and an e-school," said Tanaka, adding she was thankful she didn't spend the money for the private school program. "Now my daughter's going to do this online class. The kids nowadays have it all planned out what they want to take in the summer to advance their curriculum."

E-SCHOOL FILLING UP

Even e-school is filling up its summer classes quickly although registration just opened this week.

"Already we're in a wait-list situation for one class," said registrar Allen Cole.

Cole faces the same problem regular schools have — a shortage of teachers willing to spend their shortened summer helping students make up classes they've failed during the school year.

"That's the reason why regular schools aren't offering as much summer school — because they just can't find the teachers to do it in their time off."

Knudsen, the DOE spokesman, said summer school is staffed by teachers who voluntarily choose to teach during the summer.

"However, rather than working straight through (the calendar year)," he said in a statement, "most teachers prefer to use their summer break to refresh and renew, as well as plan and prepare for the coming school year."

The problem could grow worse, says student school board member Darren Ibara, a senior at Roosevelt High School. With graduation requirements increasing from 22 to 24 credits, no one can now afford to fail a single class.

"In a couple of years, it's really going to affect the graduation rates," said Ibara, "because if people fail a class here and there, that will make a difference."

Even before this year's summer school sites were tallied, Board of Education members asked the department to address the lack of sufficient teachers or schools willing to offer courses that could be key for some students' graduation.

Partly as a result of that — and to meet needs of No Child Left Behind, which is increasing academic demands every three years — the department is stepping back to take a far broader look at the whole school calendar, with the idea of offering a range of types of summer school and making it far more effective academically.

It means tinkering with the length of the breaks, along with using the break times in a way that will better bolster academic achievement.

"We're rethinking how our school system runs in the whole calendar year and how we can utilize the breaks in different ways," said Inciong, the summer school program manager.

OTHER ALTERNATIVES

Meanwhile, schools are experimenting with ways to enrich offerings during the year as an alternative to summer school.

At Nanakuli High and Intermediate, the school is experimenting with a Web-based program that gives students a chance to recover lost credits during the school year.

"It does help," said Cassie Nii, assessment coordinator for the school. "As of January, 87 students were enrolled and 70 credits were earned. The majority will take it during the school day and we've already noticed an increase in our graduation rates. They've gone from 85.5 overall in 2005 up to 96.1 percent."

At Nanaikapono Elementary School in Nanakuli, "Geometry Camp" for the past two summers — and scheduled again this summer — is giving sixth-graders a jump start on the harder math courses in intermediate school.

"The camp lasts anywhere from two to three weeks and it's free. The kids last year came back and talked to the teacher and told her that some of the stuff that was on the Hawai'i State Assessment test they already knew," because of the camp, said principal Myron Brumaghim, who said he has been astonished at the progress of his students under teacher Shari Takahashi.

DOE officials also are pondering what it would mean to lengthen the school day to accommodate makeup classes, academic enrichment programs and other activities that recover credits during the year.

"Ours is much too short," assistant superintendent Kathy Kawaguchi told a board committee earlier this year, referring to the Hawai'i school day that generally starts at 8 a.m. and gets out at 2:15 p.m. except Wednesdays, when students leave at 1:30 p.m.

Some schools are looking at "twilight school" to offer extra classes after school or in the evening. At Roosevelt High, for instance, the concept could be available in the fall.

"This upcoming summer school was canceled, so they're trying to implement programs like the twilight schools," Ibara said. "I think that's for next year."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.