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After school lets out around Memorial Day, it might seem like a safe assumption that most kids take a three-month break from learning.

But that’s not the case for more than 1,200 children in the Bangor and West Salem school districts. Learning continues, but at a much more relaxed pace.

More than 800 youngsters attend summer school sessions in West Salem, according to elementary school Principal Dean Buchanan, who heads the summer school program for the district.

“Our summer school program seems to be meeting the needs of the community and the students. The focus is on remediation in math and enrichment in a multitude of areas,” Buchanan said.

In West Salem, there are also some remediation in reading and courses like geography and history, plus a whole group of classes that can enrich the quality of life — such as dance, painting and drawing, crafts and even track and field.

Bangor elementary Principal Lois Meinking, who is in charge of the summer program for Bangor, said about 400 students typically take summer courses. Surprisingly, she said, one of the most popular courses is German.

“The kids just love it,” Meinking said. “They’ll take more than one class.”

One Bangor summer school class that regularly attracts 30 to 40 kids or more is Patty Koss’ track and field class for kindergartners through freshmen. Koss has seen a lot of athletes come through in the years she has taught the course, and some of them have gone on to compete at the state level.

“That always brings back memories of when I first saw them and a realization of how far they’ve come. It just makes me very happy to think that I may have been able to help them a little bit,” Koss said.

West Salem, too, has its share of fun courses. With names like Fitness Follies, Guitar for Beginners, How to Survive Just About Anything and CSI-West Salem, many are designed to entice reluctant learners.

Darcy Sawyer, an eighth-grade science teacher at West Salem during the regular school year, was the instructor for the CSI course and, like most summer school teachers, she said she enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere while teaching the class for the first time.

“We learned fingerprinting, blood typing, hair and fiber analysis. We did a little DNA and blood spatter analysis and we even deciphered codes and hidden messages,” Sawyer said.

She even set up a crime scene in the classroom with students playing the part of the five suspects in a crime.

“They were really good at analyzing the evidence — it was wonderful,” Sawyer said.

Jane Bangsberg taught clay and origami at the elementary school in West Salem.

“We got 400 pounds of clay for the two-week class. That works out to about 10 pounds of clay per person. They got a chance to use the high school’s potter wheel, which is pretty exciting,” Bangsberg said.

CompassLearning — a computer program that lets students learn at their own pace — has continued to see increased usage at West Salem.

Martha Burdick runs the CompassLearning program during the regular school year, and she continues the program during the summer months because the district leased the program for a year and didn’t want to see it lie idle for three months.

Burdick continues to be enthusiastic about the program.

“I’m still learning different things I can do — especially during summer school. It’s exciting. I can help the students find really cool Web sites that help them learn. The sites are there in their assignments so they can link easily,” Burdick said.

Emily Trautman, a student in Burdick’s class, doesn’t seem to mind coming to school in summer at all.

“I like the activities and all the projects you can do on the computer,” she said. “Right now I’m studying Uranus.”

All the students in Burdick’s class have access to computers at home and, even after summer school ends, they can come in and meet personally with Burdick on four days.

“We e-mail back and forth all the time — I’m kind of on call for the summer,” Burdick said.

Burdick is one of 41 teachers on staff for West Salem’s summer school sessions while Bangor has 23 teachers.

“They really like teaching in the relaxed setting. It’s a very different atmosphere than during the school year,” Meinking added.

And, both Meinking and Buchanan say they’re pleased with the quality of the staff they’ve put together.

“Although I oversee this whole thing, it’s the staff who make it go,” Buchanan said. “We start planning for this in December — it isn’t something that’s just put together overnight.”

Bangor and West Salem’s summer school programs run only in the morning. Bangor’s summer sessions ended in late June while West Salem ended a session July 3. The only remaining summer session this year is West Salem’s academic literacy session that runs Aug. 11-21.

“It’s a jump-start for the fall,” Buchanan said. “The focus is on reading. The younger kids who have been away from school awhile go through reading in smaller settings. The older kids learn how to focus on understanding content and on strategies for learning from a textbook.

“The great advantage of academic literacy programs is that it helps kids understand and focus on the right things. It really seems to help during the academic year.”

NO VACATION FOR EDUCATION

Sure, it might be summer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean school doors are closed. In fact, the summer can be one of the busiest times for a school district. This is the first article in a series that takes a look at what goes on in districts when school is “out” for the summer.

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