Students are getting ripped off at public summer schools that cut corners to save money — including one program that ended Friday after just 10 days of classes, The Post has learned.
And a second high school stuck English students in front of computers and essentially assigned a baby sitter — who didn’t have a teaching license — rather than a certified instructor to keep an eye on them.
School insiders say giving out credits like candy can boost a high school’s rating and cut down on teaching costs, but only at the expense of hundreds of students.
“We all think it’s a joke. A lot of people are hurt by it,” said one school source. “The kids don’t waste their time working during the semester; they just assume they’ll get the credits in summer school.”
At Bronx Health Sciences HS in Baychester, students said they collected credits equivalent to a half school year’s worth of work in just 10 days, which works out to 7.5 hours of class time per course.
Yet state and city guidelines call for six times as much instruction (45 hours total) over the summer to earn a single full credit.
Principal Miriam Rivas did not respond to multiple e-mails seeking comment, but told the Department of Education that students had mistakenly believed they were earning full credit when they were getting only partial credit — roughly 0.2 credits per class.
Her claim came despite students confirming that they’ve seen full credits appear on their transcripts for summer courses each year.
The DOE is looking into the matter, officials said.
At Women’s Academy of Excellence in The Bronx, students said the English class has no instructor and no one to answer their questions when they need help with an educational computer program that is teaching them.
Instead, the school assigned a $30,000-a-year “community associate” — a noneducator who is paid to be a liaison between the school and the surrounding area — to monitor the classroom.
“Honestly, I don’t learn much from [the computer]. It tells me stuff, but it doesn’t show me what I’m learning,” said 17-year-old junior Monica Morgan.
“I was so confused . . . I’d get more out of a textbook.”
Despite confirmation from a dozen students and staffers about the lack of a certified teacher, Principal Arnette Crocker denied the charge through the DOE.
She did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
A DOE spokeswoman said the certified instructor was a “virtual” teacher whom the students could ask questions of by e-mail — but the kids said that was news to them.
“I never got offered that,” said soon-to-be sophomore Emani Brown, 15.
DOE officials insisted that the “virtual” teacher was allowable under state regulations.
Those regulations require that online courses be taught or supervised by a certified teacher in the same school district.