School has been out for two months, but many students at Bedford High School have been busy with classes this summer. Nearly a third of them attended a summer school program at Bedford High.

The first session of summer school last month had 132 students. Faced with a higher-than-expected enrollment and scheduling conflicts for some families, the school is holding a second session this month. An additional 39 students showed up for the program, which began Aug. 11.

Combined, those numbers constitute a sizable portion of the 580 freshmen and sophomores who went to Bedford High School last year.

“My general sense is that it’s a higher number than I’ve had in other schools,” said Principal George Edwards.

More than half the students in the two summer sessions did not even fail a class. Instead, they did not pass one of several “competencies,” which are skills and knowledge students must master in order to earn credit for their courses, even if they have an overall passing grade.

Bedford High School is one of two in New Hampshire that used competencies last year. Starting this fall, the state has mandated the system for all high schools.

The first summer school session was evenly divided between students making up a class they had failed and those who were completing a competency. The second summer school session is for competencies only.

“Rather than just say, ‘Hey you didn’t get it. You failed,’ what we’ve said with those students is, ‘You know what? we’re going to give you a little extra time to see if you can address that competency and bring it up to an acceptable level,’” Edwards said.

There were several reasons for the high number of students, he said. As a general rule, freshmen and sophomores tend to fail classes at a higher rate than upperclassmen.

“We won’t have as many juniors and seniors because, quite honestly, by the time kids get to junior, senior year they’ve kind of figured high school out a little bit and they get a little bit better at it,” Edwards said.

This year the high school will add the junior class. It will top out with seniors next year. As Bedford High expands, Edwards said that will have the opposite effect on summer school enrollment. “I don’t think it will increase proportionally,” he said. “I think proportionally it will be smaller as we move forward.”

A second reason is the simple fact that the past year was the first one for the high school. Edwards, who also was principal for a new high school that opened in Bow, said that students at a new school wonder if it is really serious about the standards it has set for them. Once they realize that it is, they work harder at their studies.

“There’s an old saying that students rise to the level of expectations, and, if you raise expectations, students’ performance is going to rise along with your increased expectations and I think that’s really true,” Edwards said.

Edward said all the competency students in the first summer school completed their work and 65 out of 66 students who had failed a class during the school year were able to make it up. He estimates that 75 percent of students who ended the year with an academic deficiency – either a failed class or competency – will have been able to rectify the situation by the end of the summer.

“My general reaction to that is that’s a good percentage,” Edwards said.

The combined total cost of the two summer school sessions remains to be seen, according to Mark Conrad, the chief financial officer for Bedford schools. He said the district had budgeted $12,385 for summer school. So far revenue has come in at just under $20,000 including the first session and early payments for the second, according to Conrad. The cost of the first session, which is mostly payroll, was $16,691. “Those costs will go up as the second session comes into play,” Conrad said.