MENIFEE - Starting next month, Menifee middle school students who fail to achieve basic proficiency in the mathematics or language arts sections of state tests won't be eligible to take elective courses, including band and art.

Instead, the students in the year-round schools who did not pass the Standardized Testing and Reporting will be enrolled in a special intervention class in the subject in which they're underachieving, Menifee Union School District officials said. Upon achieving proficiency, the students will be allowed to return to band or other electives.

"We are trying to prepare the kids for the high school exit exam," said Katey Hoehn, the Menifee district's director of special programs. "We need to start now."

This model of enhanced instruction for severely underachieving students may be new to Menifee middle schools, but isn't a unique concept. Across the county, several districts have adopted it since 2005, Hoehn said.

The new policy affects students in grades 6 through 8.

On the math side, the state exit exam tests students on concepts taught in the seventh grade plus a sprinkling of algebra. The language arts portion quizzes students on ninth- and 10th-grade-level material.

Hoehn insists the district isn't "teaching to the test," a common criticism leveled at schools today.

"We're teaching to the standards," she said. "The … assessment is a way of measuring whether the student has mastered the grade-level expectations."

Only one parent of a student performing below basic proficiency has complained about the district denying her son's request to be enrolled in band, officials said.

Suzi Maldonado, the mother of a Menifee Valley Middle School seventh-grader, is disappointed with the district's new policy, saying she wishes the officials had taken a different approach to help lift the students' test scores.

"Music and art are very important to their overall education," Maldonado said. "It's sad; it's a tragedy."

She said that's true particularly for her 12-year-old son, Lucas. He played trumpet in the band this last school year. Next year, Lucas won't be enrolled in band because of the policy.

"It's not only his favorite class, it was one of the few areas where he learned to be independent," Suzi Maldonado said.

The president of the Menifee district board of trustees supports the new rule.

"The primary goal of education is reading and math," Trustee Fred Twyman said. "And the No. 1 thing we're accountable for is reading and math, not whether (students) can play an instrument - though that and art are great things."

Twyman believes schools and parents need to stress those subjects to their children.

"Even with my own kids, if they get less than a C or even less than a B in some classes … I tell them they can't do some activities until they bring up their grades," he said.

- Contact staff writer Brian Eckhouse at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2626, or beckhouse@californian.com.