BUDDING GENIUSES\Students show gifts at magnet.

Byline: Kimberly Kindy Daily News Staff Writer

It's the only Los Angeles public high school that requires students to have a genius-level IQ - a rare place where students think summer school is hip, hand in projects never assigned and start building resumes at age 15.

"My learning will not be done when I leave here and I don't want it to ever to be done," declared sophomore Jocelyn Greene. "Every student here is excited about learning. That's all it takes to be in a highly gifted magnet."

That, and an IQ of 145 or higher.

Walk into Gail Grande's math class and students are surrounded by their own eye-popping art work, which they designed using advanced mathematical principles that would stump many college grads.

Next door, 14-year-old student Lynn Lee holds intricate, hand-built dioramas while describing the role Martin Luther played in history, then fields a flurry of theological questions from classmates.

Over in Kailim Toy's history class, students are heatedly comparing Quebec's attempt to secede from Canada in 1995 to the South's desire to separate from the North before the Civil War.

Home to some of the city's biggest student brains, the 7-year-old magnet center is a special school-within-a-school located on North Hollywood High School's sprawling campus - and is ground zero in a debate over whether the larger school should be placed on a year-round schedule.

Here, learning is a two-way street for the magnet center's 244 students - and an ego-blasting experience for some of their teachers.

"Quite honestly, there are teachers who don't want to teach these students," said Grande. "They are intimidating, and you have to accept that you may learn from your students."

Dated lectures and fill-in-the-blank work sheets won't cut it here.

"They won't do busy work," said Spanish teacher Phyllis Spadafora. "You can't give them handouts. They will just refuse to do them. I can't get away with that kind of thing."

Students, 95 percent of whom will go on to a four-year college or university, say their teachers understand them, and the interplay allows them to excel.

"They respect you. They know you're smart and they know you are motivated," said junior Kevin Lahue. "The lessons are unbiased, they do not contain a certain doctrine. They respect that you have a mind and you can form your own opinions. And, they ask you what you think."

Because the magnet combines the perks of a large urban high school with a challenging academic program designed for young geniuses, the North Hollywood High School program is prized by the tiny percentage of students who win acceptance.

Although genius is a designation generally accorded to those with an IQ of 150 or higher, the magnet allows students a 5-point variance, acknowledging that tests are not perfect.

An average IQ is pegged at 100, with geniuses representing about one-half of 1 percent of the world's population.

Qualifying students are picked by a computer program designed to racially integrate the candidate pool. The highly-gifted magnet has 55 eligible students on the waiting list.

The combination of a regular high school experience with a top-flight academic program was what prompted Josh Lehrer-Graiswer to leave his $15,000-a-year private school and become part of the first graduating class of North Hollywood's highly-gifted magnet in 1991.

Lehrer-Graiswer is currently studying on a one-year fellowship at Cambridge University in England to earn his master's degree in biochemistry.

"In a public school you get a much broader cross-section of all kinds of people," said Lehrer-Graiswer, who played on the varsity baseball team. "I think it's important to understand other people - not just (other) racial groups, but people from different backgrounds."

"I think I learned as much from other students as from the teachers in high school," he said.

Faculty members say it's clear the students love school and love learning. Last year, 20 of the magnet's 244 students had perfect attendance, compared with 10 of the general high school's population of 2,150.

Students who might be bored in regular programs "feed on each other" in the magnet program, said Carol Singerman, head of the parent advisory council for the magnet.

"It's wonderful. It's amazing when you hear them," said Singerman, whose 11th-grade son attends the magnet. "They are not isolated like in a regular school where they are afraid to open their mouths, afraid that people will think they are a geek and laugh at them."

Senior Paul Smith said he applied to the magnet for the reasons Singerman described.

"The prevailing attitude is, 'I hate school and I want to leave as soon as possible. I want to ditch,' " Smith said. "Here, I am surrounded by people who have the same goals as I do, the same drive. They want to do well."

The drive of these students is evidenced both in the number of awards they win and the way their course work is structured.

The fast-paced school still doesn't leave students yearning for a summer vacation, though. Many attend summer academies, workshops and seminars - some at Oxford, Harvard and Stanford.

Last summer, senior Kevin Shapiro conducted research at the Russian Academy of Science at the Moscow State University Institute at Pushchino and submitted a paper on his findings in the 55th annual Westinghouse Science Talent Search.

He was named one of 40 finalists last month, an honor shared by five Nobel Prize winners.

Mention the award and Shapiro blushes. His friends have given him a good-natured ribbing. "Wanted: Kevin Shapiro. For Making Us All Look Stupid. $100 Reward," says a small hand-drawn poster hanging inside the magnet office.

Students' desire to utilize their summers for educational enrichment opportunities is at the center of a fight under way at the school, which will go to a year-round calendar in the fall.

Parents say the school council's decision last month has placed the magnet on a calendar that jeopardizes students' ability to attend academic summer programs.

Parents argue that the programs bolster their children's studies and their chances of being accepted into Ivy League colleges.

At the magnet, teachers say educating this caliber of student - who already keep company with Nobel Prize winners - can be a daunting task.

"My first day here two kids walked in late and I asked them for their excuses. They said they had just returned back from summer school . . . at Harvard," said English teacher Randy Vail. "And I thought, 'What am I supposed to do now?' "

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Photo (1--color) Students walk past a pattern designed by students in the highly-gifted magnet at North Hollywood High. (2--color) Arianna Haut tries to fit police car in a sentence in David Corcos' Spanish class. (3) Jonah Hoffman and Lynn Lee are enrolled in the magnet program. (4) Magnet students Eric Rodriguez, left, and Brice Wu transplant a tree. Both are members of North Hollywood High School's Ecology Club. John McCoy/Daily News