HIS JOB IS TO GET KIDS BACK INTO REGULAR SCHOOL AND OFF THE FAST TRACK TO JUVENILE HALL. : TEACHER DIRECTS YOUNGSTERS OUT OF DEAD END.

Byline: Dennis McCarthy 

``One girl started crying. I gave her the only A she ever had.''

- Pete Peterson.

They begin arriving around 7:30 a.m. outside Pete Peterson's classroom - a one-room schoolhouse located in the rear of St. Simon's Episcopal Church in San Fernando.

Pete's out front, as usual, greeting parents as they drop off their kids, smiling and wishing them a good morning - offering a personal touch that serves a couple of important purposes, he says.

One, it lets these parents know he's dependable and cares - that his classroom isn't just a way station on the road to where many of these kids will wind up if they don't straighten out soon: in lockup at juvenile hall.

Two, it ensures that the kids don't pull off the old morning con - wave goodbye to their parents as they're pulling out of the parking lot, then boogie on down the street to play hooky instead of going to school.

After 25 years as a teacher, Pete Peterson knows all the angles and excuses. He'd better, because when the Los Angeles Unified School District has a problem kid on its hands - a kid who's been expelled from regular school in the Valley - chances are they wind up with Pete as their teacher of last resort.

These are kids who assault teachers or other students, carry a knife on campus or deal drugs. Kids who get arrested, expelled, then are given one final chance in one of the 14 Community Centered Classroom (Tri-C) sites spread throughout Los Angeles.

They're off-campus schools on church properties and in city parks for kids whose indiscretions are more serious than truancy, but less than firing a weapon on campus, says Beth Newman, who oversees the sites for the LAUSD.

It's Pete's job to talk some sense into them as he teaches them - his job to get these kids back into regular school and off the fast track they're taking to juvenile hall.

On Monday morning he was still all smiles from a weekend visit with the parents of one of his former students who is now in his junior year at the University of California at Berkeley, majoring in business.

When Pete knew the kid, he was a young, morose middle schooler who had just been expelled for carrying a knife on campus.

Now, he's studying at one of the nation's premier universities learning the import-export business in hopes of starting a business exporting automobiles to China in the next century.

``Mr. Peterson was a major part of my son's life,'' says Young Yoo, the boy's mother, who lived in Van Nuys before moving out of the Valley after the earthquake. ``He turned my son back in the right direction.''

These are nice, rare words for a teacher like Peterson to hear. Too often, he'll pick up the newspaper and recognize the name of one of his former students as a suspect in a crime story.

That's why this job of his, and all the teachers' in the Tri-C program, is so important. Time's running out for the 13- and 14-year-old kids who come here. Pretty soon, nobody's going to be able to reach them.

They're tomorrow's crime headlines growing up today.

``My emphasis isn't on academics, it's on socialization, which is slang for relating and getting along better - something these kids have a hard time doing,'' Peterson says.

A few yards away, the 13 kids in his class are busy working on a computer game that has them planning a cross-country trip where they must keep logs on gas mileage, food and lodging.

``They enjoy it,'' Pete says, laughing as the kids try to figure out how much money they'll need. ``It's fun watching them run out of gas in the middle of nowhere.''

Most of these kids will spend six months with him then be given another opportunity in regular school - if Pete reaches them and gets them thinking more about socialization, less about rebellion.

After the computer game is over, Pete opens the morning newspaper, and the class moves into current events - the day's crime news.

As always, the emphasis will be on the victims, not the criminals.

``I'm trying to build an empathy in them,'' Pete says. ``We'll talk about how that could be their mother or grandmother being attacked for her purse, their brother or sister shot or beaten up, how they'd feel then.

``Basically, what I'm trying to teach is kindness. I know that sounds corny, but that's what it is.''

With that, the teacher of last resort goes back to teaching some of the Valley's toughest kids some kindness.

Goes back to trying to change tomorrow's crime headlines into success stories.