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Summer school is normally a low-key affair, but the first day of classes this week at El Camino College near Torrance was like a footrace, with many students losing out.

On Monday and Tuesday, they crammed into classrooms, standing for lack of seats in the hopes of taking the spot of a no-show.

In Peter Marcoux’s English class, there were 20 overflow students. He admitted two, and that’s only because Marcoux generously agreed to take two more students beyond the 35-student maximum.

“The first two days were kind of crazy around here,” he said Thursday, while distributing a test to the students who were lucky enough to get into the class.

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If college speech-and-debate teams had the equivalent of a March Madness, El Camino College would be one of the powerhouse teams seeded to make the final four – even above the likes of UCLA, UC Berkeley and USC.

The team is ranked No. 1 in the nation among community colleges, and No. 2 when you add four-year universities to the mix, according to the National Parliamentary Debate Association.

This week, El Camino’s 13 great communicators are in Connecticut, where they will compete in the national tournament for community colleges – and defend last year’s first-place finish in the debate contest.

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A trustee on the five-member board of directors at El Camino College near Torrance hasn’t attended a meeting in nearly a year, and yet has continued to receive his $400-a-month stipend in absentia.

The elderly Nathaniel Jackson, a former dean at the school and the board’s Inglewood representative, has been out ill since September 2009. Because he is sick, Jackson is not legally required to give up his seat. Nor does he appear to be violating any laws by accepting pay, although a state investigator is looking into the matter.

Still, the long absence has caught the eye of at least one board watcher, area political consultant Fred Huebscher.

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