How are they placing into calculus then? If you are taking calculus you should be able to solve and manipulate and transcendental function. I went to a low-performing high school and was tossed into the deep end in Engineering Math I at a T10 undergraduate engineering school.

It kicked my ass and I scraped by with a C. Before the class, I could barely solve a quadratic. By the end my algebra skills were top tier and I truly learned how to use algebra.

The class covered limits, mathematical optimization, vectors and vector spaces, differentiation, and integration. Kicked my ass but that was hell...

Math through PDEs and Fourier Analysis was a breeze after that class. That professor never gave up on me and was able to teach me basic algebraic manipulation in addition to core calculus concepts.