California summer school reshaped by COVID

The message to the schools of the elite, including Governor Gavin Newsom and Education Minister Miguel Cardona, was clear. The summer programs in 2021 should be robust. You should reach as many students as possible. And above all, they should be fun.

To make all of this possible, California’s school districts jointly received $ 4.6 billion from the state in early March to fill the learning gaps widened by the pandemic and to prepare students mentally and emotionally for their return to campus in the fall.

But despite the boost in funding that allowed the vast majority of California’s school districts to open this summer, the size and scope of many programs have been increased by teacher and staff shortages, the district’s inability to ramp up programs fast enough, and the desire for a break amid ongoing security concerns.

And several of the region’s largest districts, including Los Angeles Unified, had fewer visitors than hoped for despite unprecedented resources.

“So many districts had never done this before and were really trying to figure out how to spend the money and where to hire,” said Jennifer Peck, president of Partnership for Children and Youth, an Oakland-based organization that advocates for expanded learning programs for students from underserved communities.

Due to the lack of funding in the past, the public summer school has long been mainly offered as subject teaching for students with disabilities, credit recovery for high school students, and tutoring in math and language. Relatively few California school districts had the bandwidth or the money to offer free, enrichment opportunities such as outdoor recreation, visual and performing arts, and second language instruction.

But this year, 73% of California’s school districts planned to offer enrichment classes in early June, state data shows. State officials encouraged schools to work with community organizations to offer options that would be both fun and academically empowering.

That year, LA Unified and San Diego Unified, the state’s two largest school systems, opened personal summer programs for all students.

As of July 8, Los Angeles had about 100,000 students – about 22% of its 465,000 students – enrolled in a summer program, according to the district. LA Unified has partnered with community organizations to offer a diverse range of enriching courses for K-12 students: exercise and nutrition, language teaching, cartoon drawing and animation, and dance choreography.

Despite the district’s efforts to attract more students using these opportunities, enrollment numbers were similar to 2020 when all summer courses were online. This summer, 41% of the participants were online.

LA Unified chief academic officer Alison Yoshimoto-Towery said this is the first time families have taken the opportunity to travel. “The fact that so many families still choose the online option says something,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s safety or convenience.”

Yoshimoto-Towery noted that K-8 summer enrollments were “extremely small” prior to the pandemic, so increased attendance for these classes – and the funding that made it possible – is a blessing.

The funds of the summer school, which are provided by the state parliament draft SB 86, can be used until September 30, 2024 for teaching support during the coming school year and until the next summer. If the money is not spent by that time, the state will collect the remainder from the districts. LA Unified received $ 401 million of the total of $ 4.6 billion made available to California’s districts.

San Diego Unified saw a nearly five-fold increase in enrollments between 2019 and 2021. The district typically serves 5,000 of its 98,000 students through summer programs that have historically included loan repayment for high school students and the “extended school year” for students with special needs. This year, 23,000 students signed up for the district’s expanded offerings for K-12 students, said district spokesman Andrew Sharp.

“It’s a fundamental change for us,” said Sharp. “[The state funding] gave us the opportunity to develop programs we always wanted to develop. ”San Diego offers enrichment opportunities through partnerships with community organizations including the San Diego Zoo, La Jolla Playhouse, Girl Scouts, and YMCA, which run a surf camp.

The Long Beach Unified School District nearly doubled its usual enrollment in summer school between 2019 and 2021. However, due to personnel challenges, the district has not offered its program to support, enrich and accelerate learning to all K-8 students. Students with the highest needs were given preference and other families could enroll their children upon request.

“We promoted the summer school to make fall easier for students, and we used an exciting array of enriching courses and extended hours as an incentive,” said Christopher Lund, Assistant Principal, K-8 District.

Government funding made it possible for some smaller circles to offer a summer school for the first time in years.

The Hawthorne School District, which serves mostly K-8 students with the exception of one charter high school, closed the summer school in 2016 due to low attendance and limited resources. This year, 530 of Hawthorne’s 8,000 students – 89% of whom received free or discounted lunch in the 2019-2020 school year – are enrolled, with 15 on a waiting list, said district special projects director Michael Collins. Due to a lack of staff, the district was only able to offer a program to students with high needs.

Many districts struggled to recruit teachers for the work this summer after a busy year. For example, the Palmdale School District has a waiting list of 400 students because not enough teachers have volunteered. The district’s programs were limited to a total of 805.

Candace Craven, Palmdale’s advanced learning coordinator, said it “felt terrible” to have to turn children away. “But I have to say, the teachers who wanted to do it were so excited to be standing in front of their students again,” she said.

Some districts encouraged teacher participation with raises – salary increases made possible by the influx of government funds. Others offered flexibility to the summer staff. Lawndale Elementary School District and Redondo Unified encouraged teachers to develop curricula that they enjoyed most, while the Hawthorne School District gave teachers the option to opt for two- and three-week shifts instead of the full five.

COVID-19 security measures also hampered classroom capacity. In many districts, cohorts were limited to 10 to 15 students as stipulated in teacher union agreements.

The offers of some districts were additionally hindered by the lack of time. “When the state budget was allocated in March, we had to write a plan and have it approved by the board by June,” said Nadia Hillman, assistant principal of the Duarte Unified School District. “There are a lot of things we can and want to do, but at the end of the year we had a lot of tired people.”

Academic exhaustion also dampened participation. Many families just needed a break, said district administrators.

This was the case in Duarte, a predominantly Latino community that has been hard hit by the pandemic. Enrollment in the summer school at Duarte is usually around 1,000. This year 850 enrolled – partly because of a lack of staff, but also because many parents decided to keep their children at home. “You could finally go out and take a vacation,” said Hillman. “And some of our families are not quite ready to send students to school personally.”

Many parents still opted for summer school to bring their children to join them.

Renee Bailey’s daughter, Cali, will go to first grade at Westwood Charter Elementary without being able to read. Online learning didn’t catch on with Cali; she couldn’t concentrate and kept little information. The Baldwin Hills mom saw some promise in LA Unified’s summer programs, though her expectations weren’t high given the backlog from Cali.

“I felt like it was very important for Cali to learn classroom etiquette, meet friends, and try to educate them as academically as possible,” said Bailey.

After four weeks, Cali hadn’t improved much with reading, Bailey said. But she looks forward to going to school and seeing her new friends every morning – a win in itself.

Preparing children for return to campus through low-stress activities with classmates and socio-emotional learning exercises is the focus of many programs.

In the Pasadena Unified School District, K-8 students were immersed daily in activities designed to increase their emotional competence, confidence, and communication skills. Students created “emotion sheets” to explore how difficult emotions manifest themselves in their bodies and behavior, and what they can do to deal with them, and “worry pillows” to squeeze when overwhelmed.

“Many of the students who came here were terrified of being with other people after being isolated for so long,” said program director Maria Toliver. “These activities brought a little calm, a little softness into the atmosphere and brought them in groups so that it doesn’t get so traumatic after the start of school.”

The Redondo Beach Unified School District offered two-week “Summer Bridge Institutes” that enabled distressed students and teachers to focus on just one topic or activity for a short time. Courses included reading in Spanish, a journalism course for first graders, and sports and drama.

The district based the program on research showing that student engagement is driven by choice and an understanding that teachers and students were burned out.

The institutes are very popular. “We had teachers who came from the woodworks to lead these passionate projects,” said Susan Wildes, assistant director of the district’s education services. More than 1,600 students have registered for at least one class, with many others choosing several. The district typically enrolls about 300 K-8 students in summer school.

“We really wanted to focus on getting the kids excited about restarting school,” said Wildes, “as opposed to filling in gaps they missed.”

source https://outdoorsportsnews.com/california-summer-school-reshaped-by-covid/