My summer school memories are a mix of blurred moments of riding in a hot yellow school bus and staring in misery at other students in the class. No one, including the teacher, wanted to be in a hot class while others enjoyed their summer at the beach. Summer school felt less like school and more like punishment, and being required to complete homework seemed to magnify the torture. I’m not sure how summer school came to an end or how I would measure success, but I passed every class and never returned to summer school.
I assume summer school today is a far cry from what it was like in my day. In an AXIOS article published June 20. 2022 by Erin Doherty titled: Summer school could be the norm for students. Summer school emerged last year as an “anchor” of student recovery after two-plus years of interrupted learning due to the pandemic.
Dennis Roche, the president of school tracking site Burbio said summer school programs increased last year, but they were largely focused on recovery efforts for kids who had fallen behind. Julie Roche, co-founder of Burbio said, one of the reasons in the past that summer school wasn’t popular is kids needed a break.
This is going to be a multi-summer trend, where you’re going to see the expansion of the school year, not in the same way as required in the academic school year, but you’re going to see this kind of bulk up said Dennis Roche.
So parents it seems summer school serves multiple important functions and is essential to help children recoup the lost academic progress as a result of two-year pandemic distance learning. In fact, an article written by Megan Kuhfield, Jim Soland, Karyn Lewis and Emily Morton of Brookings published March 3, 2022 in the Brown Center Chalkboard state as we reach the two-year mark of the initial wave of the pandemic- induced school shut downs, academic normalcy remains out of reach for many students, educators and parents,
They go on to say their research outcomes are alarming and potentially demoralizing, especially given the heroic efforts of students to learn and educators to teach in incredibly trying times.
I view this research as suggesting as a result of the academic losses children have experienced, parent involvement is critical, and TG4S is here to help by making it easy for you to connect with the school and support the schools efforts to close the two-year achievement gaps caused by the pandemic.