On Oct. 19, Baldwin-Whitehall schools Superintendent Randal Lutz sent a letter to district families with a message that would become all too familiar to thousands of students and parents across the region.
An employee who worked in several schools had tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the district to close multiple buildings.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced schools in the region and around the country to pivot back and forth from in-person learning to remote instruction models countless times during the 2020-21 academic year. The disruptions added to concerns about educational quality and learning loss amid the pandemic.
As a result, many school districts are expanding their summer program offerings and boosting the number of children who can participate in them. School officials say they plan to use federal aid to build on their existing summer learning options or to create new ones.
The Baldwin-Whitehall School District normally has an extended school year option for students with special needs and English language learners. This summer, because the district has been in a hybrid or remote model for the entire year, the district is adding an in-person summer “Discovery Camp” that includes academics and activities, as well as a learn-to-earn program for high school English language learners.
“We know that learning has been interrupted,” Mr. Lutz said recently. “Even for the children that are in the buildings, it’s been four days of direct instruction or interaction with a teacher face-to-face and then one day remote.”
The Pittsburgh Public Schools also is expanding the capacity and scope of its summer offerings this year with its new Summer BOOST effort that’s meant to combat learning loss.
The district’s usual summer programming, the Summer Dreamers Academy, is for those who have completed grades K-5. Summer BOOST will provide open summer learning opportunities to about 4,800 students — about twice as many as usual — by opening up programming to K-11, according to district spokeswoman Ebony Pugh.
“Summer learning opportunities like Summer BOOST, are important in the fight against summer learning loss, compounded by a year of remote instruction due to the pandemic,” Melanie Claxton, the district’s out-of-school-time coordinator, said during a press conference in April. “PPS students in all grade levels will have access to a high-quality summer learning experience with supports in place to network, explore and thrive.”
The Norwin School District, which usually holds a reading camp and other activities for elementary students over the summer, is again holding a camp-style summer program. But the district is expanding it considerably this year and opening it to all students, Superintendent Jeff Taylor said.
The district typically had 50 to 75 students in its summer programs before COVID-19. This year, he said, nearly 800 have expressed interested in participating.
“We were put in a position that most school districts were where we were required to shut down for days or weeks at a time due to the COVID cases,” he said. “Knowing that a lot of our students are not strong online learners, they couldn’t get as much out of their curriculum as we would have hoped. So we wanted to make sure that students had the skills and the competency they needed to be successful for the start of next school year.”
The district’s K-8 program will focus heavily on reading skills and follow the theme of a real summer camp.
Students in that program will start the day with an “opening campfire” that features a community-building activity. Then a teacher will read a story and ask questions, leading into an activity that has to do with the story.
Later, some students will read on their own while others work in small groups with a teacher. Breaks for fun activities will be mixed throughout the day, which will end with a “closing campfire” at which students reflect on what they learned.
“When you’re a third grader, second grader in the summertime, you typically want to be outside playing with your friends,” he said. “So we had to find something that we knew would engage those students.”
While school districts have worked for months to boost their summer offerings, teachers have not been as eager to sign up for more work.
Officials of many school districts said they have had trouble finding enough educators, as many teachers declined to sign on for summer programs after dealing with the challenges of the past year.
The Wilkinsburg School District, for example, said it needs staff members to volunteer for a summer program to be possible.
“It is certainly our plan to have a summer school program,” Superintendent Linda Iverson said. “However, it is contingent upon being able to have staff who are interested in working this summer.”
Janet O'Rourke, the Bethel Park School District’s assistant superintendent for curriculum and special services, said finding enough staff to run a summer programming was her biggest concern.
While Bethel Park has enough staff to offer some in-person opportunities, an online program will be open to more students.
“It might not be the opportunity that everybody wants, but it’s an opportunity for everybody to have something to remediate or extend their learning,” she said.
Ms. O’Rourke, though, said she understands why many teachers wanted the summer off.
“Summers have always been a time in which teachers take a deep breath but then plan forward,” she said.
“Schools in general have been running on crisis mode for the last year plus a couple months trying to adapt to everything that we’ve been dealt. And with that being said, you’re just tired, you want to be able to regroup and start the next school year fresh and energetic.”
The Uniontown Area School District also ran into a problem with staffing because many teachers did not want to sign up for summer school after such an exhausting year, according to curriculum coordinator Mindy Harris.
“I can’t blame the teachers at all,” Ms. Harris said. “This has been an extremely difficult year, and they need a break.”
She said the district has turned to community-based programs, Intermediate Unit 1, substitutes and para-professionals and even recent graduates from California University of Pennsylvania.
Many districts have used similar strategies to boost staffing.
Ms. O’Rourke said Bethel Park will also bring in recent college graduates, many of whom recently finished a student teaching stint in the district.
Baldwin-Whitehall, too, has turned to former student teachers in addition to substitutes and para-professionals to help staff its summer programs, Mr. Lutz said.
Though many school systems anticipated a significant rise in the number of students enrolling in summer programs, officials in some districts are not experiencing the increase they expected. That’s because the difficult year pushed students, like teachers, to exhaustion and caused burnout.
For Mr. Lutz, the lag in interest causes concern, especially for seniors who may need credit recovery so they can graduate.
“Our numbers are not very strong, and I’m not sure if we’ll be able to meet what our anticipated goal was,” he said. “We just expected that based upon the failure rates at the secondary level, where teachers have been able to voice their concern, the numbers would be a little stronger.”
Mr. Lutz said the district will continue to advertise the summer opportunities the district will provide.
The push to expand summer programming is not just happening at the local level.
The U.S. Department of Education launched a national summer learning and enrichment collaborative in April to help students most impacted by the pandemic. It teams up state and local officials with education stakeholders to create summer programs that address the instructional, social and extracurricular time students lost.
“Too many students have experienced interruptions in learning and negative effects on their social and emotional well-being due to time apart from friends and community,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “Summer presents a key opportunity for school districts and community partners to accelerate learning and provide new avenues for students to safely engage with each other in fun activities.”
Andrew Goldstein: agoldstein@post-gazette.com.
First Published: May 23, 2021, 9:53 a.m.
