Innovative summer classes mix it up with creative spins on reading, writing, ’rithmetic

Better funding and community input has helped put summer school back on the calendar, with innovative programs heralding new ways of slowing the summer slide.

Summer classes, trimmed to mostly remedial offerings even before recession-era cuts, have a fresh lease on life this year, part of a push to appeal to more students and keep what kids learn from leaking out over summer vacation.

“Summer school is no longer just for kids who are struggling,” said Robert Serrato, Ceres Unified summer school coordinator.

Ceres Unified, one of the few to keep summer school going through the recession, greatly expanded its offerings this year by letting teachers take over.

Teachers dreamed up their own ideas for classes, showing how the topics would work on student writing skills, Serrato said. Each class had a $200 budget for materials, which the district bought in one bulk purchase from a school supply store.

“Ceres was very committed to making sure these opportunities were there. We know there is a summer brain drain,” Serrato said. Research shows that summer drain affects low-income kids the most, which are the majority of Ceres students.

“We knew we had to make summer school more interesting,” he said.

Teachers at every school stepped up with a wide range of topics in science, art and sports. Summer classes included writing about soccer or basketball, studying farms and learning survival skills.

Weaving, singing, music appreciation, puppetry and piano lessons were among the art offerings. Summer science classes covered the rain forest, penguins, food science, dirt, worms, robotics, the ocean and other topics.

Giving teachers free rein let them focus on their passions and saved hiring another administrator for the program, Serrato said. “Amazingly – it’s a lot more work, but they’re happy to do it,” he said.

Stanislaus Union School District in north Modesto also expanded and revved up its summer school offerings this year, with two-days-a-week “camps” at Chrysler and Eisenhut elementary schools and Prescott Junior High.

Libraries at all three schools stayed open through Thursday offering paper books and reading online.

Elementary students rotated through four classes focused on art or science, with an exercise class in yoga, ballet or sports. Summer offered a chance to work on basics, but do it differently, said Stanislaus Union Superintendent Britta Skavdahl.

“They’re learning stuff,” she said. “They just don’t know it.”

Arts classes ranged from studying the masters to doing crafts. Drama students wrote and performed a play. Music offerings included guitar lessons, percussion and ukulele singalongs. Science delved into coding, flowers, rainbows, robotics, crime labs, squid dissection and atoms.

“We teach so much math, science and all this other stuff all year,” said drama teacher David Braga. “Here, I’ve been meeting all these up-and-coming actors and seeing their personalities.”

Junior high students studied moviemaking through the lens of screenwriting, acting, directing and shooting.

Stanislaus Union also offered a kindergarten readiness program. Today’s 5-year-olds are expected to be reading and writing by the time they hit first grade, noted Skavdahl. “What’s scary is they’re showing up on our doorstep not knowing any letters,” she said.

After years of offering only do-overs for failed high school courses, Modesto City Schools added remedial classes for elementary students this year, as well as computer-based math classes for seventh-graders and freshmen. Next year, the district plans to add elective academies with arts and science topics.

“That was one of the great advantages of the LCAP, being able to add these things,” said Associate Superintendent Ginger Johnson, referring to the Local Control Accountability Plan for school funding.

Modesto, with its high number of poor kids and English learners, gets higher funding under the state’s new funding formula. How that higher funding is spent has to be tied to parent input and what works best for those at-risk students. Summer programs work on both fronts.

The district offered classes at centrally located schools – Muir, Beard, Burbank and Shackelford – and offered bus service, Johnson said. The 839 students who attended would have been expected to slip in reading and math over the summer. But tests before and after the summer classes showed 69 percent improved in reading ability, 81 percent in reading speed, and 79 percent made gains in math.

The junior high and high school programs included sending computers home with students to work on individually designed math homework. One day a week, kids came to class and did a hands-on math project, Johnson said.

“We wanted to embed that math application lesson, so it was more than just working with the computer,” she said.

This story was originally published July 16, 2015 at 4:18 PM with the headline "Innovative summer classes mix it up with creative spins on reading, writing, ’rithmetic."