Jonathan's 2nd grade teacher recommended him for our redesigned summer school program because he was functioning below grade level in both reading and math. Although his parents had planned to send him to summer camp, they changed their plans after their spring conference with his teacher. She explained that even though Jonathan was trying hard, he had not yet mastered some critical reading and math skills and he could benefit from intensive intervention.
Jonathan was typical of the summer school students in the Round Rock Independent School District—a large suburban school system directly north of Austin. He was so far behind in reading and math that it was hard to understand how he had slipped through the cracks. In this new setting, however, Jonathan was making substantial progress. He read a book on his own for the first time. When I asked him to tell me about summer school, he immediately told me the book's title and what it was about. He also boasted that he had learned "odds and evens," how to tell time, and to not talk when the teacher was talking. Jonathan's parents reported that he felt more confident about starting school in the fall. He particularly felt successful because his summer school classmates had asked him to help them.
Jonathan is one of 1,300 elementary school students in our district attending a redesigned summer school program that provides intensive interventions in reading and math for students who are functioning below grade-level standards. Our district serves approximately 27,000 students in 3 large high schools, 7 middle schools, and 22 elementary schools. The student population is 75 percent white, 15 percent Hispanic, 6 percent African American, and 4 percent Asian/Pacific Islander. About 20 percent of the students are economically disadvantaged.
How Things Were
Until this year, summer school in Round Rock looked very much like summer school in comparable districts. We offered enrichment and academic programs, in which teachers repeated what students had not learned the previous year. Enrollment was open to anyone who wanted to attend. Some parents registered their high-achieving children in academic classes to help them get further ahead. Others signed up their children for enrichment classes to motivate them and thus improve their grades. Many parents, unfortunately, treated summer school as inexpensive day care.
For many teachers of the academic classes, summer school was a nightmare. They were in charge of 20 or more students with vastly different abilities. They were given little or no information about these children, no curriculum, and few supplies. Many teachers lasted only one summer; many continued only because they needed the money.
Nevertheless, some students made outstanding progress because of the caliber of their teachers. But the programs lacked accountability, specific goals, a target population, and a way of measuring whether the experience improved student achievement or attitudes. In addition, summer school expenses far exceeded revenues.
A New Model
To continue to receive district funding for summer school, we knew we would have to establish a clear focus and purpose for the program. We knew, too, that the purpose would have to be aligned with the goals our district's board of trustees had recently adopted. Two of these goals—all students will meet or exceed grade-level standards and read at or above grade level by the end of 3rd grade—were the foundation for our summer school initiative.
As assistant superintendent for elementary operations and a member of the superintendent's team, I placed these goals among my major priorities. We had to develop and implement a plan to achieve them and establish a system for measuring progress toward them.
- We were keenly aware of the strong relationship between student achievement in the early grades and success in later schooling (Guskey 1985).
- We knew that additional time and appropriate modifications would greatly increase student learning (Bloom 1976).
- In our new model, we would need to accelerate student learning rather than slow the pace with remedial strategies (Levin 1991).
- We felt strongly that all children, regardless of family background or circumstance, deserve the academic options that come only with early preparation (Kozol 1991).
Thus we set out to develop a summer school program aligned with these beliefs. We concentrated on five key areas: the target population, the amount of time students would need to make real progress, class size and composition, curriculum and instruction, and classroom climate.
Determining Eligibility
Like many districts, we are in the process of implementing districtwide assessments in the primary grades in reading or math. As a result, teachers in different schools use different evaluation instruments. We established criteria that seemed reasonable and put them in a user-friendly form for teachers to complete.
Students in grades 1 through 5 are automatically eligible for our new summer school program if they have not passed their previous Texas Assessment of Academic Skills exam in math or reading, if their report card grades in reading or math are 70 or below, or if they are functioning six months or more below grade level in reading or math. Students who are borderline in two or more of these indicators are also eligible. Prekindergarten and kindergarten students have similar eligibility requirements.
The Round Rock district has always had a reputation of high achievement: the U.S. Department of Education has recognized 7 of our 33 campuses as Blue Ribbon Schools based on these criteria; however, teachers recommended for the program about 2,500 of our 13,000 elementary school students—nearly 20 percent. About 1,300 of these students enrolled this year. Clearly we had a pressing need for such a program.
During the regularly scheduled parent-teacher conference in the spring, homeroom teachers discussed with parents of eligible students why their child was recommended for summer school. Teachers encouraged these parents to enroll their children, giving them the forms to complete. To parents of students who were not eligible, teachers provided information about the variety of enrichment classes and camps available through our community education program.
We felt it was important to charge a small fee—$50 for the six weeks—so that parents were invested in the program. For the more than 270 families who were unable to pay that amount, we provided scholarships from a fund we established with donations from local businesses and PTAs.
Individualized Instruction and Intensity
We hold our summer school classes on three different sites that serve the entire district. Most students take reading and math on alternate days for six weeks. They attend classes from 8 a.m. to 12 noon, five days a week. Excluding holidays, this adds up to 112 hours of focused instruction—a 20 to 30 percent increase in time spent in these core content areas. This extra time may be especially critical for low-performing and economically disadvantaged students, who seem to lose more ground during the summer than do high-performing and relatively advantaged students (Heynes 1978, 1987). Researchers have confirmed that summer learning loss is reduced when the extended vacation period is reduced (Ovando and Elsberry 1993-94).
As summer school principal Cissy Andreas says of our program, "There is no downtime—it is intense. Teachers are engaged with students 100 percent of the time."
Although it is expensive, we have kept the student-teacher ratio at approximately 15 to 1. Teachers appreciate the small classes. "Having only 14 students in my classroom allows me to hold students more accountable," says 1st grade teacher Debbie Blackburn. "I can wait for those quiet students who typically have slipped through the cracks by remaining silent."
Students also seem to enjoy the smaller classes. Maria, a quiet 5th grader, appreciates getting "lots of help from the teacher whenever I need it." Her best friend, Julia, finds that summer school is "more relaxed"—it is "easier to move around the classroom than during the year."
We assign students to summer school class based not only on their age or grade but also on their academic learning needs. To enable the teachers to individualize instruction as much as possible, we share with them checklists that outline instructional targets aligned with the district's curriculum standards. The students' school-year homeroom teachers fill out these checklists, indicating for each target whether the student demonstrates particular skills rarely, sometimes, frequently, or consistently (see fig. 1).
Figure 1—Sample Language Arts Target
Both regular and summer school teachers rate student performance on each item. Parents can see more clearly how children have made progress.
How Summer School Can Provide a Jump Start for Students - table
Consistently | Frequently | Sometimes | Rarely | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Demonstrates concepts of print | ||||
| Relies on parts of book for information (cover, title, author) | ||||
| Understands one-to-one match of spoken and written word in text | ||||
| 2. Uses strategies to read unfamiliar words | ||||
| Uses picture clues | ||||
| Uses phonics to decode unknown words | ||||
| Uses inflectional endings | ||||
| Uses language to read unfamiliar words | ||||
| Uses content to read unfamiliar words | ||||
| 3. Uses strategies to increase comprehension and fluency | ||||
| Listens to stories and discussions | ||||
| Retells a story in sequence | ||||
| Summarizes nonfiction selections (topic, main idea) | ||||
| Reads for information using nonfiction sources | ||||
| Reads fluently at current measured reading level | ||||
| Responds to punctuation appropriately when reading | ||||
| Writes for a variety of purposes | ||||
| Generates ideas and plans for writing | ||||
| Expresses thoughts clearly in writing |
At the end of summer school, the teachers rescore the targets to reflect each student's growth. We provide this information to parents and to the student's home campus teachers so that they can use it to guide instruction in the coming year. Each student's progress is also a component of the summer school program evaluation.
A Ready-Made Curriculum
The week before summer school begins, teachers participate in two half-day training sessions. In addition to clearly articulated expectations, they are given a curriculum notebook with a coordinated sequence of daily lesson plans and materials, all aligned to specific instructional targets. Teams of summer school teachers, principals, and curriculum administrators developed the curriculum guides. "They are not perfect and need to be modified," Curriculum Administrator Beverly Helfinstein concedes, but "they have become a model for curriculum development in our district." My visits to language arts and math classrooms showed me how the curriculum works in practice.
One morning I visited Pat Hankins's intermediate language arts classroom. She began with a minilesson on an important concept, then read aloud a selection that connected the minilesson to the literature lesson that would follow. In examining the students' reading comprehension, she asked questions about selected passages. While Hankins worked with small groups of students on specific skills, other students worked independently—in pairs or small groups—on activities related to the lesson's goals. Hankins reconfigured the groups often, depending on the students' skills and the lesson's objectives.
To complement the reading curriculum, students checked out books from the library. They also enjoyed poetry breaks, when they chose poems to read aloud to the class. Michael, a 5th grader, said reading poetry was his favorite part of summer school: "I especially like the funny ones that make us laugh."
The math curriculum is divided into six conceptual strands: number sense, number operations, geometry, measurement, probability and statistics, and algebra. The teacher teaches each strand for five days in a row.
When visiting a math classroom, I observed students engaged in hands-on activities designed to help them grasp essential concepts. In the measurement lab, for example, students were divided into four groups. Those in one group were measuring the length of the desks, while those in another group calculated the average height of their classmates. Students in a third group predicted and then compared the amount of liquid various containers held. The fourth group of children worked with their teacher, learning basic measurement concepts and skills.
A Place to Shine
A focus group of teachers agreed that the learning environment in summer school was comfortable for teachers and students alike. "The students feel good about themselves. I see a lot of lights going on," one teacher observed.
Significantly, although a high percentage of the students had exhibited behavior problems during the regular school year, teachers and administrators reported few discipline problems during the summer. Mia Potts, a primary teacher, speculated that the grouping arrangement and smaller classes seemed "to encourage students to take risks, ask questions, and participate." As a result, she said, "Students are able to seek attention in positive ways and have more chances to shine."
Teachers, too, were more willing to take risks, trying out new teaching strategies. "I don't have the stress of formal observations or the pressure of taking grades for a report card," noted 1st grade teacher Debbie Gutierrez. She was free to focus on teaching and had "more time and energy to share and dialogue with other teachers."
A strong connection between summer school and staff development further enriches the learning climate. Principals and teachers taking early literacy workshops conducted reading assessments with summer school students, providing important information for the summer school teacher and a practicum experience for the workshop participant. Said one teacher: "This has been like a six-week internship. I can't wait to use what I've learned in summer school with my regular class during the year."
Too Soon to Celebrate
In addition to enormous enthusiasm, our redesigned summer school program has generated critically important questions. How can so many students know so little, have so few skills, and be so far behind so early in their formal education? What can we do to prevent students from falling so far behind?
Our board of trustees asked for a systematic evaluation of summer school, including measurable results and statistical analyses. The evaluation revealed mixed results. Summer school enrollees included higher percentages of minority, low-income, and special education students than those in regular school-year classes, as well as students with lower attendance rates and less parental involvement. Yet our surveys and interviews indicated that most teachers, students, and parents were satisfied with their summer school experience.
Our analysis showed that we made modest progress in reaching our instructional targets. In general, students showed measurable gains in each target area. In light of per-pupil expenditures, we will need to continue to demonstrate benefits for the money spent.
Nevertheless, the summer school experience has had intangible benefits. Teachers, parents, and administrators share a renewed commitment to identify every child who needs assistance and to implement appropriate interventions throughout the year. The most important indicator of success—the way we will know that we truly have achieved our goals—is when Jonathan and his friends no longer qualify for summer school. Then we can celebrate.
