According to research collected by the nonprofit think tank, the RAND Corp., students can lose up to three months of learning each summer. By ninth grade, much of the achievement gap in reading is attributed to the compounding impacts of summer learning loss. This phenomenon, often called “summer slide,” particularly impacts low-income students who may not have access to enrichment opportunities and extracurriculars that wealthier peers enjoy.
Summer school programs that focus on academics for underperforming students is one solution favored by many school districts to address summer slide. However, these programs typically draw little interest from parents and students, yielding low enrollment and attendance.
EAB, an education research and consulting group, conducted more than 200 interviews with districts and dug into what those with successful summer programs learned. The study was led by consultant Maria Wahlstrom. “We found that the majority of districts do have summer programs, but only 10% of students in the district are actually participating in them,” she said.
Contributing to low enrollment figures is the difficulty in drumming up interest from parents and students. Wahlstrom suggested that disinterest is partially due to branding. “People underestimate the stigma summer programs have,” she said. Rebranding summer school to summer camp could help attract more students. Some districts Wahlstrom studied saw boosts in engagement by adopting classic summer camp vibes, starting with the nomenclature. Thus, students became “campers,” lessons became “activities,” staff members became “counselors” and classrooms morphed into “cabins.”
A district interviewed by Wahlstrom partnered with a local YMCA to extend the half-day summer program into a full day with literacy activities in the mornings and games in the afternoon. That change may have been more pragmatic than cosmetic, she said. “Having a half-day summer program makes it difficult for a lot of parents to send their kids because they have to find child care afterward,” Wahlstrom noted. But at the same time, “Teachers don’t want to teach the whole day.”
Outreach may be just as crucial. Instead of sending a memo home, the report suggests creating a promotional video, complete with parent and camper interviews, to build excitement for the following year’s summer programs. “Think about your competitors” and their PR efforts, Wahlstrom advises, referring to the nonacademic summer camps students might otherwise attend and she also suggested that outreach and promotion efforts should begin in the fall.