Normally, schools stand empty during the summer, waiting for students to return. This summer, the halls of several schools are bubbling with chatter, laughter and salsa music as more than 1,600 Eugene students take additional courses.
Eugene School District 4J has introduced a new summer school program aimed at bridging the learning loss gap created by the COVID-19 pandemic and online learning.
The Summer Enrichment and Academic Learning Program uses non-standard learning methods to get first through eighth grade students on track to succeed in their upcoming school year. About 600 students signed up for the 22-day program held at three elementary schools: César E. Chávez, Holt and River Road.
“The kids all seem engaged, they all seem to be having fun with the different activities going on,” said Casandra Kamens, curriculum manager for comprehensive learning at 4J. “There seems to be little sitting time for students. There is a lot of hands-on work.”
Class time is balanced between teacher instruction and student projects that highlight areas of English language arts, math, and science.
Kamens said the district has developed specific strategies to address learning loss in the curriculum, such as building phonetic and reading skills, which many students have been missing after the pandemic. The SEAL program also uses Math For Love, a tool that incorporates games into math problems, which the students and teachers have enjoyed.
“We are still working on their learning loss. One of the goals of our program is to give children a real pleasure in learning,” says Kamens. “I’ve been telling the teachers all the time that if the kids aren’t enjoying their learning, we need to change something, and we need to change.”
A change of pace for teachers
Amy Mathiesen, who normally teaches third grade at Adams Elementary, has worked with incoming third graders at Chávez. While there is direct instruction, she said the program is very different from a normal school year with a focus on student engagement.
“The curriculum is different from what we use in our general classrooms,” Mathiesen said. “The kids are so excited to participate, so that’s the big difference. It’s not like a regular school, day or year curriculum, or even activities. We have a lot of enrichment activities and it’s just a lot of fun. And it’s also nice for teachers because it’s so different.”
The math curriculum was particularly exciting to work with, she said, and the kids love it. She and the other third grade teachers who will be working in Chávez this summer plan to include some math games in their curriculum during the school year.
When it comes to math, many students have negative connotations and poor self-esteem, Mathiesen said. The Math For Love games make students not even realize they are solving problems, which has proven to be successful.
Shelli Hopper-Moore, a fourth-grade teacher at Charlemagne Elementary School, has taught up-and-coming fourth-graders in Chávez. She taught summer school in Chávez last year, but she said the SEAL program was very different. The involvement is higher thanks to the hands-on projects.
“Instead of at home, where they might be playing video games or watching a lot of TV or just being indoors, they’re socializing, doing science, being creative,” Hopper-Moore said. “This sounds like I’m making it up, but I’m not making it up. One child said, ‘I like summer school. Oh no, it’s weekend. We’re not here until Monday.’ I don’t, usually in my regular class.
“A lot of these kids are really excited to be here, and that sometimes surprises me.”
Another key focus of the SEAL program is making up for lost time in social-emotional learning. The pandemic caused isolation for many students, limiting socialization. McKenzie Zimbelman, a third-grade teacher at Yujin Gakuen Japanese Immersion Elementary School spending the summer in Chávez, said she and other teachers have worked to build students’ confidence in the classroom.
“Building that (trust) in them will help them learn better in the fall,” Zimbelman said. “We also have smaller classes here. So that has also been very helpful in building deeper connections with children faster.”
Summer school results
Kamens said the district will conduct a thorough investigation after the summer session ends on Friday, August 12, to get feedback from the community.
“We want to be able to improve it and make sure we give families what they need to help their students grow academically, but also want to go to school,” Kamens said. “(What) we really want is that kids who have had a hard time with school and enjoy going to school can eventually go through our program knowing they can be successful in school.”
The SEAL project is funded by the Oregon Department of Education’s Summer Learning Grant and Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief III. Kamens said 20 percent of the district’s ESSER III allocation through September 2024 should be spent addressing learning loss.
The increased funding means teachers were given $250 to spend on student rewards and incentives. Kamens said this is likely triple what teachers normally get to spend on student awards during the school year.
High school summer program
4J’s ESSER III funding also funds another summer school program, the High School Summer Intensives Program.
The idea for the high school summer program started in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, said College & Career Readiness and CTE Administrator Tia Holliday. The district already saw a need for more diverse, engaging courses for older students, but the pandemic made the program an even greater asset.
Summer Intensives started remotely in the summer of 2020, hybrid in 2021 and now almost completely in-person for the summer of 2022.
“It certainly gave us an opportunity to provide students with new learning experiences during the pandemic and a chance to earn points that they may not have had during the school year, and to re-engage them in school,” Holliday said.
Holliday said there are currently 1,060 high school students enrolled in Summer Intensives with more than 40 courses to choose from. While there are some purely academic courses available, most of the courses are electives and subjects that students normally cannot take during the school year, such as Japanese mythology and folklore, deaf literature, beekeeping, crime scene science, drones, and more. Some of the more popular classes, such as woodworking, engineering, and cooking, have multiple sessions.
“We want to give teachers the opportunity to teach something they are passionate about,” Holliday said. “Teachers get an exclusive design for their content. They submit a proposal to us, and we review it and work with them, their standards, and there is a capstone project required for each course.
“Teachers teach according to their passions, and the students have absolute choice about what they sign up for.”
At North Eugene High, Kelley Deitemeyer teaches first aid and CPR certification. On Tuesday afternoon, one of her classes came in to practice skills they had learned online. She started the summer with 90 students split into 14 different sessions.
Churchill High freshman Sheridan Schilling said the CPR class has been a great opportunity for her and other students.
“I want to pursue a career in the medical field, so this was something I felt would let me know if this is something I’m really interested in,” Schilling said. “I think it would look good on a resume and just be useful for life in general.”
Miranda Cyr reports on education for The Register-Guard. You can contact her at mcyr@registerguard.com or find her on Twitter @mirandabcyr.
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