SWAMPSCOTT — The school district is looking to partner with parents for an at-home summer-learning plan this year instead of a summer-learning-loss program.
“At some point last year, we had hopes of making it a multi-year program,” said Superintendent of Schools Pamela Angelakis, at this week’s School Committee meeting about a learning-loss program that was offered to specific students last summer.
After looking at the data, the district came to a different conclusion.
“We don’t think at this point it would be beneficial to have a summer-learning-loss program the way we did last year,” Angelakis said.
Director of Teaching and Learning Dr. Jean Bacon said the district had a lot of difficulties putting the last year’s summer-learning program together for a variety of reasons, including shortage of staffing. Most personnel were hired from outside the district.
The summer-learning-loss program was offered to a number of students who exhibited academic struggles during the 2020-21 school year. Some of them chose not to participate in the summer program.
Participating students practiced various skills, including literacy and numeracy skills, and did some project-based work.
“They did some really great work and terrific projects that came out of it,” said Bacon.
In the fall, Bacon decided to measure the outcome of the summer program by comparing the progress of students who were offered the summer program and did not attend it versus students who did go through the summer program.
“You would expect the kids who ended the program to do a little better than the kids who didn’t attend the program. And that was generally true,” Bacon said. “But the difference was not large enough to say we had a huge impact or a really big impact on their growth.”
The difference was not statistically significant, she said.
Given this outcome, the district decided to try a different approach this year and offer a home-based program. Bacon is currently working on the proposal for this program that will provide support for kids to work at home with their families on specific skills that they need to practice.
“That is part of also shifting our attention to family engagement. We are trying very much this year to think about ways to engage our families in supporting the education of our students, because we know we can’t do it alone,” she said. “We really have to be a team.”
The summer staff will still provide support and outreach to the district’s struggling learners, Bacon said.
