For millions of students, this is a summer like no other in the history of American public education. The last day of the school year was followed by a brief pause before classes started again. That’s because districts across the country expanded summer school — and in some cases required it — to make up for a year of disrupted classes during the pandemic.

The stakes are particularly high for students who have lost the most during months of remote learning. Educators say they are especially concerned about students living in poverty, English-language learners and students with disabilities. But kids of all ages — from kindergarten to high school — suffered academically and emotionally during months of isolation. Many school districts want to help them catch up this summer so they’re ready when school resumes in the fall.

“This summer is so important to help young people reconnect with friends, peers and educators after such a difficult year,” said Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in a message supporting National Summer Learning Week, an initiative in mid-July sponsored by the nonprofit organization National Summer Learning Association.

Research on summer school before the pandemic showed slim evidence that it helps improve reading and math scores. Still, educators across the country are hoping this year’s efforts — from a push to close early learning gaps in Texas to a summer program in Oregon that helps kids who are learning English — will make a difference.

Many of these programs got a boost from more than $1 billion in federal funds dedicated to summer under the American Rescue Plan. That windfall enabled some districts to add more students than they have enrolled in years past and others to experiment with new programs to help with pandemic learning loss.

“As a country, every single child is going to be behind,” said Jaclyn Forkner, a special education teacher leading a class of third through sixth grade summer school students at Holcomb Elementary School in Oregon City, Oregon. “So I’m more on the side of: ‘Is everyone OK mentally? Socially?’”

The enrichment summer school program at her school is helping with that, she thinks. “It’s awesome,” she said. “They’re having fun.”

Here’s a look at how the summer is going for students around the country.

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My first “real” job was as a camp counselor at the local Boys and Girls Club in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. I spent the summer ensuring middle school students had fun while learning. I would stay up late thinking of new lessons to teach or a motivating message I would recite during our morning check-ins. I appreciated each high five, smile, and even a few tears as camp concluded as I got ready for my next semester at UNC-Chapel Hill. Occasionally, I would see my “students” when I visited home at the grocery store or church. I was always surprised that they remembered our special handshakes, mostly because I had forgotten them. I loved being a camp counselor. I loved the young people I met and hopefully positively influenced.

That feeling of nostalgia is happening across the country with even greater importance than when I served. Organizations like the Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCAs, faith organizations, park and recreation centers, and others are stepping up to provide safe, engaging environments for students who desperately need a sense of normalcy. The need for building and, in some cases, rebuilding positive relationships with peers and trusting adults is paramount this summer, along with the traditional necessity for high-quality academic support. Some programs set up vaccination centers for their adolescent students eligible for the vaccine, while others are taking the necessary precautions to ensure our youngest learners are safe while they learn and have fun this summer.

This week, we celebrate National Summer Learning Week, sponsored by the National Summer Learning Association, highlighting and bringing awareness to the great work organizations and governmental entities are embarking on to provide students with a “summer like no other” after a “year we will not forget.” Secretary Cardona, elected officials, and others are visiting summer sites across the country to bring awareness to the importance of quality summer programming, many that expanded this year due to the investment of the American Rescue Plan (ARP). As a result, millions of students across the country are experiencing the joys of summer enrichment, maybe even for the first time due to the ARP’s investments in summer learning and loss of instructional time. While summer learning is a critical component of our work to reopen our schools and “build back better,” the truth is that quality, engaging summer learning is simply part of excellent education and something that every student must be able to access.

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By Aaron P. Dworkin, National Summer Learning Association (NSLA), and Marlyn Torres, New York Life Foundation

As America’s education system and economy recover from COVID-19, communities everywhere are turning to summer learning for hope and inspiration in preparing students for the school year ahead. Thanks to a $30 billion federal investment through the American Rescue Plan, thousands of school districts, non-profit organizations, and government agencies have turbo-charged efforts to expand access to summer programs that accelerate learning, address social emotional needs and ultimately, rekindle the joy of summer for millions of students.

From working with a legion of summer and afterschool program leaders and grantees in the field, we hear two questions most often. “How can we ensure these new investments and programs reach the students who need them most?” and “How can we ensure youth continue to receive high-quality summer learning experiences even after the emergency funding runs out?

These are the two questions policymakers, educators, and families would be wise to remember and articulate why summer learning programs are unique, impactful, and well-positioned to respond to the diverse needs of children and youth at this moment.

As the most recent National Academies of Sciences report on Summertime Experiences noted, summer is a metaphor for both inequity and opportunity for young people in education. The term “summer learning” has undergone a rebranding of sorts and emerged over the last several decades as a counter strategy to the widely held, negative perceptions of traditional “summer school” which has historically been viewed as punitive, mandatory, remedial, boring, solely focused on academics, and confined often to a school building.

In contrast, by design, high quality summer learning programs offer more freedom for hands-on, and project-based fun. They align with school district goals but do so in creative ways, which combine academics, health and fitness, enrichment, and mental health supports.

We need to ensure more families sign up for these hybrid experiences. To raise awareness, NSLA, with support from the New York Life Foundation, has teamed up with Boys & Girls Clubs of America, YMCA USA, National Recreation and Parks Association, Urban Library Council, and others to launch DiscoverSummer.org, a new online destination developed in response to COVID-19, to help families discover affordable summer programs, meals, parent tips and a sea of resources to keep kids learning, earning, safe and healthy this season.

To sustain support for these programs over time, we must show policymakers, educators, and the media the benefits summer learning programs can have on the lives of young people. This is why each year, NSLA leads the annual National Summer Learning Week (July 12-16) to invite leaders to see programs firsthand and to illuminate our “Four I’s of Summer:”

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Aaron Dworkin, CEO of the nonprofit National Summer Learning Association, said this summer matters more than most to help struggling students make up ground and get ready for the next school year. So it’s more important than ever that school districts get their summer programming right, Dworkin told journalists last week during a virtual conference held by the Education Writers Association.

Summer school has a reputation for being punitive, for taking place only in school buildings and for being academic-only, he said. A good summer learning program is none of those things, he said. Districts may need to make summer learning mandatory this year to undo the academic damage of the pandemic, he said, but they should aim to make the experience so fun and exciting that students want to be there. Districts should also get students out of the classroom as much as possible and into nature or educational places like museums and zoos, he said. And although reading and math are important, effective summer learning programs also include arts, health and fitness and social and emotional support, he said.

When summer school begins, teachers will need to bear in mind that their students have been through a traumatic experience, Dworkin said. Teachers can’t just dive into math and reading without checking in to see how students are doing socially and emotionally, he said. The challenges are amplified in schools with high concentrations of Black and Hispanic students, who have been hit hardest during the pandemic, he noted.

Schools may need to have counselors and social workers available during summer school to help students who are having problems, Dworkin said. Teachers and students may be eager to get back to normal, he said, but it’s important to remember that they haven’t been through a normal experience.

Many school leaders who have spent the past year managing a crisis have had to scramble to put summer learning programs together, with just weeks left before the end of the school year. But districts have three years to spend their stimulus money, which allows leaders to think about summer learning programs as multi-year commitments, Dworkin said. He’d like to see more districts build summer school into the year-round planning they do for the rest of the school year. With a year to plan, districts ought to be able to offer stronger programs next summer, he said.

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