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Schools

Can Summer School Be Fun? St. Michael-Albertville Educators Are Taking a Stab at it

The St. Michael-Albertville School District's summer programs are seeing some big changes, including students studying summer subjects at their own schools.

For several years, summer school for a student meant three weeks of intensive classes in the weeks directly following the end of the school year.

This strategy, local educators have found, is not as effective as they would like. This hasn't been good news for the district, since the students who are in summer school are the kids who need effective education the most: students in summer school are the ones identified to be in the lowest 10-15 percent in their grade level for academic achievement.

 In effort to make summer school more appealing and, most importantly, more effective, the elementary and middle schools will diverge on their approaches to summer school in attempt to use the most effective approaches for the grade levels they are servicing. For elementary-aged students, that means a more “summer camp” feel two days per week throughout a longer portion of the summer, with more of an activity-based program than in the past. For example, principal Lee Brown said they might have a baseball theme one week where students can dress in baseball-themed clothing and do reading and writing projects related to the sport.

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“Even calling it summer camp, we’re still not going to fool them,” Brown said with a laugh. “But we’re just hoping to make it more enticing and have them reading … and doing math problems … every week rather than having seven or eight weeks off.”

One other big change coming to the elementary summer school is that students will report to their own school rather than having everyone lumped together at one location, which was a big priority for the elementary educators not only because they felt the students would be more comfortable, but also so students could continue to utilize the school library system throughout the summer to encourage literacy. Because of the way the library system is set up, students cannot check books out of district schools other than their own, principal Jeanette Aanerud said.

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As for the middle school students, assistant principal Ben Bakeberg said the more drawn-out schedule would not work for their needs.

“Because it is policy-driven, it really has worked well to get the students in and fulfill their requirements, and then be able to move them on to the next grade level,” Bakeberg said. “I could definitely see advantages from an elementary standpoint of spreading it out so we don’t see that summer regression.”

However, at the middle school level, Bakeberg said they opted to switch the dates of summer school so it will run in August rather than June. Teachers and administrators hope this will reduce the problem of student burn out at the end of the school year, therefore not having as successful of a summer school experience as they may have fresh off a summer break. They hope the move to August will give students a needed break, and then gear them up for the coming school year.

 “We’re changing it, I think, for the right reasons,” Superintendent Dr. Marcia Ziegler said. “We want to do something with any intervention program … and if it’s not doing what it’s supposed to, not helping, then we’re going to try something different and see if this makes a difference.”

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