Daily Gazette Editorial, August 10 2017
School pilot helps close learning gap
A bunch of kids watching movies, playing spy games, dancing, swimming and drawing might not, on the surface, seem like a significant summer learning experience.
But for school districts like Schenectady — anxious to close the learning gap that deprives low-income students of years of education, puts them behind their higher-income peers, and ultimately contributes to more high school dropouts and difficulties finding careers as adults — this might just be the best investment a school district makes.
Read Editorial Here
Times Union, August 04 2017
Can summer school be fun? These Schenectady kids say 'yes'
"I thought it was gonna be boring, just sitting around and learning what we already learned," said the 12-year-old, donning a backwards baseball cap and jeans on the program's last day.
But this wasn't your typical summer school. The Schenectady City School District's new summer enrichment program turned out to be part school, part camp — long 10-hour days that started at 8 a.m. and involved hanging out with friends, going to the pool, playing outside and three square meals a day.
OK, so in between all that stuff was some reading and math, students admit, but it was mostly on computers and kind of fun so did it even really count?
According to their teachers, it did.
Read Times Union Story
Around 650 elementary school students will head back to class Monday for a four-week long summer enrichment program, an initiative district officials hope will go districtwide next year.
The program – hosted at Paige, Pleasant Valley and Martin Luther King elementary schools – will run from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. each weekday through Aug. 4, with lessons and activities blending academics, arts and recreation. Kids will receive transportation and three meals during the program.
At the heart of the summer program are two prime goals: offer parents a place to send their kids over the summer, and work to stanch the “summer slide” that disproportionately sets low-income students back during the summer, as their wealthier peers continue to progress academically.
Read the Daily Gazette story, published on July 8 2017 here.