New Education Development Center report and webinar highlight ways to strengthen summer learning programs

On Tuesday, June 14, the Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) hosted a webinar, “Insights and Reflections on Planning and Implementing District-led Summer Programs,” to share findings from its new report: Supporting Quality in Summer Learning: How Districts Plan, Develop, and Implement Programs, which was commissioned by The Wallace Foundation.  

The report takes a detailed look at how district-led, publicly funded summer learning programs in urban settings improve and advance equitable outcomes for the K-8 students they serve,  how the programs are implemented, and how best to improve those summer programs. This work also focuses on three key broader systems that shape summer learning opportunities: public funding, state systems of support, and 21st CCLC (21st Century Community Learning Centers). Researchers conducted a detailed landscape scan of summer learning and supplemented it with interviews with 92 respondents from 36 states, including district representatives, district partners, 21 CCLC leaders, and state stakeholders like state afterschool network staff. 

The June 14 webinar included researchers Leslie Goodyear, Alyssa Na’im, and Tony Streit from EDC as well as two community leaders and participants from the study, Sheri Endsley from Fort Worth Parks & Recreation Department and Lisa Johnson from the Green Bay Area Public School District, who shared firsthand perspectives with the audience and described how they have worked at the district level to advance summer learning over the past years and during the pandemic. The researchers and participants covered three main findings throughout the webinar: 

Priorities for summer learning include both supporting student academic performance and creating engaging and accessible programming.

Almost half of the districts EDC interviewed shared that their goals for summer learning were influenced by state and/or local policies. For example,  the goal of 100% of third-graders reading at grade level in the Fort Worth Independent School Districtbecame  a focus  for the summer learning programming run by Fort Worth Parks and Recreation. District leaders also sought to create programs that were fun, safe spaces where students can grow and learn with one another and further their mental well-being, with reduced barriers to access like providing transportation, meals, technology/broadband access, and free or affordable fees.     

District-community partnerships are a key way to pivot, broaden, and enrich summer learning. 

Districts across the country shared how their collaboration with partners (which included city agencies and programs, out-of-school time providers, and a wide variety of other community-based organizations) were a key part of summer learning success. In the Green Bay Area Public School District, their partnerships led to unique programming elements, such as licensed teachers and CBO staff partnering to teach enrichment in the afternoons. Additionally, the district partnered with its local YMCA to get a grant for continued summer funding, in the interest of sustainability.

Districts prioritized professional development topics that came from local community needs, main topics of interest include student and staff mental health and well-being, trauma-informed practices, social-emotional learning, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Sheri Endsley shared how Fort Worth’s summer programming kicked off with a week-long orientation (where staff members were paid) with many speakers on a variety of subject areas, including school district personnel teaching staff about working with students with special needs and classroom management. This additional prep work proved to be successful, with nearly 100% of students who attended either showing growth or maintaining grade-level reading from the beginning to the end of programming. In addition to these topics, both report respondents and webinar speakers emphasized that there is a need now, more than ever, for more professional development around student and staff mental health and well-being and diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Learn more about these findings in EDC’s Executive Summary and full report. Explore more of the Afterschool Alliance’s work on summer learning here.