Please state your expected outcomes. What is the anticipated impact of the project?
In the short term our summer programs seek to ease what has been termed a summer lag in learning. Additional school-based activities can provide young people with a positive alternative to spending time on the streets or being home alone in the afternoons or summer months. There is a growing body of research evidence indicating that high-quality extended learning programs can reduce risk-taking behaviors, provide positive developmental opportunities, and improve the academic performance of students, particularly those at risk of academic failure (CCSSO, 2009). In fact, students can lose up to two months of learning and require significant time for review at the beginning of the next academic year if not stimulated during the summer months.
When framed within alarming dropout rates and low student achievement, especially in urban districts with large percentages of underserved students, the summer becomes an important opportunity for academic intervention as well as acceleration. Since 2007 the Buffalo Public Schools has committed to providing an Extended Learning Opportunity Program through which students receive an additional 20 days of instruction beyond the traditional school year. While initial evaluation data suggest that the ELOP is associated with enhanced literacy performance, it is not designed to engage them in the sciences, technology or engineering which is critical for students; especially underserved students in the middle grades.
Research has shown that an extended gap in academic activity such as the summer months not only suspends academic growth in students but that these gaps may even result in a decline in academic progress from the previous school years demonstrated learning. Our follow up with students, parents and teachers from the CECs 2008 and 2009 summer programming revealed that students went into the school year feeling confident that they had learned things over the summer that were only now being introduced in their classes, placing them in a comfortable position to mentor other students and advance even further academically during the school year.
