When school gets out for the summer, most kids just want to escape teachers and books.
A few who didn’t do so well in a class or struggled on the ISTEP test, however, need to go back for remediation. Others might take a fun class, or an enrichment class, just because it’s there. Not this year.
School systems across the United States have slashed their summer-school programs to the bone. The American Association of School Administrators surveyed 453 school administrators in March. They found that 34 percent considered not only a cutback on what they offered, but planned to outright eliminate summer programs.
Indiana schools are no exception. Between state budget cuts, and the poor economy, summer school programs have especially suffered.
Administrators in Logansport, Southeastern and Eastern Pulaski schools say they drastically cut back their summer programs. None completely eliminated their summer offerings, but one came very close with its high school-level summer classes.
“We are offering one summer school class, and that’s high school P.E.,” Eastern Pulaski superintendent Robert Klitzman said. “Any other class a student would take, we sign them up through the Indiana virtual academy.”
He said in the past his school system offered math, English and a psychology class during the summer.
Indiana Virtual Academy allows students to take for-credit, high-school classes via the Internet. It has become a popular solution for many school systems.
Logansport will have summer school this year, but it will be a shadow of its former self.
Superintendent Julie Lauck said the summer program will have about half the students and teachers it usually does.
In past years, Logansport offered a host of enrichment classes, mostly targeted at elementary and middle-school students, this year it is only offering classes for kids who didn’t do well during the school year.
“We will be doing summer school for the ISTEP-tested grades only,” curriculum director Michelle Starkey said. “It will be remediation summer school only.”
ISTEP testing covers grades three through eight.
Lauck said high school summer school would continue, but with classes offered only in math, science, English and social studies.
Those will only be core-curriculum classes with no electives or enrichment classes.
However, Logansport’s summer program is in better shape than many others, especially the smaller, more rural areas.
“We’ve cut back to the point where anything that’s not funded by the state we don’t offer,” Southeastern uperintendent John Bevan said. “And even within that, it’s very, very limited.”
The state partially funds the school’s summer programs. They take the number of schools offering summer classes and divide money set aside for summer school among them. That creates a problem.
Many districts won’t know how much money the state is awarding until after they have already paid for summer school.
In past years, the amount of funding has hovered around 75 percent.
“One of the issues with summer school is the state tells you they will reimburse it, but they never reimburse it 100 percent. And you don’t know what the percent is until after you have offered it, committed to it and paid staff,” Bevan said. “They never tell you up front exactly what the percentage will be.”
Bevan doesn’t want to cut anything from the summer program.
“But I can’t afford them,” Bevan said. “That’s what it comes down to.”
So what will happen if you are a high school kid who flunked a class you needed to graduate? You might find yourself on the five-year plan.
Most of the administrators sounded at least slightly sympathetic, but they had some simple advice: Don’t flunk.
“If they take care of business during the regular school hours, they will graduate on schedule,” Bevan said. “There’s going to be very limited opportunities if you failed a course. It will have to be made up during the school year.”
Klitzman sympathizes with those who find themselves missing a credit to graduate, but stressed even kids need to learn about consequences and responsibility.
“Our teachers bend over backward to help kids,” Klitzman said. “So if they will work hard during the year, they will not need to make up a credit.”
Several administrators, especially those at the smaller schools, said if things are this bad next year they might eliminate summer school completely.
“That possibility exists yes,” Klitzman said. “If we’re getting another 4 1/2 percent cut as we are hearing, you have to ask, ‘can you really afford to do it and possibly hurt your regular program?’ Next year, it may be totally up to the virtual academy.”
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