Raising the Bar: When to consider summer school

TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) - The end of the school year is right around the corner.

It’s a time when some parents consider whether to send their child to summer school. Experts say there’s no right or wrong answer, every child and situation is unique.

In this week’s Raising the Bar segment, 13News’ Valerie Cavazos spoke with Dedee Lyngstad Brown, Sunnyside Unified School District Pre-k-8 director, to weigh in on this.

“So, as a parent, if you are noticing that your child is struggling with foundational skills, they’re struggling with keeping up to grade-level reading, or if they’re struggling with foundational math skills, that really is a time for you to again, reach out, communicate with the school to find out what are some things that are offered that my child could maybe benefit from in the summer,” Brown said.

What are the options available for parents? I mean, you still want your kids to have a good time as well. So, what are the ranges when we’re talking about summer school?

“When we’re talking about making sure we maintain that balance of family life and still school sometimes in the summer, is that most of the school programs are not gonna take up the entire summer,” Brown said. “They’re not all day school. Most of the school districts have half-day programs so that, yes, kiddos go to school in the morning, but then they have all afternoon to do those family things. And there’s also great organizations out there through churches and through community centers that also offer either tutoring or more in-depth options with college students who volunteer to tutor during the summer. So again, reach out to your school, what do they know, what can they offer? And if they’re not offering something at their particular site, most likely your school is gonna be able to give you resources of where you could look.”

I’ve heard parents talk about this as my kids were growing up and they associate it. It’s like a stigma is attached to summer school and they kind of downplay it. They don’t really want to talk about it, but is that really necessarily the case anymore? The academic bar is fairly high.

“Yes, that academic bar is always high and it always keeps moving upward, so I think a lot of that can come from teachers,” Brown said. Teachers can do a lot to really talk about the benefit of it so that it isn’t a stigma. If a child is feeling, you know, ‘I don’t wanna go to summer school, kids tell me I’m dumb or that’s why I have to go,’ to keep up that communication, so that parents can intervene and that teachers know that that is going on as well because the more people who are involved in making sure that children are feeling confident, the better it’s gonna be. Everybody is gonna be better equipped to deal with anything that happens like that.”

And also to approach it as this is a leg up, not necessarily a step back, but this is more of a leg up, maybe having that conversation.

“Yes, definitely looking at the positive aspects of it,” Brown said. “Again, most are not all day, but yet you are avoiding that summer brain drain. I mean, the research is very, very clear that it happens no matter if you’re on grade level or you’re well below grade level.”

Cavazos will be bringing these local “Raising the Bar” segments every Monday to help you kick start each week with local expert advice on education.

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