Summer school students working in groups. (Courtesy: LAUSD)

Innovative summer school practices are credited with helping 758 students graduate through a credit recovery program, and grades were significantly higher as LA Unified went out of its way to increase the quality of the teachers giving the summer school instruction.

“We are emphatically keeping high standards for summer school like we do during the school year,” said Beyond the Bell administrator Betsy Castillo, giving the summer school report to the Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee this week. In the past, any teacher with any credential could teach summer school, but for this year, Castillo said, “We were emphatic about the quality and caliber of instruction and that summer school should not have lower standards for anyone involved.”

• Read more on credit recovery: Are the courses ‘very rigorous’?, Credit recovery starts early this year, Zimmer expresses frustration over credit recovery

Principals were asked to hire appropriate teachers for the courses with “a deep knowledge which is as necessary for summer as it is for fall,” she added.

This summer 71 high schools offered 2,749 classes and 174 online classes for 119 different types of courses. Of the 31,729 students taking summer school, 758 were for credit recovery in order to graduate in August and be part of the estimated record 75 percent graduation rate for the district. But 15 percent taking the summer classes still got D’s or F’s, and the school board members on the committee expressed concern for them.

There were 45,454 grades issued and 1,650 teachers employed over the summer, according to Castillo.

Because most of the students were in for credit recovery, the courses with the highest enrollment were algebra and English classes. Castillo said most of the students are in summer school to re-take classes to get a better grade, but some of them are also adding to their credits by taking extra classes, or taking fun courses such as art or drama.

School board President Steve Zimmer noted that the grades were far better than during the rest of the year and suggested it was because the students only took two classes rather than six at a time.

Summer term courses with the highest enrollment.

“I just want to note the significantly higher grades and that when we do intervention we look at how we do this,” Zimmer said.

Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson pointed out that many of the students were taking classes for a second time and therefore were getting a better grade, but she said holding longer classes over a shorter time period may have helped.

Another plus for summer school was starting classes for the first time at 9 a.m. when students were more alert, engaged and ready to learn, but Castillo pointed out that tardiness among both teachers and students was about the same as when classes started earlier.

“Research does show the benefits of extra sleeping time in the morning, and I can tell you the student surveys showed that they were thrilled and very appreciative with the later start time,” Castillo said.

She said she visited more than 300 classrooms to observe classes and said, “In the past, I saw students asleep in class and was very disheartened and this year not one student was asleep and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. They were rested and there was sufficient time to eat breakfast.”

Betsy Castillo, Beyond the Bell administrator

Committee chair Richard Vladovic pointed out that the Seattle school district is testing out later start times and he has suggested that Superintendent Michelle King monitor their process.

“We may want to consider a late start for each day of school,” Vladovic said. “I would like to take a look at doing that if it makes a difference for kids getting there.”

Other new elements the district added to summer school this year were a case manager at each school and a teacher leader position to help teachers and students deal with two-and-a-half-hour classes presented in an accelerated time frame. The teachers were also given a four-hour online professional development course and common planning time to encourage working together.

Some teachers worked at schools they were new to and they developed more team efforts on campuses this past summer, Castillo said.

The schools also offered at least two non-core courses at every site, so it didn’t seem like summer school was all remedial and can be fun too, Castillo said. In the past summer school was called “credit recovery” and now they call it “summer term.”

Board member Scott Schmerelson was concerned about those who didn’t make it through. “What about the 573 souls who came to the class and still failed?” he asked. Castillo said those students generally dropped out and staff members are following up with helping them in the future.

“We feel overall it was a successful summer school and we are thinking about ways for improvement for next year,” Castillo said.

Jesus Mendoza, regional administrator for the USDA, visits a San Fernando Valley school.

Students who depend on eating at school for their one — and sometimes only — meal of the day will be able to more easily find a location for free meals during the summer.

The expansion of the federal Summer Food Service Program will provide more meals to children and teens 18 years and younger during summer at school locations, Boys & Girls Clubs, community centers and social service agencies.

Students who typically get free and reduced lunches during the school year can now find other sites during the summer.

“We are reaching out more than ever before to places where we know we can reach these students and letting them know that some sites have breakfasts, lunch, snacks and dinners and they don’t have to apply or sign up, they just need to show up,” said Jesus Mendoza Jr., the USDA’s regional administrator for the Western Region of the United States. “Our summer meals program has really taken off, but we are concerned because many of the schools had to cut summer school programs and we want them to still have nutritious meals.”

• Read more: LAUSD is expanding summer school this year

Last summer, the federal program served 190 million students; this year they plan to reach 200 million nationwide. The federal government sponsors sites to run the program and get the word out to camps and faith-based and other nonprofit community organizations in low-income areas.

“Also during the summer months is a time when children gain weight if they are not physically active and are not eating nutritious meals,” Mendoza said. Some of the food programs are at libraries as well, where children spend the day and are involved with reading programs. Mendoza noted that Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office announced a Get Summer initiative in April that the USDA is also working with to help keep students properly fed. The program gives youths ages 12-17 free access to all LA County YMCA’s in June and July.

For LA Unified students, that federal program means students can, for example, get breakfast and lunch at Granada Hills Charter in the San Fernando Valley from the day school ends until July 22, or if they live in San Pedro they can go to Bobbie Smith Elementary School in the Long Beach Unified School District for lunch between 10:45 and 11:45 a.m. The government aims to put the program in sties within 10 miles of any given address in the Los Angeles area.

LA Unified gets slightly less per meal for their summer food programs than they do during the school year, Mendoza said. The food program over the summer doesn’t contribute to the school’s budget debt, school officials said. The program also allows some of the district’s cafeteria workers to be employed throughout the year, Mendoza said.

Of the 750,000 meals dished up for breakfast, lunch and dinner to LA Unified students, more than 76,000 are served around dinnertime to about 140,000 students who stay after school, said Laura Benavidez, co-deputy director of Food Services.

“Sometimes, it will be the only meal the children will have until the next morning,” Benavidez said. “We want to make sure that students are properly nourished because it does help with their education.”

The meals, according to federal guidelines, consist of a protein, fruit, grain and dairy. Nationally, about 15.3 million children are living in households where they’re not sure where the next meal is coming from, and the USDA has served more than 1.2 billion summer meals since it started in 2009. About 22.1 million youth already receive free and reduced-price meals through the National School Lunch program, yet only about one in six of those (about 3.8 million) participate in the summer meals program.

More than 6,700 sponsors help dole out the summer meals — that’s 700 more than last year — and the number of sites increased by 20 percent to more than 66,000 locations.

The Summer Meals Site Finder (fns.usda.gov/summerfoodrocks) is a free, web-based application that features an easily searchable map to help locate sites serving summer meals. Last year, the site got about 5,000 visitors per day and as many as 69,000 page views per week.

Families can also identify nearby sites by calling 1-866-348-6479 (English) or 1-877-842-6273 (Spanish) or using a text service operated by a USDA partner by texting FOOD (English) or COMIDA (Spanish) to 877-877.

Assistant principal Yolanda Campos and student Justin Hang talk about their summer school bridge program.

Summer school is expanding, plus it’s going to be fun again.

That’s the message Janet Kiddoo, LA Unified’s intervention administrator for Beyond the Bell, brought Tuesday in a report to the Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee.

“Whoever thought people would get excited about summer school?” Kiddoo said. “People are very excited, and there are such passionate and very bright people involved this year.”

For the first time since 2009 when the district cut all summer school because of budget constraints, there will be a robust summer program again at LA Unified schools. Not only will students be able to fulfill their credit recovery requirements in order to graduate, but they can take classes such as physical education and drama as well as get ahead in their studies.

Janet Kiddoo, of Beyond the Bell, explains expanded summer schools.

Last year there were 42,000 seats available for summer school; this year 68,725 seats are available, a 64 percent hike. In the past, students were limited in where they could attend summer school, but now they will be able to attend any of the 71 high schools offering summer classes, Kiddoo said. Core subject courses will be offered at all sites.

This week, the district is starting the training for 1,374 teachers to handle 2,749 courses scheduled to be available this summer, and they have added a full-time counselor for direct services for students. Summer principals start training at their Local Districts this month.

Summer classes will run 24 days with two periods of 2.5 hours each, rather than for six weeks. The classes will start at 9 a.m. rather than 8, as they do during the year.

“We had a survey of more than 3,000 students who attended summer programs last year, and we found that they would have better attendance if we started the classes a little later, so we will try it and check the data,” Kiddoo said.

Also, 43 CORE-waiver schools will try a two-week summer bridge program to welcome incoming ninth-graders to high school. Committee chairman Scott Schmerelson said that when he was a principal he found it very helpful for students to prepare themselves “and they did fantastically well in the new school.”

Yolanda Campos, assistant principal of the School for the Visual Arts and Humanities, brought two students to the committee meeting who were part of an extensive ninth-grade summer bridge program.

Justin Hang is a 10th-grade student leader who was paid to help the students who were coming to the program. A total of 15 students offered to help incoming ninth-graders at the school.

Alexis Martinez, with Justin Hang behind her, talks about her Summer Bridge experience.

“We wanted to show them what it was like to come to our school, and we took an active role, I wasn’t just printing papers,” Hang said. “Some of the students were not like my personality, but I learned from it. I was a student leader and a role model and someone who would provide support so that their first day of high school was not going to be the worst day of their life.”

Ninth-grader Alexis Martinez talked about how she had regular break-downs of anxiety about coming to high school. “The anxiety would bring me to tears, but they supported me, and now I am able to stand here and talk about it.”

Kiddoo, who has been with the district for 36 years, said, “We are trying new and innovative things, and I am so hopeful because we have a new superintendent, new board members and so many opportunities to do things for the first time.”

This break-neck start to summer programming is due to the early start date of school in the fall, Aug. 18, LAUSD program specialist Victor Gonzalez told LA School Report. Although summer enrollment is ongoing for the district’s three main programs, 35,000 of the 100,000 open seats were still unfilled as of May 28, Gonzalez said.

Long gone are the days when LAUSD had nearly $50 million to spend on summer education and could offer activities in almost every school, Gonzalez said. However, this year’s summer budget, just under $32 million, is up from last year and is a vast improvement from two years ago when funding hit rock bottom. In 2013, amid rumors that summer school would be cancelled completely, the district assembled a total of $1 million that went solely to help high school students graduate on time.

So although LA Unified’s summer funding is slowly recovering, much of this year’s programming requires students to be prioritized based on need and eligibility.

A four-week course to help elementary and middle school students reach “grade-level standards” in math and English is available at most CORE Waiver schools this summer, said Gonzalez. Although the program has more than 30,000 available seats, they are reserved for the most “at-risk” students who are already attending one of the participating schools, according to LAUSD data.

“We actually don’t do a lot of advertising for those programs because we don’t want to mislead the public,” he said.

Select elementary and middle schoolers will also have access to Beyond the Bell’s Summer Enrichment Program, hosted at 200 schools throughout the district. The program includes meals for students as well as academic, recreational and enrichment (such as arts-and-crafts), components.

For high schoolers who received a “D” or “F” during the school year and need to make up academic credits, they can enroll in up to two classes this summer.

“To me, summer school is a specific academic intervention program,” said Gonzalez.

These courses will take place at 86 high schools this summer, nine more than last year, due in large part to an increase in Title I funding, Gonzalez said. Also new in 2015 is added transportation for magnet school students. If students were hopping on a bus to school in the spring, these students will be afforded the same help this summer.

“Summer learning loss is a documented phenomenon and we are proud of the work we are doing to serve tens of thousands of students but we know more is needed as well,” he said.

17-year-old Dorsey High School senior Christian Moton, second from right, participates in a group discussion about a book on Nelson Mandela

Every morning for the last six weeks, Dorsey High School senior Christian Moton has been taking part in a highly charged and energetic morning ceremony when he sings, chants and cheers.

“They host Harambee here. Harambee really brings out people’s spirit,” Moton told LA School Report.

The daily Harambee, which means “all pull together” in Swahili, is part of a Children’s Defense Fund program called Freedom Schools, an educational curriculum that helps teach a love for reading and writing and builds self esteem through positive reinforcement.

“I think it’s great,” Moton said. “It’s a way for kids like me who grew up and raised in South LA, for us to get away from it for a good while and learn things that we don’t get to learn.”

Organized by the Community Coalition, a group that works towards improving south LA neighborhoods, the program serves nearly 120 African American and Latino youth from elementary, middle and high schools, mostly from LA Unified. The coalition has been running the program for the last four years.

“It’s all about encouraging them to build their critical thinking skills to give their opinion and really preparing them to engage in the classroom the way most of us don’t learn until we get to college,” Sandra Hamada, director of Youth Programs at the Community Coalition told LA School Report.

During the seven-week summer program, which has been expanding on the West Coast, students gather in groups and read for three hours a day. They also sing and discuss the book’s meaning, while at the same time gaining a sense of self worth.

“We read out loud here and it helps because I know later in life, in college, that I’m going to have to read aloud in groups and I know this is going to prepare me for it,” Moton said.

And thanks to the program’s high impact curriculum, Moton says he has grown more confident and has developed skills that will help him succeed in life.

“It built up my leadership skills,” he said. “I can speak in crowds now. I’m not afraid to express my opinion within groups or with people who are above me in power rank.”

As LAUSD kicked off its newly expanded summer school program last month, accommodating more students than ever before, one thing became clear:

Sometimes, more money means more problems.

And one problem district officials didn’t anticipate was finding enough teachers who wanted to work in the summer.

Without a sufficient number, the district scrambled to fill classes with adult education and substitute teachers who found themselves with new summer jobs.

“We had to do the best we could to staff the schools,” Javier Sandoval, an administrator for Beyond the Bell, told LA School Report.

Sandoval said they were able to recruit enough teachers to fully staff classes during the five-week expanded summer school program.

For the first time this summer, Beyond the Bell is offering summer school to 36,000 students, a dramatic increase from last year’s capacity of only 6,000. (Click here for a comprehensive list of summer school programs.)

“Summer school is a safety net that we provide for our students and now that we’ve been able to expand it, more students are being helped and supported,” Sandoval said.

While last year’s program was only available at 16 high school sites and students were only able to take one credit recovery class, this year 75 high schools are offering summer school in which students can take two courses to fulfill graduation requirements.

The program is designed to help children meet grade level standards in mathematics or English language arts.

“There is definitely a need and students respond,” Sandoval said.

“It’s pretty amazing when you think these kids mostly failed classes that they’re taking over in summer and I think they realize that this is their last chance and they’re engaged, they’re focused, they’re paying attention, they’re taking notes, they’re participating in class,” he added.

Elementary and middle school students at 38 middle and 112 elementary schools have access to classes for four weeks over the break, in a program called Extended Learning Opportunity Summer Programs (for more info, click here), funded largely by federal dollars from the district’s Core Waiver from No Child Left Behind requirements.

Additional funding comes from the Common Core State Standards budget and Title 1 dollars from the current school year, which the district was able to use by squeezing in the summer school session before the end of July.

The middle and elementary summer school ends July 11, while the high school summer school ends a week later, on July 18.

Previous Posts: With huge boost in budget, LAUSD expands summer school

Altogether, approximately 60,000 students from elementary school through high school will be able to catch up on subjects at more than 200 school sites around the district.

“This is a great opportunity for our students who are behind or haven’t gotten everything they need during the school year,” Javier Sandoval, an administrator for Beyond the Bell told LA School Report.

The biggest chunk of money, $21.5 million, will support 37,000 high school students who need to recover credits to fulfill graduation requirements. For the first time in six years, students can take two classes over the five-week session. As another first, magnet school students attending classes on their own campus will be eligible for bus transportation.

The high school programs will be paid for with funds from Common Core State Standards, the CORE Waiver and Title 1 dollars from the current school year, which the district was able to use by squeezing in the summer school session before the end of July.

Elementary and middle school students in some of LA Unified’s neediest schools will have access to classes for four weeks over the break, in a program called Extended Learning Opportunity Summer Programs, funded through the district’s Core Waiver.

About 13,000 elementary students at 108 schools will have two hours of direct instruction in English Language Arts. More than 16,000 middle schoolers will get an hour each of English and math lessons, plus an hour of project-based activities. And every K-8 class will take a field trip that is tied into their curriculum.

As impressive as the numbers are compared with recent years of district-wide austerity, Sandoval says they still fall short.

“It’s still not enough,” he said. “There’s no doubt we’ll still be leaving out thousands of kids out.”

Sandoval recalls the hey-day of 2007-08, when the district spent about $43 million on summer programs.

“Back then,” he said, “all student in second through 12th grade had the opportunity to come to summer school for credit recovery or for enrichment. They could come just to get ahead.”