PDX Summer School backpacks
Many outer, southeast Portland students experience a serious lack of academic exercise over the summer. ELL students suffer from a lack of exposure to English, since their families speak their native language at home. The lack of practice speaking English makes the transition back to school in the fall particularly difficult. While their native English-speaking peers are able to adjust to school expectations and demands quickly, ELL students often struggle recalling the basics of English sentence structure.
“By the time the bell rings on a new school year, the poorer kids have fallen weeks, if not months, behind.” *(Time Magazine, 2010)
In addition, many ELL students struggle to achieve grade level proficiency. While many students improve over the school year, the gap in their education over the summer creates a serious setback to their progress. For example, 20% of the students at Mill Park Elementary (a school in the David Douglas District in outer, southeast Portland) who ended the ’08-’09 school year at Benchmark or Strategic level on the DIBELS reading test returned to school in September ’09 having dropped a level. # (Mill Park reading data) The community needs a summer school to help these students achieve grade level proficiency.
“Providing high-quality summer learning opportunities is an important strategy for helping children who are performing below grade-level achieve proficiency in core academic skills. Without fundamental academic skills, children lose interest in school and develop patterns of behavior that lead to serious negative consequences.” **(Beyond The Book, 2010)
* Time. (2010, July 22nd). The Case Against Summer Vacation. Retrieved November 20th, 2010 from http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2005654,00.html
# Data recorded by the Title I Reading Specialist at Mill Park Elementary.
** Beyond The Book. (2010). Educational Summer Program Helps Children Excel. Retrieved June, 2010 from http://www.beyond-the-book.com/successstories/success_041906.html
