Weekly Media Roundup: June 23, 2021

Bay Area Sees Post-COVID Summer School Enrollment Boom After Year of Distance Learning, Mercury News (California)

School districts across California are increasing the capacity of their summer learning programs to meet the high demand for engaging, in-person opportunities. Nearly 4,000 students in the San Ramon Unified School District and approximately 6,500 students in the Oakland School District are attending summer programs. “We know that we’re not catching them up from a year and a half of distance learning,” Nusheen Saadat, a teacher at the Golden View Elementary School, told the Mercury News. “We know that. What we want is, ‘Hey, do you feel stronger? Did you show an improvement? Do you feel like you’re making progress?’” Even with increased capacity, some families struggle to find available space and are placed on long waiting lists.

STEM Camp Coming to Ranchester in July, Sheridan Press (Wyoming)

Thanks to a grant through the Million Girl Moonshot program, the Tongue River Valley Community Center in Ranchester, Wyoming is offering two science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) camps to students in third through eighth grade this July. “I’m so excited for this camp. I love to watch the kids create and learn, especially when they don’t realize they are learning (through) project-based learning,” Ranchester Center Supervisor and Afterschool Program Coordinator Tanya McCoy told the Sheridan Press. Activities include building flashlights, e-textile projects and 3-D designs.

Families Call on Lawmakers to Prioritize After-School, Summer Programs, Downtown Los Angeles (California)

At a recent town hall in Los Angeles hosted by Innovate Public Schools, a nonprofit, nearly 50 parents called on California state elected officials to dedicate more than $1 billion in relief funds from the American Rescue Plan to afterschool and summer programs. Access to out-of-school time programming is crucial, parents said, to meet students’ academic and social and emotional needs as they recover from the pandemic. Parents also demanded that lawmakers ensure the funding reaches low-income, Black and Latino communities. “Having to figure out how to pay for these programs as we’re coming out of a pandemic and with the high cost of living in California is a lot on our plate,” Dionicia Barrera, a mother of three, told Downtown Los Angeles. “I want the governor and legislators to think about our children as if they were their own. This isn’t just about getting our kids to school and it’ll be OK; it’s about getting them to school and having them be well.”

Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn Visits Summer Learning Camps, The Daily Times (Tennessee)

Over the course of three weeks, Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn is visiting summer learning programs in 50 districts across the state. Last Wednesday, Schwinn visited three programs in Blount County, where she solved math problems with kindergartners, watched elementary schoolers chart wind speeds, saw teams of middle schoolers battle robots they had designed and built, and more.  “What you’re seeing in a lot of programs across the state are super-small class sizes, really focused instruction — a lot of joy — and four weeks of additional time that students would not otherwise be in school,” Schwinn told the Daily Times