(NewsNation) — With students facing two years of interrupted learning because of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools are now reimagining their summer programs, according to a report from Axios.
The news outlet has reported that summer school programs increased last summer, but were focused on recovery efforts for kids who fell behind. Now, experts say enrichment programs and other offerings are being used to continue capitalizing on the summer months.
An example of that is that tutoring programs have been booming in districts nationwide, Axios said. Miami-Dade County Public Schools is partnering with community organizations to expand their summer offerings, Axios said, while one district in Illinois is providing a “summer engagement coach” to families to help with “questions, platforms and motivation.”
“Tutoring comes in a number of different ways. You can come in person, and that’s generally considered the most important,” Dennis Roche, president of the school tracking site Burbio, said on NewsNation’s “Morning in America.” “We’ve seen things like arts, gamification — various ways to make school fun for students at all levels of educational development.”
Even with summer school enrichment programs, it will still be a long process to get students up to speed, Roche said.
“As recently as four or five months ago, you had omicron. And you had schools sending home kids for quarantining and things like that,” he said. “This is going to be a multiyear process for recovery. And I think everybody recognizes that.”
Every child had to adjust during COVID-19, so parents need to be patient, Roche said.
“For some, it was worse than others,” he said. “If their activities were built around in-person, they lost a lot of that. Others not so much. So I think the idea is to just take take your time with it and not try and rush the transition back.”