Appreciating a Great Summer

What if I told you that the hallways and classrooms of Springer were filled with smiles and laughter from over seventy students ranging from kindergarten to twelfth grade, during summer?

Springer’s Adventures in Summer Learning creates an opportunity for students to embark on a journey of self-advocacy, social-emotional development and learning all while having fun. Students who have not had positive memories of the classroom are able to step into a classroom setting, and sometimes for the first time, feel confidence and pride in their ability as a learner. The shift in students' perception regarding learning is one that I have witnessed over the last two years as a teacher at Springer, one that was reinforced as I taught in the summer program last summer and was one I was given the opportunity to witness firsthand again as Summer Operations Lead this summer.

This summer, our program was able to offer opportunities for community families to support their students' academics with specialized elementary, middle school, and for the first time, high school programs. The students who walked through our doors every day received direct, small group instruction from trained professionals in the areas of decoding, writing, math, executive functioning, social skills and study skills as well as the opportunity to participate in chess, pottery, lego, theater and STEM clubs. Over the course of the hot summer months our students worked diligently at learning and applying new strategies to support their academic success, and they walked out of the program with their heads held a little higher.

Initially there can be hesitation for families when it comes to filling summer months with more routine and less pool days, but the smiles on your students faces as they race out to the playground just to show me a story they wrote, a hard math problem they solved or to read to me a passage they have been practicing makes it worth it.