About 650 students enrolled in Confluence Academy’s ‘Summer Journey’ summer-school program, which is a “significant jump,” compared to 2019 according to CEO Candice Carter-Oliver, Confluence Academies.
The program, run by Catapult Learning, contracts with districts and school systems across the state. About 33,000 students are enrolling in Catapult’s summer programs in Missouri this year.
“One of the things I really noticed was the laughter in the building,” Confluence Academy Old North Principal Leslie Muhammad said.
“We’ve had more students coming back during Summer Journey than we had at the beginning of the pandemic. Just hearing the laughter in the building, because they really enjoy the engagement.”
Confluence Academies have offered elementary school students the option to return to in-person learning since October 2020, and middle and high school students have had the option since January 2021.
This Summer Journey program, however, is the first fully-in-person program the school has offered since the pandemic.
Catapult provides lesson plans, and advertisement and professional development materials for teachers running the summer programs.
“The glossy folders make a difference!,” said Suzanne DeZego of Catapult.
This is the 20th year that Catapult’s Summer Journey programs have been operating in Missouri. They include more standard classroom work in the mornings, as well as more unique courses in the afternoon. At Confluence Academy, for example, all students were given swimming lessons in order to learn valuable safety skills and cool off in the midsummer heat.
“Having the opportunity to go swimming this summer was very exciting, especially with the high number of African American children who don’t know how to swim,” Muhammad said.
She also highlighted the drone operation classes the students engaged in, which were particularly relevant given the school’s proximity to the new NGA development.
The programs, which emphasize hands-on activities like cooking and art, were not offered in many of the districts Catapult ordinarily works with last year. This year, though, as Carter-Oliver put it, summer school is more important than ever—especially since many students have been falling behind on state learning standards after a year of online or hybrid learning.
“In the fall, we’ll return in-person fully, and we believe just having that past year of experience and then an in-person summer-school experience has all just kind of built up to that,” Carter-Oliver said.
And the Summer Journey program also took a weight off the overburdened shoulders of Confluence Academies’ parents.
“Families wanted their children back in school, back in a physical space amongst other children. We’ve asked parents over the past year to be that person at home helping navigate that, and some parents have really seen the challenge in that. I think parents saw how important the schoolhouse is, and wanted their kids back in it.”
These patterns of enthusiastic return to in-person summer school continue throughout Missouri, DeZego said, where more students are enrolled in Summer Journey programs than in previous years.
“Overall, we have better attendance rates this year than we’ve had, and I think that’s because families are ready for that in-person schooling, and kids are ready for that social piece.”
“Engaging children during the summer months is critical, particularly for urban students,” Carter-Oliver noted. “We have families that rely on the school setting for care, for breakfast and lunch, for supervision, and all of those social and emotional types of support. And we want to be able to be a space to provide that. So summer learning, for us, is just essential.”
Catapult offers remedial math and reading work to help students who may have fallen behind or been unable to complete their work during the standard school year. DeZego said that eight districts across the state are using those programs, as opposed to “about 5” in more standard years.
Those programs, Achieve Math and Achieve Reading, “really drill into those skills that were missed. So, not just reteaching the same thing—it’s what skills did they miss and let’s go back to that. So we’ll look at what those skills are, where the holes in the learning are, and teach those skills to help kids advance.”