Most students­­­­ would agree that a break from school is great. But a break from the classroom doesn’t have to mean a break from learning.
 
For many students, a few months off in the summer can lead to major setbacks in school, including loss of knowledge and lowered test scores. Many schools are aware of the growing evidence that points to the educational problems summer breaks cause and developing programs to put an end to the summer slide.
 
InspirED chatted with Zeeland Public Schools’ Lincoln Elementary principal Tom DeGraaf, who has worked in the education system for over 20 years, to see what principals and schools are doing to prevent summer slide.
 
Tell us a little bit about your school and how summer slide is affecting your students.
 
DeGraaf: Summer slide has always been a challenge educators have had to deal with, especially in current times where students are now taking interim benchmark assessments the first few weeks of school to establish baselines of proficiency. Zeeland Public Schools has addressed this issue over the past few years in a variety of ways. In addition to several summer learning programs and our summer school program for English Language Learners, we have encouraged parents to keep their children engaged in learning activities and to read daily. 
 
According to the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA), a national nonprofit focused on closing the achievement gap through high-quality summer learning, a significant majority of teachers agreed that summer learning loss could be alleviated if students participated in a summer learning program.
 
How is your school working to reduce summer slide and promote summer learning?
 
DeGraaf: Currently, all six of our elementary buildings have their Just Right Libraries open for kindergarten through second grade students every Wednesday from 4:30-6:00 p.m. This allows students to come in and check out leveled, independent books that they read over the course of a week. Students may check out up to six books. Zeeland also has a library on wheels, called the "Z-bus," that tours the district each week, making strategic stops and giving students the opportunity to access new books each week.
 
Zeeland publishes a Summer Stretch booklet for students, which is taken home by every kindergarten through eighth grade student during the last week of school. This contains math, reading and writing activities to help maintain proficiency and better prepare them for the following September.
 
Implemented in 2012, the Summer Stretch booklets provide quality learning opportunities for all Zeeland Public Schools students to combat summer learning loss. The booklet, which contains eight weeks of academic review, includes a reading graph to track 100 minutes of reading each week, writing prompts, math reviews of concepts and fluency, extension activities to creatively practice content area skills in the real world and incentives for students to stay motivated.
 
How do you inform parents about the summer slide issue and how do you get them involved?
 
DeGraaf: Parents play a key role when it comes to preventing summer learning loss. We continue to modify our offerings but are consistent with our message to parents to help us prevent summer slide by keeping their children engaged in math, reading and writing activities throughout the summer. We suggest online sites for additional tasks, drills, practice, as well as online book chats to promote learning during students’ time away from school.
 
Summer slide is much less frequent in families that enroll children in classes, take trips to local libraries, participate in reading programs or take advantage of other learning opportunities, according to the NSLA.
 
What have been the greatest challenges so far?
 
DeGraaf: There are challenges with these programs. The biggest is that all students do not choose to complete or participate in the programs. Various schools offer different incentives for completion and completion is recorded into our school data system each fall to monitor which students complete the program. Ideally, we encourage parents to have students do some activities each week, but many choose to cram it in the two weeks before school begins. The frustration with this is that students have already "checked out" in June and July, and this compounds the difficulty of completing the booklets accurately and on time.
 
Have you seen success with these programs?
 
DeGraaf: The students that consistently attend our Just Right Libraries in the summer do not slide in reading. Those that do the math portion of the Summer Stretch packet display far less of a need for review in September and then score better on our Delta Math Screener, which measures previous year essential content standards. In a survey of Zeeland Public Schools parents, 64 percent respondents indicated that the Summer Stretch program helped give their child a successful start to the school year.