Andrew Neel (Unsplash)
May 20, 2020 By Michael Dorgan
Schools not going to be out for summer for many New York City kids this year.
The city has announced that around 178,000 students will be taking part in its summer learning program starting July.
The extra teaching will be for students who failed to reach grade-level standards this year or are in need of additional lessons, according to the mayor.
Students with disabilities will also get a helping hand over the summer months.
In total, around 16 percent of the 1.125 million public school students will be required to take classes.
“It’s going to be a huge effort, an unprecedented effort… It will take a lot of innovation along the way,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press briefing Tuesday.
“We are not going to let this crisis knock our kids off course,” de Blasio said.
Summer school programs will run similar to previous years and last for a period of six weeks in July and August. Parents and guardians will be notified in June whether their child will be required to attend the extra lessons.
Around 67,000 students in grades three to eight will be required to attend summer school remotely four days per week.
Teachers in these grades will determine if a student is required to be held back over the summer although some students will be recommended, but not required to attend based on individual needs. However, these students would not be in jeopardy of being held back for next year.
Grade eight students, however, must pass ELA, math, science, and social studies classes in order to be promoted in June.
Roughly 83,000 students in grades nine to 12 will be required to attend remote learning five days per week. Students in these grades will be retained for summer school if they received a “course-in-progress” mark, or if they failed a class in a prior semester.
The estimated 28,000 students in the city’s public school system who have disabilities will also be required to attend remote learning lessons five days per week. These students will receive daily teaching and services that are aligned to their individual needs.
All summer school students will receive check-ins with counselors and support staff throughout the summer to make sure they are not falling behind in their respective programs.
Students will also get to participle in virtual field trips to zoos, museums and cultural institutions.
In total, around 102,000 students – up from 44,000 last year – are required to attend summer school to be promoted, according to reports.
The uptick in numbers is being attributed, in part, to the state’s COVID-19 shutdown which saw New York City public schools begin remote learning on March 23.
The mayor said that the transition to remote learning has had a negative impact on many students.
However, Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza said the numbers were not an accurate way of measuring the effects of remote learning.
“It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison because there was a lot of other kinds of summer programming and schools had their own individual summer programs,” he said.
“This year is going to be centralized because we want to reach as many students as possible,” he said.
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