Live school in summer for 20,000
ment.
“This is big,” said Maria Su, executive director of the Department of Children, Youth and Families. “This is a big deal.”
For months, San Francisco officials and families have called on schools to reopen to help mitigate learning loss and other effects of remote schooling, including mental health declines and lack of social interaction. While many elementary and high needs students will return to classrooms in April, most district students will remain in distance learning through the spring.
The summer programs will help mitigate academic declines for all students while providing opportunities for academic credit recovery for older students, Su said. Others can opt for summer camps, where they can regain a sense of normalcy and remember how to play together or to share.
Many need a refresher on how to learn, play and laugh in public, officials said.
“We want to get children back to the habit of waking up, going to a place to learn and to have fun,” Su said. “We need to rebuild real fast those behaviors so these kids are going to be ready for fall.”
The collaboration marks something of a thaw in relations between the school district and city after months of public feuding over the reopening of classrooms, including fingerpointing over vaccines and virus testing as well as a lawsuit filed by City Attorney Dennis Herrera against the superintendent and school board.
“It has never been more clear that we must work together as a community to care for the needs of our city’s children,” said Superintendent Vince
Matthews. “Summer learning and socializing plays a critical role in the lives of young people. This summer, we look forward to joining with the city to offer multiple programs for children and youth of all ages.”
The Crankstart Foundation has agreed to chip in $25 million toward the effort, with other private and nonprofit organizations helping support the initiative. The school district will provide summer school opportunities, with extra funding to support allday programs and other resources.
The city is also expected to contribute more than $25 million to cover the costs of the free programs, with federal stimulus funding helping cover summer school costs incurred by the district.
Together SF, which coordinates a network of volunteers, will help administer the effort.
“Our children have truly suffered under COVID, and we need to do everything we can to lift them up this summer,” Mayor London Breed, said in a statement announcing the initiative. “Summer Together will support their mental health, their academic needs, and just get them to be back together with other children again.”
Summer school in the district is expected to include the Black Star Rising STEM program, as well as literacy programs for recent immigrant students and
credit recovery for high school students, among other opportunities, with donations and city funding helping cover costs to create a fullday program of activities and support for families who want it.
The city will also expand the number of learning hubs, recruiting teachers to work with students in locations across the city, including some in private facilities.
That could mean high school students could spend summer days inside the Salesforce Tower or other company office spaces to work on history assignments or catch up on chemistry.
“We’re talking to them about letting us use their space since they’re empty and letting us use their WiFi,” Su said. “Every company we’ve talked to has been extremely interested.”
In addition to free learning opportunities and summer camps, the initiative will also pay for 10 summer reading books for each of the district’s 52,000 students — more than 500,000 books — which will be available at the public libraries.
City officials said they expect to start offering signups for the initiative’s programs in April.
For more information, go to summertogether.org.