Partnership keeps kids learning over summer

Three years ago, two neighboring Buckhead

schools entered into an innovative partnership to connect faculty and student mentors from the private Atlanta International School with youngsters in Garden Hills Elementary. Those connections in the Horizons pro

gram were very specific: to bring Garden Hills’ low-performing students up to speed and keep them from losing

ground, particularly over the summer.

“We were trying to figure out how to partner with the Garden Hills community

and came up with Horizons, a six-week program in the summer when students can

bridge that learning gap,” said Chris Rhue, co-director with Kelsey Bunker for AIS Horizons. “These are students who may be a grade level behind in literacy or math, and it’s our job to help

get them on grade level.” The partnership was a natural, given the location of the two institutions, said Stacey Abbott, principal of

the 520-student Garden Hills elementary.

“We’re in a unique setting: All that separates us physically is a driveway,” she said. “It’s such a close collaboration that I often think the stu- dents think they go to both. Even the staffs work well between the two schools.”

During the summer hol- idays, instructors and volunteers welcome Garden Hills kids to the AIS campus for daily instruction. Rising first through fifth graders are brought to the Buckhead campus where they have breakfast, lunch, classes, and small-group instruction, along with swimming lessons and weekly field trips. Each grade level is limited to 15 students.

“We have two teachers and two or three volunteers in each classroom,” said Rhue. “We want to keep it personal. We started with first through third grades and haven’t even gotten to middle school yet, but we’re adding a grade level each summer. And once they’re a Horizons student,

they’re students for life and can come back every summer.”

Initially, the Horizons goal was to help students com- plete high school. “But our focus is now to see them get to college,” said Rhue.

To that end, Horizons sponsors monthly meet- ings, after-school homework help and assistance with any social or emotional learn

ing issues.

“The Horizons staff comes over and works at Garden Hills, and we’ve really seen a difference,” said Abbott. “The majority of our students who participate are second-language learners, and we’ve found that when those students leave for the summer, they do have a ‘summer slide’ and lose a lot of

the language and reading skills they picked up during the year. But through this program, we have students who may have started out behind but are now doing really well in class.”

Information about the Atlanta International School is online at aischool.org. For

details about Garden Hills Elementary, visit gardenhillselementary.org.

CONTRIBUTED Volunteer AIS fifth-grader Cameron Davoudi (far right) works with youngsters from Garden Hills Elementary as part of the AIS Horizons summer program.