Swimming skills aren’t just for dreamers
It’s amazing how much progress can happen in 27 days.
“You were scared to let go of the wall, and now you’re motorboating and jumping in,” Obama Academy swim coach Mark Rauterkus says to his campers, the majority of which struggle to stay afloat in the pool at the beginning of camp. Though he’s usually coaching teenagers to lower their times and perfect their technique, he spends the summers with beginners.
Rauterkus led swimming and water polo classes for Summer Dreamers, a Pittsburgh Public Schools summer program, ensuring his assignedcampers build confidence in themselves and their ability to swim. Summer Dreamers aims to make camp an accessible option for all the city’s youth, no matter their socioeconomic background. The 5½-week summer program couples academic classes taught by PPS teachers in the morning with more traditional camp activities, led by community partners or coaches such as Rauterkus,in the afternoon.
Learning to swim early on sets kids up for success, Rauterkus said, whether they want to pursue the sport in the future or just stay safe whilein the water.
“We’re teaching the kids a skill, a lifetime skill,” Rauterkus said. “And we’re also spending a lot of time in fitness, so they’re getting stronger, more endurance. They’re learning about exercising, kinetic movement, and their teamwork and sportsmanship.”
The program is free for attendees and aims to combat summer learning loss.
“If you look at the availability of opportunities, there’s just a lot more for middle class or upper student,” James Doyle, coordinator of out-of-school time for PPS, said. “So I might be going on vacation, I might be going to a really expensive day camp, because traditionallywhen you think ‘summer camp,’ you think you’re going to this place that’s out in the woods and you’re riding horses and doing all these things.”
Summer Dreamers, which began in 2010, took place at Pittsburgh King PreK-8, Carmalt and Pittsburgh University Prep, spread out so families don’t have to travel far to a campsite, though the sites do occasionally rotate to other PPS schools. The program concluded Wednesday, allowing parents to watch a video of their kids’ day-to-day activity at camp and tag along during activities to watchtheir progress.
Weaving through the halls at Pittsburgh King, Three Rivers Fencing employees challenge kids to bouts, using plastic foils. Attack Theatre staff leads an adventures in movement class, teaching dancing and encouraging the groupto work as a unit.
The activity in every corner of the school stretches across the North Shore, with children going on miniature “safaris” outside to learn about nature, others practicing public speaking in the Children’s Museum radio studio and a group learning about police dogs from a city police officer.
To avoid that slump in the summer when kids forget what they’ve learned during the school year, Summer Dreamers staff works to keep them engaged. The program pulled from National Summer Learning Association research, Doyle said, which points out students of lower socioeconomic status are at a higher risk for summer learning loss, particularly before fifth grade. While Summer Dreamers was originally designed for middle schoolers, the age range was tweaked to get youth engaged earlyon.
That engagement extends from academics to stimulating activities out of the classroom — so it can sneakily feel less like summer school and more like camp.
“Having that balance is just what we’ve learned, particularly in the summer, it just makes that whole learning experience so much better,” Doyle said.
From robotics classes, Lego STEM classes, biking activities, swimming and water polo sessions to creating a mosaic, the idea is to help kids find an out-of-classroom passion they can stick with after camp. The kids don’t rotate activities, but specialize inone per summer.
Tracy Calhoun, camp director and third-grade teacher at Pittsburgh King, sees children who have struggled in the classroom thrive in more creative environments. Maybe some students aren’t great at math, but they’re excellent dancers or artists.
“Those are the things that make me happy,” Calhoun said. “To see them shine in their own space.”
The confidence campers build out of the classroom often carries over into academics, Calhoun said.
When the program began with stimulus dollars, an initiative by President Obama, it could fund up to 5,500 students, and it now funds about 1,500-2,000 students per year, surviving with donations from Heinz Endowments, the Grable Foundation, The Pittsburgh Foundation and McAuley Ministries, as well as the district’s general fund dollars, according to Doyle.
The Wallace Foundation, which studies “ideas and information you can use to help improve learning and enrichment for disadvantaged children and foster the vitality of the arts for everyone,’ per its website, includes the program in its ongoing longterm study to determine if voluntarily attended summer learning programs help students’academic success.
In 2014, the study determined high attenders of the programs outperformed nonparticipants in both math and English Language Arts on fall and spring testing.