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Deer Park ISD will reallocate summer‑school funds into the school year after low summer attendance and compliance issues
Summary
The board finalized a decision to stop traditional summer school in favor of reallocating federal LAP and Title funds into during‑year supports because summer programs had low attendance, compliance concerns and staffing challenges, including difficulty staffing nurses and administrators for summer sites.
Deer Park ISD board members said the district will reallocate funds previously used for summer school into interventions delivered during the regular school year because prior summer programs had low participation and were not meeting required compliance requirements for state and federal funding.
Staff presented findings that summer school participation had been under 50% at scale in previous years and that several summer offerings had not complied with the tightened federal and state requirements tied to federal funds. Summer programs funded by federal and state sources require tracking and evidence of progress in targeted academic areas (the presenters described ELA and math as the allowable focus areas tied to these strings), and staff told the board the district had not been consistently tracking student progress to meet those requirements.
Administratively, staff said summer delivery carries added overhead: an on‑site administrator and a nurse are required for safety and compliance, and the district faces teacher and nurse staffing shortages in the summer. One staff speaker said some schools lacked teachers willing to work summer sessions, and that staffing shortfalls increased the cost and operational challenge of running effective summer programs.
As an alternative, the board approved reallocating the summer allocation from LAP and Title into additional during‑year supports (staff described reallocating those funds into school‑day interventions). Staff and school buildings are to identify how to use those funds during the school year to better reach students in need.
Ending: The board finalized the decision to discontinue the district's former model of summer school funded by federal/state monies and to reallocate those funds into the regular school year, with buildings to propose program models and staff to return details on implementation.
