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Summer programs: Yakima School District reports participation gains, 17 students earned diplomas after summer coursework
Summary
The district said summer programming served preschool through high school, provided meals and transportation, recorded gains in math and literacy in targeted programs, and enabled 17 additional students to graduate after completing summer credits.
Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Hector Mendez told the board that Yakima School District ran multiple summer programs for preschool through high school, funded in part by 21st Century (20 First Century in the presentation) partnerships with ESD, migrant grants, Connexus credit-retrieval courses, and special-education extended-year services.
Mendez provided participation and outcome figures: the 21st-Century program invited students from five elementary schools and one middle school and reported 457 students in that program; migrant outreach registered 223 migrant students and of those "146 attended," Mendez said. Summer school ran June 23 through July 18 (half days except migrant program all day); at the middle- and high-school level, roughly 1,500 students registered for offerings and a little over 900 attended, producing 1,761 courses completed and about 1,245.5 credits; Mendez said the summer work enabled 17 additional students to graduate.
Mendez said the district provided breakfast and lunch at sites and transportation for students and thanked nutrition and transportation staff for logistics support. He described curriculum alignment to guaranteed standards and cited a 42.5% increase in math scores and a 15% increase in literacy for particular program participants (slide summary cited during the presentation).
In public comment Phyllis Bunker Frank urged the board to consider a recurring budget line for supplementary learning, argued that summer programming reaches a small share of a district she described as '15,000 plus' students and asked the board to track whether post-summer gains were maintained during the school year. Vicky Dwight, another commenter, praised transparency and the district’s attention to the affective domain and dual-language instruction.
Board members asked about debriefing and outreach to improve participation; Mendez said staff do follow-up calls to registrants but that more outreach is needed to close the gap between registration and attendance.
Mendez closed by noting community partnerships that provided real-world STEAM experiences (for example, a visit to a local blueberry farm) and the positive student engagement those experiences produced.
The board did not take separate action on the summer-program report; the district will continue program evaluation and community outreach.
