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District to partner with Boys & Girls Club for summer acceleration; committee raises summer pay to $45 an hour
Summary
The district detailed a summer 'acceleration' plan focused on grade‑level readiness, will partner with the Boys & Girls Club and Bellingham for a cost‑sharing model, and approved a one‑time increase in summer pay for certified staff to up to $45 per hour to aid recruitment.
The regional school committee approved a summer programming plan that emphasizes acceleration — targeted instruction to prepare students for the next grade — and endorsed a cost‑sharing partnership with the Boys & Girls Club and neighboring Bellingham Public Schools.
Superintendent Jason Defalco described a strategy of identifying three to four essential skills per grade so summer programs can "front load those skills" rather than focus only on remediation. “The idea is that we want to front load those skills so that when the students step into the start of the school year they’ve already had exposure,” Defalco said.
The district will run an eight‑week series in collaboration with the Boys & Girls Club and Bellingham; staff will be district employees and payroll expenses will be cost‑shared with Bellingham. Defalco said the district’s share for fully staffing the program for the eight‑week, four‑hours‑a‑day model would be approximately $16,000 for about 350 students (including students from neighboring towns).
Programming will include: ESY for students served by IEPs, a K–5 "jumpstart" focused on hands‑on, low‑tech literacy and math activities, middle‑school "ramp up" and high‑school "catch up" models, and a revamped credit‑recovery approach where students are assigned to a specific teacher for both virtual and in‑person check‑ins.
To improve recruitment and staffing for the summer offerings, the committee approved a one‑time increase in the hourly rate for certified/licensed summer staff from $35 to up to $45 per hour for summer 2021; the rate will revert to contract levels (typically $35) at the start of the 2021–22 school year. The motion was seconded and approved by voice vote; the transcript records the motion and the vote but does not provide a roll‑call tally.
Administrators said they will finalize student lists, transportation plans for morning sessions and staffing assignments; they also plan targeted outreach to homeschool families and flexible scheduling options (half‑day and evening blocks) to improve access.
