Schools Cut Most Optional Summer-School Programs

By Trenton Daniel and Nirvi Shah, The Miami Herald

Jun. 6–Hundreds of thousands of South Florida school children ended another year of school Thursday, and except for those with special academic challenges, school doors won’t reopen again until late August.

Due to budget cuts over the last several years, summer school has become an option for fewer and fewer students.

Thousands of Miami-Dade students interested in taking college-level courses or a computer-related internship in summer school will lose the chance this year.

That’s because some of the district’s few remaining elective summer-school programs got chopped, saving the school district about $9.9 million. Last year, the Miami-Dade outreach programs, as they’re known, served 3,000 students.

“Because of the critical budget shortages, we had to look at the state and federally mandated programs,” said Rhoda Shirley, the school district’s executive director of specialized summer programs. “They had to be a priority. We had to look at the most critical needs of this district.”

In Broward, budget cuts shrunk summer-school programs several years ago. Since then, the district’s summer programs have been limited mostly to programs for students who need extra help in reading and science.

FCAT CLASSES

Third-graders who failed the reading FCAT will have the chance to go to reading classes during the summer. Students who failed a sixth- or seventh-grade class and need to repeat it can attend classes, as may rising ninth-graders who scored poorly on the FCAT reading test.

Broward School Board Chairwoman Robin Bartleman said that when she was a kid in Miami-Dade, summer school was readily available, even if the classes were just to help high-school students get more credits.

“Almost every school had summer school, and that doesn’t happen anymore,” Bartleman said. “Some students need that year-round instruction or need the opportunity to get some extra help in the summer, and the state doesn’t fund it anymore. It’s a problem.”

Miami-Dade will continue to offer summer-school classes for eighth-graders and seniors seeking to make up one annual credit to move on to the ninth grade or to graduation.

Beyond that, Miami-Dade’s summer-school offerings will be limited to those required by the state and federal governments.

These include courses to serve third-graders who are being retained, students with disabilities, and students who need to pass the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test in order to graduate.

Even with the cuts, Miami-Dade will try to serve as many students as possible when classes start July 2. Almost 29,000 are eligible for summer-school courses; it isn’t clear how many of those the district will be able to accommodate.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE

The summer-school program aims to help more than 3,700 third-graders who were held back because of reading scores, some 21,000 students who must pass the FCAT to graduate, and some 4,000 students with varying disabilities.

For those taking summer school, district leaders say it’s imperative that students show up the first two days, because demand for the classes will be measured based on turnout.

If students fail to appear, they risking missing out on their classes.

Miami Herald staff writer Hannah Sampson contributed to this report.

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