Tuscaloosa City Schools Earns National Honor For Summer Learning Program

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Tuscaloosa City Schools this week announced that the school system has been recognized with a prestigious national award for its summer learning program.

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The TCS Summer Learning Academy was one of four recipients of the 2023 New York Life Foundation’s Excellence in Summer Learning Awards, which was presented by the National Summer Learning Association. The award, which is a first for TCS, also comes with a $10,000 prize.

TCS says the honor recognizes the top summer programs that support creative youth education experience and students’ social-emotional learning and well-being.

“This national award is deeply validating of both the scope and the quality of work that Tuscaloosa City Schools is doing in Summer Learning,” TCS Director of Strategic Initiatives Andrew Maxey, director of Strategic Initiatives for TCS. “Over the last six years, TCS has been committed to summer learning as a core strategy in advancing our mission.”

Tuscaloosa City Schools in 2017 committed to summer learning and began transitioning away from its previous “summer school" concept, going on to grow to over 3,000 participants in 2023.

This includes 40% of all TCS elementary students, while the TCS Summer Learning Academy includes 17 programs on 15 TCS campuses — serving students from all 21 schools in 2023.

In underscoring the impact of the program, TCS says students who attend at least three-quarters of the TCS summer learning program have a 73% chance of showing no summer learning loss over the summer.

Conversely, the school system reported that similar students who did not attend show a 13% chance of showing no learning loss.

“Not only are we well on our way to 'normalizing' summer learning in our community, this external recognition confirms what we have known internally for some time: the quality of this work is very high,” Maxey said.

Ryan Phillips is an award-winning journalist, editor and opinion columnist. He is also the founder and field editor of Tuscaloosa Patch. Email news tips to ryan.phillips@patch.com