Summer program helps ease transition for ELL students

The goal to ensure that every child achieves in Utica Community Schools does not
take a summer vacation.

One of many programs offered by UCS and its schools during the summer months
to keep students learning is a five-week program for English Language Learners
(ELL).

Funded through a grant, The program's goal is to help students with limited
proficiency in English with all areas of the language - writing, reading,
listening and spkeaing.

"Students who participate in these opportunities are far more likely to
retain the material that they have learned throughout the past school year, as
well as give them some strategies that they can apply in their learning in the
upcoming school year," said Laura Crouter, K-12 ELL Coordinator. "Many students
do not speak English in their homes, so being immersed in English for these five
weeks is an important part of the learning process."

The programs provide a smaller setting for ELL students to help them be
successful in their classrooms this Fall.

The summer learning programs have been offered in UCS for the past five
years, but the sessions were expanded this year to offer assistance to incoming
kindergarten students with limited proficiency.

Approximately 200 students are participating in the program this summer at
Schwarzkoff and Schuchard elementaries and Davis Junior High Schools. Another
program is scheduled for West Utica Elementary in August.

UCS has approximately 1,100 students receiving ELL support.