What Happened to Summer School in Lakewood?

Hot List students were identified by their reading scores. They were the children on the cusp of moving up to the next reading level. Enrollment in summer school was by invitation only.

A number of years ago, Clover Park School District instituted a Summer School program to address the issue of low test scores. The summer school program I was affiliated with was set up along the lines of a daycamp with an emphasis on academic skills. Parents were not given the option of nominating their children for summer school.

Instead, Hot List students were identified by their reading scores—they were the children on the cusp of moving up to the next reading level. Enrollment in summer school was by invitation only.

Now, ten years later, very few Clover Park elementary schools offer a summer school program. I'm sure budget constraints contributed to this change. It also may be that summer school did not raise scores enough to be cost effective for the district.

Who is involved in putting together a summer school program? First, a leader must be identified. This is frequently someone working on a principal credential. This person must be paid for his or her time. Teachers must be selected and paid. 

Kids make messes and a custodian must be involved to keep the facility running smoothly. Paraeducators who supervise recesses and run the summer school office are additional personnel. Add to these individuals the cost of maintaining a building, including heat, electricity and water.

While all of this is going on, the district is preparing for school to start in September. All custodial personnel are involved in some way. Desks are removed from classrooms and cleaned thoroughly. Floors are waxed, carpets cleaned. Most of these things cannot happen when a building is being used for classrooms.

Students need buses to take them to and from school and drivers to operate the buses. Add in the cost of gas for those huge vehicles and the cost of paying responsible, well-trained bus drivers.

Are these good enough reasons to limit summer school? Currently, summer school is happening in the district, at specific schools central to a group of others, as if several buildings were feeding into one other building. This is the way the district middle schools work. Lochburn receives students from a cluster of elementary schools, including , , and others in the general area. The middle schools then feed into the high schools.  students attend l; students at attend .

I wonder, though, if the efforts in improving reading and test scores was worthwile. Let's think about the students being assessed. Monolingual students who have been in the country for a short time have not picked up English yet, or special needs students who are still learning potty-training. It is ludicrous to test these children by the same assessment we use on the general population.

Schools in Washington state have been controlled by the Washington Assessment of Student Learning since its inception. Every new program is expected to improve test scores.  In fact, test scores are a means of evaluating schools in our state.  The WASL was devised, we heard at the time, to assess how well a teacher was teaching students. Rumors surfaced about schools being closed if they did not make Adequate Yearly Progress.

As measured by what? Staff being fired and parents given the option of moving their children to better schools?

Well, if you start with rotten eggs and moldy cheese, your souffle is not going to be a success. I think a lot of what's wrong in Clover Park is parent apathy, social services issues and the inability to speak English in order to communicate with the classroom teachers. This is not to say that Lakewood's children are rotten eggs or moldy cheese, but it is a comment on the raw material Lakewood's teachers have to work with. I wonder if test scores would be better served by providing parenting classes?

Wouldn't it be a nice change if the bureaucrats who thought state assessment test are a good idea, were made to take and pass such a test before assuming office?  How about merit pay for teachers, senators and Congressmen?

I am not a fan of state assessments.