West Contra Costa Unified School District plans to offer mostly in-person summer school to make up for widespread learning loss and prepare students for the "new normal" of returning to school.
The district appears to be one of the first large school districts in the state to announce in-person summer school, which is slated to begin June 14 — the week after the traditional school year ends.
Presenting their plans at a school board meeting on Feb. 24, district officials said this year's offering will include credit-recovery opportunities at every high school, "bridge programming" to get students ready for the next grade, college preparedness and special education programs.
"We want to reignite student passion for learning, rebuild some of the excitement and engagement in school for students who have been out of their school buildings for so long," WCCUSD Superintendent Matthew Duffy said at the meeting.
This could be the first time some students have been in a classroom since the pandemic began last March. The district's current policy is to not reopen campuses until three conditions are met: all ZIP codes within the district are in the orange or "moderate" tier on the state's reopening tier system for 21 consecutive days; the case rates in surrounding counties of Alameda and Solano counties drop below 10 per 100,000 population; and the positivity rate drops below 3%.
But after a group of parents criticized that policy as being too stringent a threshold, the district's school board last Thursday unanimously directed staff to return to the bargaining table with its unions.
Initial California and national data measuring learning impacts during the first months of the pandemic showed a significant drop in test results in the early grades, with low-income students and English learners showing the least progress in learning.
Duffy said a "large portion" of West Contra Costa Unified students fell behind grade level in reading and math over the past year.
— Ali Tadayon, EdSource