By Sara McAlister, Rhea Almeida, Natasha Berger, and Imani Wilson

"Launching a quality summer program is akin to launching the school year, only with less time for planning and execution.” — Getting to Work on Summer Learning, Recommended Practices for Success, 2nd Ed, RAND Corporation.

Well-planned, high-quality summer learning programs can produce meaningful benefits for students. In particular, programs that go beyond traditional remediation to provide engaging learning experiences tailored to student needs and interests can help address chronic absenteeism and disconnectedness (Naftzger & Newman, 2021, Pyne et al, 2023).  Students who attend summer programs consistently can show improved learning outcomes and social-emotional life skills, develop new interests and relationships, gain exposure to new experiences, and are more engaged in learning (Schwartz et al, 2018, McCombs et al, 2019, Afterschool Alliance 2024). 

To realize the promise of summer programming to accelerate and enrich learning, school districts must organize resources for thoughtful planning and execution. Too often, planning for summer programming is treated as an afterthought. Many district leaders charged with summer planning must juggle multiple competing priorities. To successfully develop stimulating and effective summer programs, program leaders have a long list of planning decisions to make, such as: identifying facilities; hiring site leaders and teachers; selecting and engaging enrichment providers; choosing or designing summer curricula; training staff; communicating with families; recruiting students; actively promoting consistent attendance; and managing logistics, such as transportation, meals, and supplies. All this needs to be achieved in a shorter period of time and with fewer resources than in the regular school year (Schwartz et al, 2018). 

Research on summer learning has identified key practices for effective summer program planning: 

• Create and staff a summer director role. The summer director(s) should have time dedicated to summer planning and project management.

   

• Start planning early. Planning for summer learning should start before January and rely on a calendar with clear tasks and deadlines

   

• Construct a cross-departmental planning team. District departments that are important to summer running smoothly (such as curriculum, food, transportation, hiring, and enrichment) should meet regularly to plan together. 

   

• Engage stakeholders early in planning. Community partners, site-level staff, and students and families should be brought into the planning process early to help shape programming and contribute to continuous improvement. 

   

• Invest in site-level capacity early. Summer site leaders and teachers should be thoughtfully selected, trained, and collaborated with prior to summer to ensure high-quality programming (Schwartz et al, 2018). 

In this Snapshot, we spotlight three school districts—Newark, New Jersey; Rochester, Minnesota; and Seattle, Washington—that have invested in evidence-based planning practices to reimagine what summer learning can look like.