ALLEGHENY COUNTY, Pa. — Preventing the summer slide: local school districts create innovative programs focused on math and reading to help their most vulnerable learners succeed, despite the lingering challenges of pandemic learning loss.
“The last thing we want Opportunity Camp to feel like is summer school. We are not doing summer school, this is not remediation,” said Eddie Willson, the director of curriculum for Woodland Hills School District.
In 2021, Woodland Hills School District developed Opportunity Camp, a five-week summer program for students in grades K-7 targeting learning loss.
“Opportunity Camp was born from the idea that we knew when the global pandemic hit, we would have scholars that had additional learning loss on top of summer learning loss,” said Willson.
Willson said last year the program had 200 students participate, but this year’s numbers are growing and he believes that is a good thing.
“[This year] we have 320 scholars. That is more than 10% of the district. We did shrink down to kindergarten through fifth grade this year because we wanted to focus on that early learning,” said Willson.
In a six-hour day, students at Opportunity Camp will read, play math games, create ceramics, learn robotics, enjoy recess and socialize with their peers; transportation and food are all included free of charge.
“[Opportunity Camp] is built to mirror the camps that scholars in more affluent communities take for granted,” explained Willson.
The camp is funded through COVID-19 relief monies allocated to the district, which will sustain the program for the next two summers.
Woodland Hills School District is not the only district working to close the gap. Pittsburgh Public School District’s Boost program began in 2010 to address summer learning loss, but when the pandemic hit it shifted gears.
“We’re still in a pandemic and we’re still coming off the intense effect that it had on students, so we’re still addressing those COVID compensatory services for our students,” said Sydni Mundy, the program manager for Pittsburgh Public School.
The program now serves up to 1600 students in grades K-7 offering 90 minutes of reading and math in the morning combined with afternoon enrichment programming.
“We can track their learning so they can move forward or backward as it pertains to what they’re learning is,” said Mundy.
Both programs began Tuesday, July 5. Woodland Hill’s Opportunity Camp will run for five weeks while Pittsburgh Public’s Boost program will end later this month on July 29.
Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.
Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
This browser does not support the video element.