📝 Report Card 08/13/26

A summer school in Mount Vernon is walking the talk on how staff want schools in Washington to look: inclusive, multilingual and diverse.

Foundation for Academic Endeavors' Summer Academy has for more than a decade provided a place for low-income Latino youth in Skagit County to continue their learning, experience a college campus and connect with other youth just like them. Two hundred students attended the program this year.

Executive Director Dania Jaramillo told me that the program aims to lessen summer learning loss, but a bigger goal is "strengthening the cultural identities and language of our students." The program does that by hiring a 90% Latino staff and reading books (in English and Spanish) about kids who look like them. (Read more about this program here).

The program has been successful, funneling many of its past students toward higher education. But it can't meet the demand for summer school in Skagit County. It served fewer students this year because of challenges in securing funding.

That's a common story across the state. A study from Afterschool Alliance, a group advocating for better summer and after-school opportunities for students, found that only half of Washington children whose parents want them in a summer program are actually enrolled.

School districts host some summer programs. Extended School Year programs for students receiving special education services allow those students to receive additional schooling for a few more weeks in the summer. Other districts run summer programs for migrant students. But programs for students who need additional support or who failed classes during the year are limited and crunched by ongoing budget challenges. Often, they're online.

Nooksack Valley High School is taking a new approach to summer school after seeing limited efficacy from an online credit retrieval program.

In the past, students who failed courses in the previous school year would come into school in the summer to do coursework online, Principal Collin Buckley recalled. It had mixed results. After COVID-19, and after piloting a tutorial model, they launched a new version of summer school.

Now, instead of giving students Fs, they get “no credit” if they fail. To make that up, they attend a three-week summer school where they dive deep on a unit of the most essential material in that course. If they're successful, the “no credit” is turned into a D.

The school runs three periods a day, so students can get credit for up to three failed classes. The idea is that they've already had the "full experience of the course" but just weren't successful on their first try. Teachers work together to develop those units to determine what they would need to have students understand to justify a grade change.

When asked how the efficacy of this program compares to the previous online program, Buckley and Assistant Principal Jeff Demorest said there's no comparison: The rate of kids earning credits in the new program is "astronomically higher."

Nooksack Valley pays for much of the program with Learning Assistance Program funds, designated to help students not meeting academic standards. Students who take part in the program get free breakfast and lunch through an existing free meal program, and transportation if needed.

The teachers at the summer school are doing "anything to help a kid be successful."

"When the kids see that, they usually step up and answer the call," Demorest said.

Seattle Times: Cuts to Transition to Kindergarten have been deeply frustrating to parents and school districts in our region. But this Times story gets at a complex truth: The program is diverting 4-year-olds from some childcare providers. One Yakima County provider referenced in this story says she had 10 vacancies this school year, something she's never experienced before.

“Miracle Children: Race, Education and a True Story of False Promises” by Katie Benner and Erica L. Green. A deep investigation into T.M. Landry College Prep, a school in Louisiana that bragged of a 100% college acceptance rate and placing students in Ivy League colleges. But much of it was a scam, with students facing abuse and coercion. I'm a longtime fan of Green's work and admire how she dove into this thorny, important story.

NPR: Teens from all 50 states got together a few weekends ago to develop rules for artificial intelligence use in schools. Included: Students shouldn't be able to use AI to write, but can use it to brainstorm, edit and study after grade 8.