I Know What You Learned Last Summer: The Impact of Summer Learning Programs

Welcome to Educast three thousand. It's the most transformative time in the history of education.

So join us as we break down the fourth wall and reflect on what's happening, the good, the bad, and even the chaotic. Here's your hosts, Melissa Lobel and Ryan Lufkin.

Hey there and welcome to Educast three thousand. I'm your cohost, Ryan Lufkin.

And I'm your other cohost, Melissa Lobel. And we are joined in the studio by a good friend of ours today, someone that I've gotten to know personally over this last year. And I so admire the work that she does and that her organization does. So without no more further ado, we have Christy Rokicke in the studio today. She's the VP for external affairs at the National Summer Learning Association. Super exciting to have you. We haven't focused on summer learning really on the podcast, so we're really excited to dig in with you, Christy.

Oh, well, thank you, Melissa, and thank you, Ryan. I'm a super fan of yours, and it's so great to be here in a conversation with the both of you today, talking all things summer.

Welcome to the show.

Yeah.

It's awesome to have you.

Well, so before we jump into the topic and our questions, so many of our guests have such interesting journeys that they take through their careers and how they got to where they are now. Share us a little bit about your background, you would.

Oh, thank you for asking. So I have spent my career I started out and thought I was gonna be a lawyer and got an internship, a summer internship working for the American Red Cross, which then turned into a full time paid job and took me into the nonprofit sector, and I have never left. So I've spent my career in the nonprofit. I worked at Red Cross for ten years.

I worked as an executive director for rare disease organization. I've done environmental work. I worked for Arnold Schwarzenegger's charity for a while. I've always done a lot of communications work, strategic partnership, you know, with programs.

And I met our CEO when he was at Arnold's charity as well. And he and I stayed friends and we got to do some great work there. And when he came over to the National Summer Learning Association, he brought me here. And I had to say yes because I have a really good summer learning story.

I'm the daughter of educators. I've been education adjacent my whole life at Career, and now I get to work for this amazing organization.

Amazing. And I imagine maybe that story will come out in our next question. You listen to our podcast so you know our next question, which is a favorite learning moment. And it can be one of you as a learner or a student. It can be one where you've observed your family, could be one where you've been a teacher. It sounds like it might involve summer learning, which is very appropriate. Would you share with our listeners a favorite learning moment?

I would be delighted to. You know, there are so many because I am a I feel that you are always learning. You know, you always have to be a lifelong learner. If I won the Powerball tomorrow, I can think of a million things that I would wanna study.

But when I was in high school, I was a rising senior. I had the opportunity to participate in a free summer learning program. I got accepted to the New Jersey School of Public Issues. I was able to go I was at Monmouth University here in New Jersey, and it was a hundred students were selected.

You had to be nominated by your high school and got to go. It was pre college program for five weeks. It was completely free. Because again, my parents were educators.

I'm the oldest of four. Two of my siblings are still teachers. And on a teacher salary to go away for an overnight program for five weeks was just not in my parents' budget. But I was able to do it.

And it literally completely changed my perspective, my trajectory, altered where I went to college. And then a interesting story, while we knew each other, while we were there, five years later at the reunion, I met the man who is now my husband, and we've been Oh, wow. Crazy. Yeah.

So when I talk about summer learning impacting me moment.

Yeah.

Yeah. It is. So this work is so it's deeply personal and it's really near and dear to my heart. And as a mom, you know, I have two daughters who are juniors in high school and college, and I could not be the working parent that I am without summer learning programs.

So That's awesome.

Love stories like that. Mean, have such such interesting context of, you know, the path people take in the career they chose. It's amazing.

Thank Absolutely.

And the passion behind those career choices that they've made. And I can already hear yours. And when we've met, we just instantly talk about summer and summer learning, and we immediately connected. I love it. But for listeners that don't know much about NSLA, could you share with us a little more about your mission, the organization itself, and even how you are starting to approach this larger concept around the summer brain drain that we hear so much about.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. So National Summer Learning Association, we've been around almost thirty five years. We started as a direct service program in Baltimore.

Our founder, Doctor. Matthew Bouley is still on our board. And he was looking as a graduate student who's working with a sociologist named Carl Alexander at Johns Hopkins on what happens to young people in the summer months when they're not in traditional school. And notice what you call summer learning loss, summer slide, that there needs to be a reteaching of some of the academic skills that students leave school within June, They come back in September, and all students have this.

But what happens is kiddos who come from a lower kind of socioeconomic background, the loss becomes cumulative and there is a gap. So NSLA over the years moved from this direct service program impacting students in Baltimore to combat this to a national intermediary. And we became National Summer Learning Association to look at systems and ways to scale so that all students, so our mission is that all students in the United States, regardless of background, income, or ZIP code, can have access to high quality summer learning every year. So that's what we work on.

Amazing.

It's funny because I think, you know, there's certain times of the year we kind of get bombarded with news stories around summer slides, summer learning loss, that kind of thing. But how's the research around summer learning loss evolved? And and what do we know today differently than what we've kind of understood historically or now that we've got more long term data, I think, around?

Oh, no. Great question. So I think if you look at any of the bright spots of the pandemic and looking at what happened when the pandemic when schools closed, I think all parents and caregivers really it was eye opening to see what happens in the summer months because it's not just academics. When we talk about summer learning loss, children lose a lot of supports.

So young people who get food and meals at schools lose access to that. It's a safety issue. It's an enrichment issue. Like summer learning is this big robust eye that we talk about, that there are all these different factions when you think about it.

Academics is a portion of that work. And all of a sudden schools shut down and everybody's at home, and everybody's kind of thinking about like, my goodness, what am I doing with my kids? And how are they having access? And like, when you talk about computers, you know, do kids have access to Internet?

Are we sharing computers in the house? So it became this spotlight on what happens when kids are not in traditional schools.

That's fascinating. I hadn't thought about that, but yeah, that totally makes sense.

For the first time again during the pandemic, historically, we worked with a person at a school district who was in charge of summer school and getting them to reimagine what that could look like based on research. During the pandemic, we had so many different groups and constituencies reaching out to us, parents, caregivers. What are additional supports? What are things I should be thinking about, you know, with my young people and young humans at home?

And then schools, as schools began to open back up, and we noticed what you know, we talked about summer learning loss. There was pandemic slide or pandemic learning loss. Summer became this, again, incredible time to meet children where they are, bring them back into the community, and then not only catch them up, but propel them forward. So when you look at that timeframe, we, as an organization, saw a lot of exponential growth.

Our partnerships really expanded. We've always worked with groups, but we call ourselves kind of a big tent with no walls. So now we continue to work with the state education agencies but we're also working with what we call our youth serving government agencies because summer learning is, for older kids, paid internships and paid jobs. So we work with Parks and Rec.

We work with Mayor's Youth Employment Programs, libraries and literacy. You know, we talk about that, reading. Like, so many of those in different communities all across the country. Like, we like to meet kids where they are and we support the programs.

And then obviously, we work also with our nonprofits and CBOs. So we have a very deep network and vast network across the country that are all trying to solve this in communities where kids are and families.

I love it. I was a junior zookeeper at Utah's Hogul Zoo when I was, I think, fourteen. And honestly, I had to show up on time. I had to do tasks I didn't necessarily wanna do. You know, like, it was fantastic, and I remember it vividly today.

I did the library reading programs every summer growing up. Every summer. And then you would read books, and then I remember this. You you had your collection of books you read, and then you had to do some sort of presentation on your favorite book.

And I remember this. This is Yeah. A long time ago. I'm on the older side, and I did this watercolor painting of Charlotte's Web.

And my parents still have say, someone has to have that.

Your your parents don't have fantastic.

It's not fantastic. But I remember that. It's like a lot of my youth memories, these are some of the most clear memories, especially when I was younger.

I think I was in second or third grade.

Anyways, sorry. We did real conversation, Christine.

Everybody has a summer learning story, and I love that. And like, this has been such amazing work. We connect you know, there are so many unlikely allies that we talk about in this work. I cannot tell you how many celebrities in this country, athletes, musicians, performers, they are doing very well and they want to give back.

And what do they do? They start summer learning programs. Steph and Ayesha Curry do an amazing program in Oakland, California. The Zach Brown Band has an incredible program in Georgia supporting military families.

Run DMC and Adina Menzel are doing amazing work in New York. So, you know, when you talk about it, it's time of transformation where you really can kind of think about next steps. It's it's a bridge. It lays these foundational and core memories, and it has such a high return on investment that I think people sometimes don't always think about, not only for students, but for teachers.

You know, summer is a great time to pilot. So many of our charter schools or programs have started as summer programs, and they've been so effective. They scaled to year round or national in scope and scale. So it's this great it's the most entrepreneurial time in education, but it's also the most unequal time for students.

Okay. I wanna dig into that. And by the way, that is an incredible way to think about the space right now in education. It is so entrepreneurial. But one of the things that the pandemic showed a big light on that we knew was happening for quite a while was a challenge around equity. Right?

And not only you know, we think about it sometimes simple terms in education around bandwidth equity or, like, the lack of Internet or some of the base devices.

That's one that I really came to light.

Exactly.

Exactly. But there's so much more to equity. And it's central, I know, to your work, to NSLA's work. So what are some of the programs that you've seen be successful or approaches that you've seen be successful to try to help bridge that equity gap that seems to be getting bigger and bigger?

That's a great question. So we define equity. Our focus our work benefits all kids, you know, and young people in the United States. We define equity and have a real special focus on the kids who qualify for national school lunch.

So those are kids living because this is a proxy for poverty in this country. And it crosses urban, rural, suburban, you know, all states. So we think about those opportunities. So we advocate for high and low cost programs across the country.

Some of the most effective programs that we see, we give out national awards sponsored by our friends at New York Life Foundation. They've been in this work with us for twenty years now.

And these are some of, again, what really define excellent summer programs. And it's a combination of academic support, enrichment, health and fitness. It's five to six weeks, x amount of numbers a day, at least four to six hours a day. So we see that happening.

But this is the key piece of it, it's partnerships. So often these programs are working. We talk about being school aligned because of the academic piece, but not necessarily school based.

So you wind up having parks and recreation, working in partnerships with the school system, where kids might be at the school, and then the program wraps up and they're teaching you know, they're being instructed by qualified teachers in the morning. And then there might be busing and they're going to the local parks and rec facility and working on arts and crafts and practicing swimming skills, you know, and all of those leadership things that happen on the hands out and outdoor. So the city of Boston is again, this incredible example. There's Boston beyond.

They use their entire city as a summer learning ecosystem where kids go out to Thompson Island and students are at the museum, and they have a data sharing agreement. So it's when everybody comes together under this umbrella of like, hey, we have these three months. Where are the young people going? And then when we think about this holistically, everybody can lean into their kind of superpower and strength and then partner and pull together programs that then all of a sudden you have this amazing high quality summer learning experience that we talk about.

It's like broccoli and sprinkles, or the best of summer camp and the best summer school.

Yeah. As a history nerd, I'm like I'm like, I wish I was a kid in Boston. I wanna go to all the historical sites. Yeah. I mean, no more amazing place in the United States do that. That's that's incredible.

Yeah.

So you worked with you've kind of mentioned businesses, nonprofits, districts. Like, is there a partnership that's been exceptionally successful? Or one that you'd point to as kind of the model of what good looks like for this type of partnership?

Oh, that's an again, another great question. I think there's so many examples I wanna talk about. So businesses come to this work for a couple of different reasons depending on what the business are. Workforce is a huge issue.

We're talking about right now, one in terms of current workforce, actually, summer learning, you know, keeps parents in their jobs and allows them to work and focus on their work because they know that their kids first and fundamentally are like in a safe space. And then all the magic that happens with the caring, trusted adult once kids are accounted for and in a safe space for X amount of time. Summer is this incredible opportunity for businesses when you think about pipeline. Research actually shows when is a great time to start talking to kids about about careers?

It's actually middle school. And thinking about so when you talk about careers in STEM or mathematics or ed tech or the zoo, you know, you were fourteen years old, you're middle transitioning to high school thinking about these type of careers and you learn what you might wanna do and you also sometimes learn what you might not wanna do.

The funny part of that is I was a junior zookeeper at fourteen and I went back to the zoo when I was eighteen, when I was a senior in high school and I was I had an internship there for the graphic design department and doing everything from cleaning signs to making signs and things like that. So it actually led into the marketing path of my career. And again, that started at fourteen because I loved the environment I was I was working in and the ability to kind of do those basic tasks and say, is this is something I might actually want to spend my life doing.

And I think Ryan too, it's such a good point. It's when you talk about and going back to Melissa's point about equity, it's social capital. So you came in through the one program, you got invited to come back, you had exposure to this other career, you met people who can also help you connect the dots. And a lot of times when you think about how do you build this equity or how do you kind of level a playing field between like upper and lower income students, it's creating those experiences.

It's introducing them to career paths or people that they might not have met. And summer is like this great time to be able to do it and set them up for success because we work again, we talk about supporting students from kindergarten through career. So what do we want for all our kids across the country? We want them to be, you know, be wonderful human and successful in life and doing work that they're passionate about.

And, you know, summer's a great time to kind of set everyone up for And just open up the I mean, I think a lot of people that age don't even understand what are the options.

There's not a menu. There's there's not a set number of options. So giving them the opportunity to explore as much of that as possible really is eye opening.

And this is where the adults come in. You know, the adults are amazing because sometimes we get asked a question about should it be either or? And we come to the work with a yes and. You know, yes and you can practice.

Like there's an incredible program I went out to go see. The students were working on physics with their iPads, but they were playing basketball. And what they were doing is measuring like the free did they know they were doing all of this work? Amazing?

They were tricking them into doing physics and Yes.

And learning the new technology and all of this. And what are they like, they think they're having a blast, but actually, you know and again, it's like that broccoli with sprinkles. You sneak all of this learning in because it can be joyful, You know? And that's one of the things that I think is such a being in this field and working with the trusted adults in this field, it really is like they come with a passion and a joyful summer learning, and it's, you know, it's infectious. And then it trickles to the kids.

Then Love that.

Yeah. I love that. And for our listeners, Christy's mentioned a couple of different studies, and they've done NSLA has done some incredible research. So we'll make sure this is all linked into the show notes, especially for those listeners thinking about, okay.

I wanna bring a program to my community, or I wanna figure out how I can encourage more of this work at my school district. There'll be some really great research. We'll make sure that's all linked into the show notes, which leads me to my next question for you, Christy. So how do you sort of measure success of the program?

Because so much of this as as what you just described isn't necessarily traditional raids or performance. Like, what are some different ways some of the programs that you've supported or that you've seen out in out in the United States, how are they tracking success? How do they know they're having an impact?

I think they do a combination of obviously, they work on the academic piece of it, you know, and again, this work happens so locally. So NSLA is a great great giving us spotlight, talking about highlighting great partnerships. So how the work translates in each community, because it's different. What might work in Utah, where you guys happen to be sitting, might be very different for me in Northern New Jersey, might be different in Texas.

So we are able to kind of highlight what we know is like, you wanna measure the academic success. You know, when you think about some of the enrichment, you know, there's pre and post surveys, all of those kind of traditional things and metrics, how people are collecting that data, but the data piece always is happening. And then when you think about like the arts education, or the health and fitness, or some of the metrics, each program is having some type of metric tracking to the best practices in the research from what Wallace has shown and the RAND studies have shown and McKinsey has had some great information.

We know it works in terms of dosage and how they implement that, and they measure at the beginning and the end of the summer. But one of the most simplistic measurements, we have an incredible award winning program called Teachers in the Parks, and they are right outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania. And it's a teacher who literally started this program on his porch. And he was working with he had younger siblings who were foster children and they needed help with their reading.

And he is now a principal in this school district. He wound up graduating from the school district, became a teacher, is now a principal in leadership, founded this incredible program where again, the teachers work in the morning with the students, and they're practicing and saying, okay, kiddos, you finished in June, and these were the books you're reading in June. So we're gonna make sure we keep reading these books in June, And this is where you test it, and we work on this throughout the summer. And then they just test them again in September.

And they're like, are the kids still reading at this level? Yes. Or many of the kids accelerate because again, they've had those like interventions. So they can track students who participated in the program versus the students who didn't.

They've maintained or accelerated. The kids who haven't have to have some of that remediation. And it could be just something as basic as that, but then we get into our partners that have like these more sophisticated systems. And again, we just know there are so many positive outcomes.

We are working with the state of Alabama and hosting an event. They made a really intentional investment over several years in summer learning and out of school time. And their students collectively have moved double digits in the NAEP scores. And their superintendent at the time is right now, superintendent Mackie, who's been great, is talking about how they really double down as a saint on investing and thinking about summer and after school is this incredible opportunity for their young people as a way to supplement and enhance the amazing work that happens in the school system.

Yeah. And so many of the examples we've talked about, but I think in people's minds, I was immediately thinking of a story out of the Great Salt Lake. Maybe I'll tell you that one But so many of those are outside the classroom. We consider that kind of outside the classroom. So how does technology contribute to that? Or how does technology help shape some of those programs that may not be in that kind of formalized classroom setting?

I think technology, again, we're looking at it as a yes and. You know, there's a lot of conversations happening around technology. When we think about like going back to the lessons during the pandemic, you know, it raised a lot of questions, issues with access to internet, access to devices. But then at the same time, if students did have access to that in rural communities in particular, the pandemic was an amazing time for some of the communities because they were able to tap into learning experiences that they could not get.

There was one particular district, you know, in the Midwest that was talking about how all of a sudden this student had access to AP classes and some advanced classes that they didn't necessarily have access to because they were in a smaller community and could participate. So technology has the opportunity to be this great equalizer, but I also think it needs to be done, again, with intent. There's a lot of conversations about how AI is gonna impact education right now, making sure students are left behind. And then also we talk about mental health.

What's happening here with mental health and students? And it's like, it's a yes and. Do my kids have a Diet Coke? Absolutely.

Are they having a Diet Coke for every meal? No. With technology, it's the same thing. I think we need to use it in all of these positive ways and build these skills.

Does it supplement face to face? It doesn't supplement trusted adults. And it also like, kids need to be in community. So it's gonna be like a yes, and you might take the iPad, but you're also gonna be playing basketball and working like on your physics.

It's not all or nothing.

Yeah. It's interesting to me. And I think that's what this digitally native generation. It's funny.

My son will go do he'll have a basketball game or basketball practice. And then he comes home and he jumps online to play basketball with the same kids he was just playing basketball. Really? Right?

So there's almost this blurring of the lines between in person and the digital space, right, in ways that our generation didn't really experience. And I think that's they build little communities online as well.

That's not all Oh, I remember being on an old school phone and, you know, playing, you know, Super Mario Brothers or Yes.

You know, with my I'm dating myself now.

Siblings yelling at you to get off the line because they need to make a call while you were playing with your Yeah.

Yeah. No. I think it'll be, you know, it's it's interesting to watch. It's interesting to think about, you know, the balanced summer learning programs.

Like I said, they're integrating it and it's a yes. You know, teaching summer is a great time to teach these new skills, whether it's coding, whether it's responsible use of AI. AI again, I think we see some partners. They have some incredible abilities to think about when you wanna talk about equity and seeing a student where they are and as a whole student, the incredible opportunity to, again, work with a teacher, but be a personalized kind of tutor at home or coach in that specific area.

With anything, I think we need to just continue to be thoughtful about how we use it, how we implement it, and, you know, always keep humans and trusted adults in the loop.

Yeah.

I'm curious. And just hearing all of these examples, and I felt this the first time I chatted with you about it, everybody should be doing summer learning programs. Yeah. Right?

Like, it's whether it's your local city, whether it's a community oriented event, whether it's the district doing it, what keeps people from doing summer learning programs? Because I know they aren't everywhere. I think about my own city and, you know, I get all of the newsletters and all that stuff. There's not much that my city or some of the local organizations do.

Maybe the schools are doing things. But what's like the biggest barrier for getting summer learning programs implemented or off the ground?

I think in the communities where we've seen a lot of success, you need a trusted convener. I think people are busy and they have a lot of demands.

But in some communities, it's the Community Foundation or the United Way. In other communities, it's the school. But you need someone who becomes a champion, you know, one of our summer learning champions across the country. And then says like, let's think about this intentionally and let's look at the ecosystem. And it starts usually with a convening and bringing the faith based community, the school district together, your nonprofit partners, you know, your police department is another, again, great example of folks that they come to this work because when kids are unoccupied, they tend to get in trouble. So police departments across the country are running summer programs. So it's I think meeting and having that commuting and saying, hey, actually, we have all this information and literature and data, and there's a hundred years, a hundred years we've been looking at summer learning.

Oh.

Yeah. Which is crazy when you think about it. But for hundreds of years, we've been talking about this. Who is the person who can bring people together to have a conversation?

And then start to look at what the ecosystem or the landscape looks like, and then think about, again, leaning in to because you talk about barriers, it's it's sometimes money and partnership. You know, money and the lack of partnerships, but how can you pool these resources together and think about, okay, schools, I have this amount of money and I might have this space. And what are the assets beyond, you know, the financial piece of it? Maybe it's transportation.

Transportation is a huge barrier for programs. But many school districts have buses, so that would be huge. You know, if they can figure out a way to like maybe transport kids because the building can't stay open or maybe the buildings don't have air conditioning. That's something that we see in certain parts of the country.

Oh, yeah. Gets really hot. With summer athletic programs where Yeah. They've they've been at some of the high schools and they don't have the air conditioning turned on. And so, you know, it's you've got a bunch of forty year olds running around sweating profusely as they try to play basketball because they just didn't anticipate that usage.

The other aspect too, I think, this is kind of the elephant in the room, like, summer school has a stigma to it. Right?

It's Of course.

A punishment. It's for the dumb kids. It's for the Right? Like, growing up, there were movies, great movie from the 1980s called Summer School.

The I know it very well.

But yeah, but but how do we how do we change that shift in parents' minds and students' minds that this is this is actually a time to learn in a different way or learn in new and interesting and engaging ways. How do we move beyond that? That kind of lingering stigma.

I think that's been our work since we were founded. Really getting people to reimagine, you know, summer school and exactly like you said, it's pejorative, it's mandatory, it's remedial. And it's like actually no. And I think when you put the socioeconomic lens on it, why should kids who qualify for the National School Lunch or kiddos who are living in poverty have to be, again, in these programs when you think about some of like kids who are in a higher socioeconomic, they're going to camp.

They're going to sleep away programs. They're getting to travel. And it's like that should be accessible for all students because the magic happens. And actually the kiddos, maybe in these upper, you know, socioeconomic areas who are going to camp, like, they too should be working on reading and they too should be working on their math skills and all of this because that's what the evidence shows.

So we have tried to get communities and districts and all of our partners to reimagine summer school. That's why we say summer learning. You know, we don't say summer school, we say summer learning.

We all should be learning all Which I think is kind of almost a rebranding.

Right?

Like, our CEO likes to talk about if you took summer camp and summer learning and they had a baby, or summer camp and summer school and they had a baby, that's what summer learning is.

Well, I will say, so we took our kids, and this is five or six years ago, prior to COVID, right before COVID, and the northern end of the Great Salt Lake, there's a couple of things. There's one is where, that's where the golden spike was driven for the intercontinental railroad or the transcontinental railroad, right? Was up there at Promontory Point. But there's all, also a big earth sculpture called Spiral Jetty. And it's out, it goes out into the lake and it looks like a fern frond unfurling. And it changes color at different times of year. And so we went up there and said, you know, we're just gonna do one of those Burn a Saturday.

And we went to Spiral Jetty after we'd gone to the see the trains. And there was a program like this that was actually out there with a bunch of kids and NPR was the organizing group there.

And a bunch of site like biologists from the University of Utah and different organizations. And we went out and they welcomed us, you know, even though we had of stumbled into this, it's out in the middle of the desert. And they gave my kids sample jars and they said, okay, look, this is how salt crystals are formed. These are the gypsum crystals that form in the mud.

My kids came back with just handfuls of these crystals, everything. And honestly, it's they don't even remember the train aspect of that day. Like, they remember a scientist engaging with them out in the field and they learned so much. It was, it was just fascinating.

And they still talk about it today. And one of those things, and it's those kind of programs that are outside the classroom that are, like, I love that you said about the, a trusted convening organization, pulling something like that together and just really creating that environment for kids to learn in just a totally different way. It's fascinating.

Oh my God. Love that. See? Another reason to come and visit and see the I know.

I will take care her I get to go see.

These salt crystals form in little upside down pyramids and you have to wiggle them like a loose tooth to pull them out. It is honestly, my kids still talk about it. We've ruined our shoes. Wow. You gotta you gotta take a pair of shoes that you will ruin.

It's It's okay.

It's It was fascinating. And it was just something that we were lucky enough to stumble into that this program was already going that day.

That's amazing. And one of the resources so we just came off of this past summer, again, because we're just in some moments of transition, you know, right now, and really just wanted to tell the story of, again, in communities across the country, whether it's in libraries or in schools or in nonprofits or a radio station convening scientists and students out, you know, at a lake, there is incredible work happening in all corners of the country. So we did a tour, our team, with our board. We were going to visit fifty programs in fifty days, and we wound up doing seventy five programs.

Oh, wow. Incredible.

It was amazing. And we got and we went all over the country. I was in six different seats visiting programs and see. And again, it's these incredible innovative partnerships. Kids are having so much fun. They're getting meals and they're working on the academics, but they're exploring things that they wouldn't explore before.

So I'll make sure that we have, again, to share with the listeners, I love that summary report, we just released it.

And again, we think all communities, like what we're working on is summer for all. We would love to pass, states have passed legislation, cities have passed legislation helping to fund summer learning programs because of the high ROI. We would love, you know, we talk about summer for all. It's federal legislation that we would love to see.

Again, it was specifically when we talked a little bit about this in health and human services is where it was a bill that was introduced last year. We'd love to see that happen because many of the students also and some of our Gallup data and research, and we could also link to this. Many of the students are not necessarily in those school based programs, but we wanna be school aligned. So how do we think about blending and breeding funding and resources? Because we think that all students should have this from kindergarten through career.

Yeah. That's fascinating. I actually can't wait to go look at that. What amazing thought starters to see all these what these different programs are doing and I'm sure things that we've never thought of.

We, you know, like And I think people don't think about themselves Yeah.

To that. Like, the libraries meet and convene. The public and affordable housing communities doing crowded and they they have so many amazing place based work. They meet and convene.

And what we really try to do at NSLA is break down a lot of these artificial silos and bring people and communities together. Because sometimes you get so focused on, you know, people are busy and people are like, especially when you're working with young people in education, you have head down, you have metrics, you're like, you're intense. This is sometimes thinkless work because people come to it with such genuine passion and interest in working that sometimes it's you gotta take a pause and like pull back and be like, oh, let's look at all these people around us and some NSLA. That's like one of our superpowers of convening is like bringing people together to be able to say, hey, let's think about this and let's, you know, look at what's happening and look at what's possible.

And I think that's always the exciting thing.

Speaking of being that convener, I'm really curious for either teachers or school districts or parents. If you don't know what's going on in your community and you've got kiddos, where do you go look for this stuff? Either whether you want to volunteer, you want to start a program, or you want to send your kids to these programs. Like where, how do you find ways to be able to participate in summer learning?

Oh, great question.

So can so first of all, you can always come to NSLA. Our website is summerlearning dot org.

We'll put that in the notes as well. Yeah, for sure.

That is amazing.

In terms of, you know, starting programs, we have an amazing curriculum that we wrote in partnership with the pair at Harvard, which is the Institute for the Study of Resilience in Youth. They helped us redesign our core curriculum, was summer starts in September.

Because again, the research and data shows that really highly effective programs, the planning starts in September. Our new iteration and most updated model through the pandemic and all of the learnings and findings is now Destination Summer Learning. So we do have tools and training and resources. We link to all of the Wallace materials as well. So that's information about starting a program. If you're a parent or caregiver, you too can come to our website and there's a microsite within it called discover summer dot org.

Has amazing free resources across the country. All kinds of, again, you talk about technology, digital resources, online resources. We have things from AT and T and our friends at Scholastic and some of our other partners that have, you know, again, curriculum that's accessible. And we've run a database. It's in the process of being updated. But parents were able to we have an amazing partnership with Clear Channel Outdoor that helps do a media campaign for us to raise awareness.

And there was a database on this website where parents could go and visit and, know, type in your zip code and find programs in your community who are updating and, you know, going to be reinvesting in that in the coming year.

And then I would also say like, start with your you know, start in your community. Think about like, maybe ask if you're going to your library and say, Hey, are you running any kind of summer learning program? Ask at the schools. You know, maybe at your PTA meeting, if you're a parent and you know, and going to that, talk to the principal.

Say, What's happening around us? Or Parks and Rec. Think about some of these spaces and places and just, you know, start asking. And then if there's a no, again, MSLA is a great space and place where we can come and start to kind of get to people yeses and convening.

And then if you're thinking about it, my kiddo once told me she now works in her summer learning program. She's a counselor.

Awesome.

And it's pretty funny because there was not a lot of academics. It was very much just an enrichment. And she's like, mom, are you gonna summer learning this? And I said, I sure am.

I brought some of the materials, you know, to the director of the program. And it's like, hey. I think this is incredible. Let's think about some other things you guys can be doing here. You know?

Love all the students.

Yeah. Those resources are fantastic. Again, we'll make sure they're all linked. I have one last question for you. I mean, we could be here all day asking tons of questions.

It's great.

But looking at the future, and you started to mention this as you talked about summer learning starts in September.

Right? And you need to be doing the planning and really thinking about it. What other things do you see for the future? In particular, maybe a summary learning or more broadly of these kinds of programs and opportunities that are happening in parallel to maybe the more traditional k twelve classroom. Like, where do you see the future going for this space?

Oh, the future going? I think it's gonna be about collaboration and in community. I think people, adults, young people are craving community and connection. And I think the space is going to be you know, what we're trying to do, and I'm referencing so we did two reports with Gallup last year. One of superintendents and one of parents. And the parent survey gave NSLA North Star number to work towards To close the opportunity gap between upper and lower income students, we need to maintain the seats we have in summer learning programs across the country, and we need to serve seven million more young people. So this is a big question that we are grappling with.

And then the superintendent report was amazing because superintendents ninety one percent of the superintendents believe summer learning programs are important to helping them meet their district goals. But there are some disconnects between what parents want and need, and what the superintendents want and need. But they're solvable. So again, by where we talk about the future of the field, and we think about it's really inconvenient, it's in community, it's bringing these, again, stakeholders together, looking at this again.

People who don't think of themselves as summer learning champions, but they are bringing these folks together and saying, hey, you know, students are not enrolling because they don't think the program is fun. Who can we bring in who are like, know how to infuse fun into this program? Your program is only running till noon. It's going to be these cross sector collaborations because we can't need a big goal of serving seven million more young people in this country without doing it together.

You know, we all need to be in this work together, and that's I think where the future is headed.

And building in that marketing and that promotion and sharing what you're doing, things like this podcast. But like, you know, really getting it out there so students can experience it and say, hey, I wanna be a part of that. That as well. Amazing. Yeah. Christy, this has been fantastic. Could we could go on and on.

Yeah. Yes.

But honestly, I think it'd be fun to do this podcast again next summer and kind of when you're when you're if you've got the time, I'm sure you're up to your But We get asked a lot.

It's interesting because Ryan and I tend to not only interact with educators, but we end up talking with the mainstream press quite a bit. And we get asked all the time, how do you keep kids learning over the summer? We get asked the same question over the holidays too, like the winter holidays and stuff. It's like, and we get asked, like, from a parent's perspective, what can you be doing?

And then what can communities be doing? So we'd love to have you back. Maybe like even, like, from a time frame. So as people are ramping up for, okay, I'm now thinking about what am I gonna do over summer, whether I'm a parent, I'm a school district.

Like, let's think about how I'm continuing to prepare my kiddos and my community for this. It's a really important topic that I think is being raised, but I'm not sure everybody, hopefully after this podcast, have much more of a sense of how do I navigate this, right? I think that's a big piece of that.

And we do, it's a perfect timeframe. We actually do a, so the majority of our program is free. So again, if we're talking to school districts or we're talking to all the listeners coming at this from a different lens, The majority of work is free. You know, we're supported by foundations and corporate partners and business partners that allow us to do this work. And we do a boot camp in March.

Oh, And it's our summer planning boot camp, and it's free for programs where they can come and we're talking about, okay, young humans are gonna be with us in a couple of weeks.

Whether, you know, maybe you have this really solid program, but you might have a hole and you might need an amazing arts curriculum or music curriculum, or you wanna think about how you're measuring and make sure you're capturing that data. So we do that in early March. I'll make sure that like, one, we'd love to come on. I'd love to bring my colleagues on. Roderick Clark, who's this incredible resource and expert and trainer. And then we can continue to share all of these resources for you and invite your community to come and join us on that because, again, we're thinking about and talking about summer all year long.

Awesome.

Oh, that sounds perfect. We would love that. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you.

Passion behind this, I mean, this is inspiring for me. This is how we can continue to grow and develop and and help give, you know, our kiddos in this country agency and opportunity regardless of where they come from. So it's just personally deeply inspiring, and thank you again.

Thank you. It's solvable. This is a solvable challenge. Yeah. And, you know, not a lot of things are solvable these days. So it's so great to be in problem solving mode with the both of you.

Love it.

Thank you, Christy.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Educast three thousand. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and drop us a review on your favorite podcast players so you don't miss an episode. If you have a topic you'd like us to explore more, please email us at InstructureCast at Instructure dot com, or you can drop us a line on any of the socials. You can find more contact info in the show notes. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you on the next episode of Educast three thousand.