​Allentown School District Offers Summer Learning to All Elementary Students

In 2018, Allentown School District offered the first district-wide summer program in the Lehigh Valley. Serving approximately 900 students and hosted at elementary schools across Allentown, district leadership made an important step to close the achievement gap and help students not only maintain, but advance their math and literacy skills over the summer. Through tested and effective reading comprehension and mathematics lessons, 81% of students that participated maintained their skills from the previous school year or learned new skills for the upcoming year.
 
These programs emphasized learning as well as enrichment. “If we’re not engaging our kids and we’re not getting them excited about learning, then we’re losing them,” remarked Roosevelt Elementary School Principal Erin Martin.
           


To engage students, Roosevelt partnered with Da Vinci Science Center, a member of the Summer Learning Coalition, to teach lessons on the scientific method and lead experiments. The students also had the opportunity to visit The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, and Diggerland USA, a construction-themed amusement park.  “They don’t even know they’re learning, because they’re having so much fun,” added Martin.