It’s early on a cloudy July morning and Bruce Elementary School in Santa Maria feels like a ghost town. School is out, and aside from a few roosters crowing in the distance, the campus is almost silent.
But inside some of the classrooms, small groups of students are working diligently, getting extra help outside of the school year and preparing for the looming back-to-school season.
The kids at Bruce are all part of an additional summer jump-start program that’s offered specifically to migrant children. For years, migrant and special education courses were the only summer school programs the Santa Maria-Bonita School District could afford to offer, but since the implementation of the state Local Control Funding Formula in 2013, more funding has been funneled into districts like Santa Maria-Bonita, which serves a number of low-income and English learner students.
Now the district offers dozens of site-based programs throughout the summer; all are personalized to meet varying needs.
It’s great for both the students of Santa Maria-Bonita and the teachers, according to Jose Segura, president of the Santa Maria Elementary Education Association, a union that represents nearly 900 teachers.
Although teachers don’t make as much hourly teaching during the summer as they do during the school year, Segura said summer school pay is “reasonable,” and it contributes to retirement. Most teachers who have retired can’t live on the typical teacher pension, he said.
“So it’s additional money on top of what you’d normally be making,” Segura said.
More summer school programs mean more teachers have an opportunity to make a little extra cash during the break, and according to Segura, Santa Maria-Bonita never has a shortage of teachers willing to work for at least a portion of the break.
The district even gets applications for its summer programs from teachers in the Orcutt Union School District, which hasn’t fared as well since the funding formula changes were implemented.
Orcutt, which serves fewer high-need students and thus receives considerably less extra funding from the state, only offers an extended special education program that is required of all California school districts. It can’t afford any other summer courses, according to Orcutt Superintendent Deborah Blow.
“Definitely if we had more money, I’m sure it’s something we would like to be able to provide,” Blow said.
It’s been years since the district last offered summer school courses, and Blow said most of the funding it does receive for extra student support goes toward an intervention program offered to struggling students during the school year.
Right now the program only caters to kids who need help with reading skills—Blow said a math-focused program is in the works—and students who need a little extra help are grouped together and pulled out of their usual classrooms to get more intensive help. When a student starts performing at a higher level, he or she can leave the program.
The intervention program has been in place for three years now, and Blow said it’s been successful so far, possibly even more so than any summer school programs would be.
The Santa Maria Joint Union High School District faces a different challenge: finding teachers who are willing to work through the summer.
In addition to its summer sessions for English learners, migrant students, and an extended school year program for special education, the district offers On Track Credit Recovery courses, which allow students to retake general level courses if they failed or received a low grade. The courses are taken online during the summer with teachers available to facilitate and answer questions, according to Interim Superintendent John Davis, who said in an email to the Sun that students are encouraged to take advantage of the summer opportunity to reclaim credit if needed so they can stay on course to graduate.
While the district has had issues filling these summer teaching positions in the past, Davis said the issue is complex.
Similar to Santa Maria-Bonita, teachers in the high school district are paid extra to work during the summer, but the hourly rate is significantly less than it is during the school year. Teachers often work long and intense hours during the regular school year, and are under tremendous pressure to meet curricular deadlines, cover standards, plan lessons, raise achievement, provide feedback, and assess and manage classrooms, Davis said. Many spend extra hours coaching, supervising extra curricular activities, and attending professional development activities.
“Naturally, many like to take the summer off to recharge and plan for the upcoming year,” he said.
But while some critics of the district’s On Track Credit Recovery programs have said they’re utilized solely because there are too few teachers willing to teach summer school, Davis said that isn’t true.
“Since so much of the world today is digital, having students exposed to an online instructional format is a good thing,” Davis said. “Many districts actually require students to complete an online course as part of their graduation requirements.”
Staff Writer Kasey Bubnash can be reached at kbubnash@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 25 – Aug 1, 2019.
