From the Field: Ready. Set. Summer!

Katherine Plog Martinez, Consultant

This summer has drawn more attention than any other I can recall to the need for summer learning opportunities to strike a balance between academics, enrichment, social emotional learning, health and well-being, and fun. While the need to engage students in programs that find this balance has never been more important or in demand, doing it well requires not just monetary investment, but a commitment to partnership, collaboration, and coordination.

We’ve been tracking and sharing with you Tulsa’s journey to Build Forward Together to become a city of learning since March. With a strong foundation of and commitment to partnership, Tulsa Public Schools and The Opportunity Project saw this summer as a key opportunity to make a significant down-payment to their broader vision. They knew their goals were ambitious (access to summer programming for any interested TPS student) and that crunched planning time would present challenges (standing up new funding structures and program models in just three months), but the potential was immense and the need for students even greater.

I was thrilled to make my first post-pandemic work trip a visit to see “Ready. Set. Summer!” (Tulsa’s first step in toward becoming a City of Learning) in action.

I visited the third week of July as the portion of the summer hosted in Tulsa Public Schools was well underway. While just a small subset of the more than 11,000 students engaged, the students I talked to shared what they were learning. In a conversation with two second graders, I heard not just about what they were learning in math, but about how much they too loved ukulele club, what they were doing in Girl Scouts, and why they liked games club (where they were currently building a wall with Lincoln Logs, though they were unsure what the wall would ultimately be for). A high school student share how crafting and cooking club had allowed her to explore new things and build upon areas of strength.

Ready. Set. Summer! was designed to connect any interested TPS student with experiences like those that were shared by the students I talked with — fun, relational experiences that that are both academically accelerating and identity affirming. It was also designed to test several key innovations. Among them:

• Rethinking how formal, flexible, and free-choice learning combine to best support young people
• Increased collaboration between TPS and The Opportunity Project and schools and community partners to provide expanded learning opportunities
• Engaging all adults — school staff regardless of role and youth development professionals — to leverage their unique strengths

Making deviled eggs in a cooking club.

In June and August this was accomplished through community-based programming funded by the Tulsa Youth SummerOpp Program Fund and accessible to families through the City of Learning website. In July, though the program I got to see in action — young people pre-K through 12th grade attending summer programming in nearly every school building provided in partnership between TPS school teams and community organizations.

I was optimistic and hopeful hearing from students about their positive experiences. But what impressed me the most, were the benefits accruing for the adults.

From the beginning there were concerns about asking adults to give more of themselves after a taxing and challenging 18 months. As we explored a hallway transformed into a pre-K zoo, one site administrator reflected that the staff, even more than the kids, needed this summer. Initial worry or concern quickly faded away as they were able to do what they love — spark learning.

As pre-k students explored ecosystems their hallway transformed in to a zoo that became a must see for staff, students, and visitors to the school.

Among examples of the power of this summer for the adults were:

A middle school social studies teacher who shared that this summer was by far his best experience. (He has worked eight summers in his 20-year career.) He saw his middle school student return to reading for pleasure and had opportunities to engage these students around shared interests (while we chatted, the space club he was supporting was working on a puzzle that leveraged both their visual spatial reasoning and their understanding of the solar system), and still had opportunity for rich social studies content delivery.

Adults at several schools who used summer programming as an opportunity to step outside their normal roles — an AP teacher and Dean’s administrative assistant co-leading a book club, a clerk who also coordinates expanded learning programming (both for summer program and during the school year), a science teacher leading a craft club, and a kindergarten teacher exploring woodworking.

Adults who used this as an opportunity to be engaged as learners. One teacher’s assistant was so excited at the prospect of supporting the ukulele class that she bought herself an instrument and has been learning from Harmony Project instructors alongside students.

Ukulele club and other Harmony Project classes will continue on during school year expanded learning.

The adults at the system level are now actively learning too.

The team from TPS and The Opportunity Project is now committed to learning and continuous improvement. Surveys, focus groups, and ongoing engagement with students, parents, and staff will help identify what worked, what can be replicated during the school year, and what an even stronger Ready. Set. Summer! will look like in 2021.

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Each community’s path to building forward together will be different. While summer was the starting point for Tulsa, your community may have other natural entry points. The Build Forward Together Conversation Guide is a tool for engaging stakeholders in reflecting on what’s working your community and shaping your plans to ensure all youth thrive as we rebuild.