Without COVID-era Funds, Some Local Districts Won’t Offer Summer School This Year

For the first time since Amy Piazzola became superintendent/principal at Cayuse Prairie Schools 13 years ago, the district isn’t offering its annual summer school.

Dubbed “Learning Camp,” the program mainly served students in kindergarten through fourth grade. It provided extra support in English and math, and was long funded by the district’s Title I allocation, a federal program providing funding to school districts for children from low-income families. The goal was to prevent “summer slide,” the knowledge children lose during extended breaks from school.

The district continued Learning Camp during COVID, listing it as an area it planned to use pandemic-era funding to cover.

“We will continue to offer summer school, a.k.a. Learning Camp, to provide those struggling with math and/or reading more interventions,” the school’s planning document stated.

But a perfect storm of decreasing Title funds, inflation and the loss of pandemic dollars made the camp too costly to offer this year.

While she acknowledged ending Learning Camp wasn’t an easy choice, Piazzola also recognized a decline in demand that coincided with the lack of funds.

“I only had one person ask if we were having Learning Camp this year,” Piazzola said. “And usually, people are knocking down the door. I just, I think our community, especially since we’ve gone to the four-day (school week), they value their time with their kids. They really do. And I love that they do that.”

Her district isn’t the only one rolling back its summer programming.

Districts across the country have struggled to maintain summer and afterschool programs in the wake of COVID-era funds dissipating. In the Flathead Valley, some school districts have turned to state programs to fill the hole. Still others won’t have summer programming at all.

Montana schools received a total of $605.3 million over three different iterations of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER), which was part of the federal government’s pandemic-era relief. The funds were distributed as part of the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act; the 2021 Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act; and 2021’s American Rescue Plan Act.

But that funding has dried up. The last ESSER funds school districts received needed to be earmarked for spending by the end of September 2024. Schools have until March 2026 to finish spending the funds, though the Trump administration did attempt to end those awards earlier this year. It was sued over the matter by 16 states and the District of Columbia. Montana did not sign onto that suit.

School districts used ESSER dollars for several purposes: building projects, hiring and maintaining staffing levels, purchasing new curriculums and more. At least 20% of the funding that came from the American Rescue Plan Act had to go toward addressing lost instructional time.

Summer learning emerged nationally as the most popular way of spending funds to address lost instructional time. A national RAND survey from 2022 found 70% of school districts included offered some type of summer programming to address lost instructional time with ESSER dollars. An analysis of 5,000 districts’ ESSER spending plans estimated nearly $6 billion of ESSER funds nationwide would go toward summer programming by September 2024.

Academic results of summer programs have long been mixed, however. A RAND study published in 2020 found no lasting academic benefits to summer school thanks to poor attendance. Students who attended “faithfully” for two summers in a row did see some benefits.

As far as addressing pandemic learning loss, studies indicate summer programming wasn’t very effective. One study from Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research included eight districts serving over 400,000 students. It found summer learning programs didn’t close any gaps in learning loss in reading. Math improvements existed but only closed 2%-3% of the learning loss that happened during COVID.

More often, summer school helps students maintain learning from the previous school year.

The trend of offering summer programming to address lost instructional time certainly existed in the Flathead Valley. Of the Valley’s 23 school districts, at least 10 listed plans to offer summer programming in their publicly available ESSER planning documents.

Some expanded already-existing programs, like Whitefish School District. Sara Mueller, Whitefish School District’s student services director, said the district had a summer program for some students pre-pandemic. But with ESSER onboard, Whitefish offered summer school for students in grades K-8 and had some credit recovery options in place for high school students. Those opportunities hadn’t existed before the pandemic.

Evergreen Local Schools experienced a similar increase in summer school offerings for its students. It had summer school support in English and math for students at all grade levels with ESSER dollars. It’s since had to roll that back, Superintendent Laurie Barron said in an email. 

Julia Maxwell, superintendent at Marion Local Schools, said her district had a similar experience to Piazzola’s. It offered summer programming with ESSER dollars, but couldn’t do so this year without that financial help.

But Evergreen and Whitefish haven’t completely axed summer programming. Both those districts are offering a state-funded program called Summer Jumpstart. Cayuse Prairie and Columbia Falls offered the program last year as well, according to the Office of Public Instruction. Bigfork Schools, too, is offering a 21^st Century learning program, another summer school offering funded by the state.

Summer Jumpstart came about as one of three intervention options the state legislature approved in 2023 to help students improve their reading. It’s open to students entering kindergarten through third grade — meaning it’s not as robust as what some districts offered during COVID. The 21^st Century learning summer program is offered to students through high school. 

“Early literacy and early intervention are critical to our students being successful,” said Susie Hedalen, the state superintendent of public instruction.

Hedalen said it was challenging to get Summer Jumpstart off the ground last year thanks to a short on-ramp for schools to plan. In its inaugural year, Summer Jumpstart reached 1,200 students in 27 districts across the state.

Students qualify through a screener. Mueller said typically, students who are not meeting the school’s standards for reading proficiency are those selected to attend.

Summer Jumpstart must run for 120 hours and last for at least four weeks. Districts have some flexibility in terms of choosing their own schedule, Hedalen said. Whitefish, for instance, has chosen to extend those hours across a six-week time span this year. Programs must also employ certified teachers and use materials aligned with state standards.

Hedalen said OPI has seen more districts offering Summer Jumpstart this year. She attributes the higher participation to school districts having time to prepare and budget for the program. She couldn’t offer an exact number of current participants. The Office of Public Instruction will have a report on those figures later this summer.

Last year, when Cayuse Prairie did offer Summer Jumpstart, Piazzola said program requirements meant it began after July 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

It meant the program fell during prime summer vacation weeks. Attendance was low. With the lack of engagement, it wasn’t an option the district chose to continue with after trying it out. Still, Piazzola said she gives credit to the legislators who made Jumpstart happen.

Without summer programming this year, Piazzola said her biggest concern is whether students who aren’t coming to the building will still be learning.

“I hope they’re doing something, but you know, we don’t have any control over that, unfortunately,” she said.

The district will find out where students stand come the first two weeks of school. That’s when they conduct baseline testing to assess where students’ skills are at the beginning of the year.

“Based on that, then we divide and conquer into intervention groups and meet kids where they are, and just keep teaching and moving them along,” Piazzola said.

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