Issues and Opportunities in Out-of-School Time Evaluation Briefs

Summer Success: Challenges and Strategies in Creating Quality Academically Focused Summer Programs

Number 9, October 2006

Christopher Wimer and Rachel Gunther, Harvard Family Research Project

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Harvard Family Research Project’s (HFRP) Issues and Opportunities in Out-of-School Time Evaluation briefs highlight current research and evaluation work in the out-of-school time field. These documents draw on HFRP’s research work in out-of-school time to provide practitioners, funders, evaluators, and policymakers with information to help them in their work. This brief looks at evaluations of 34 academically focused summer programs in order to distill challenges and compile promising strategies for creating quality summer programs.

Introduction

Schools play an obvious and critical role in promoting learning, but we know that children and youth spend the majority of their time outside of school (Larson & Verma, 1999). A large portion of this nonschool time occurs in the summer, which for many youth constitutes approximately a quarter of the year. Summer represents an opportunity for experiences that enrich and complement the school year and promote learning and development. It is well documented, however, that during the summer, low-income and other disadvantaged youth fall further behind academically than their more advantaged peers—in part, due to a lack of enriching opportunities (Heyns, 1978; Alexander, Entwisle, & Olson, 2001; Burkam, Ready, Lee, & LoGerfo, 2004; Downey, von Hippel, & Broh, 2004).

Academically focused summer programs can meet parents' needs and desires to support youth with fun and enriching opportunities (LeMenestral, 2003) and promote learning when school is not in session (Fairchild, 2006). Given the potential benefits of summer programs, practitioners and policymakers are looking for ways to provide quality academically focused summer programs, particularly for disadvantaged and academically at-risk youth. In December of 2005, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois introduced the STEP UP Act, which would provide children with the opportunity to participate in summer programs specifically designed to increase the academic performance of poor and minority youth. Because of the opportunities inherent in summer programs, it is important to understand how providers can implement the highest quality programming possible.

To date, little research has synthesized the large amount of implementation data from existing evaluations of academically focused summer programs. This issue brief fills that gap by assessing the formative, or implementation, data from evaluations of 34 academically focused summer programs listed in HFRP's Out-of-School Time Program Evaluation Bibliography. From these evaluations, the brief identifies seven common challenges to implementing high quality summer programs:

1. Developing programming with intentionality
2. Building positive and individualized connections with youth
3. Recruiting and developing highly skilled staff
4. Developing ongoing, mutually supportive relationships with schools
5. Building strong, positive connections with participants' families
6. Engaging community members, groups, and institutions in programming
7. Incorporating a variety of fun and engaging program activities

While none of these challenges are unique to summer programming, the rich implementation evaluations of summer programs offer a number of promising strategies to meet them. This brief articulates successful strategies for overcoming common programming challenges, with a particular focus on strategies implemented by academically focused summer programs.

The 34 evaluations1 that were analyzed for this review met three criteria: The evaluations a) evaluated a summer program, or the summer component of a year-round program; b) reported formative/implementation evaluation findings; and c) evaluated a program with a focus on improving learning and school performance. This last criterion was defined broadly to account for the tremendous diversity of summer programs and to capture information from many different program models.

As a result, some of the programs reviewed were traditional academic summer programs that provided instruction in subjects like English/language arts or mathematics, while others targeted specific academic areas, such as science, oceanography, or book making. Other programs offered academic enrichment activities, such as arts, science, literacy, and field trips. These different types were not mutually exclusive; some programs combined remediation with enrichment or targeted instruction in specific academic areas. By examining a range of academic summer programs, this issue brief aims to document common challenges, recommend promising strategies, and illustrate how specific programs implemented successful practices to promote learning and development in the summer months.

Challenges to & Strategies for Successful Academic Summer Programming

A review of the 34 program evaluations from our Out-of-School Time Program Evaluation Bibliography identified seven common challenges to creating and supporting a successful summer academic program—challenges, which, if addressed, can strengthen summer programming. This review also uncovered strategies that programs have used to successfully address these challenges. This brief presents both the challenges and strategies as examples of best practices for implementing summer programs. The categories are not mutually exclusive, and the list does not attempt to address every challenge a program might face during implementation.

Challenge 1: Developing programming with intentionality

Many summer programs aim to realize a variety of benefits for youth and their families, but programs are likely to be more successful if they are developed and implemented with intentionality from the outset. Improving the effectiveness of out-of-school time (OST) programs requires the intentional linking of program goals, program elements, participant outcomes, and evaluation (C. S. Mott Foundation Committee on After-School Research and Practice, 2005). Specifically, Halpern (2003) examined which after school literacy programs were most effective and found the only difference between effective and ineffective programs was intentionality in planning and program design.

For example, if a program's goal is to improve literacy outcomes for participating youth, the program director and staff should continuously plan and design programming with this goal in mind. Across many of the evaluations in this review, programs were less successful when they were not developed or implemented according to expressed goals and mission with intentional planning. Though maintaining intentionality may be difficult due to tight implementation schedules and unexpected problems, the evaluations revealed a number of promising strategies for ensuring that intentionality is achieved.

Build in program planning and development time before the start of the program.
Many program evaluations reported that challenges accrued because of a lack of initial planning. For instance, the Summer of Challenge program in the Emery Unified School District in California found that a lack of lead time for program planning was a major implementation barrier. This need was even more pronounced in programs with many stakeholders. In particular, programs that incorporated the goal of involving parents and youth in the program planning process required additional planning time.

To ensure sufficient planning time to achieve intentionality, program leaders at the District of Columbia 21st Century Community Learning Centers summer program recommended that program planning should (a) include multiple planning meetings, (b) include time to train staff, and (c) begin at least 3 to 4 weeks before the program's launch date. Other summer program experts recommend a longer planning period, of approximately 6 months. While the exact length and design of planning time will vary according to program needs and activities, all programs should take care to build in planning time adequate to their program prior to the launch date.

Build program planning and development time into daily program operations.
Planning time is critical not just at the beginning of a program but throughout implementation. Ongoing planning allows programs to adjust to unforeseen events, assess progress in meeting youth's needs, and design activities based on what has worked and not worked so far. One of the strategies employed by the BELL Accelerated Learning Program in Boston, New York City, and Washington, DC, was to build in weekly assessments of participating youth. Staff used the results of these assessments during ongoing planning time to tailor instruction and activities for upcoming sessions in order to maximize each youth's learning. Similarly, the Summer of Challenge evaluation noted that planning time built into the fabric of day-to-day program operations allowed for collaboration between staff to improve future programming.

Design activities and instruction purposively to achieve program goals.
Designing activities with program goals in mind is a critical part of building a more intentional program. For example, if the program's mission is to keep youth from failing in school or to ensure their proficiency in certain subjects, activities should be purposively designed to achieve these goals. This does not need to mean “teaching to the test” or dry instruction in core academic areas. It could, instead, mean aligning activities and curricula to school-district, state, and/or national standards.

The Verilette Parker Science Intervention Program in rural Georgia employed an inquiry-based, active-learning instructional methodology to promote critical thinking and cooperative learning, while intentionally aligning the curriculum to national goals for science education. Similarly, the evaluation of an Oceanography Camp in St. Petersburg, Florida—designed to increase girls' interest in science and science-related careers—found that activities worked best when they were as active as possible. A common theme in the evaluations was the importance of using methods like hands-on learning to spark interest and excitement.

Challenge 2: Building positive and individualized connections with youth

The majority of programs reviewed serve a diverse population of youth, even within the particular groups some programs target for recruitment. For example, a small summer program targeting African American students who are all behind in math in a specific underperforming elementary school could serve participants likely to be highly diverse in terms of a host of factors, including how far behind they are academically, their learning styles, and their family situations. To be successful in working with wide-ranging groups of youth, staff must learn about participants' situations and needs and use this understanding to build positive connections with them.

Many program evaluations found building positive, individualized connections with all youth to be a major challenge. However, when programs were able to build these connections, the benefits were manifold. Positive and individualized connections can facilitate trust between staff and youth, make youth more excited about and engaged in the program, and allow staff to tailor programming to youth's interests and needs. Below are a few strategies that the evaluations found to be promising ways to make connection-building easier.

Utilize preexisting connections with youth.
Some programs found it helpful to hire some teachers and staff who had preexisting positive connections with youth. In Chicago's Summer Bridge program, teaching staff were more likely to adapt the curriculum to meet students' needs and to work closely with students outside of class when they knew a larger proportion of their students before the start of the program. Across a number of the evaluations, staff reported not having enough information on participating students' backgrounds and needs. Hiring at least some staff with preexisting relationships with youth could help deal with that challenge.

Create opportunities to ensure individualized connections with youth.
Many evaluations reported that daily operations ran more smoothly when programs maintained smaller staff-to-youth ratios or provided opportunities for small-group or individualized interactions between staff and youth. For example, in the GEAR UP program in Austin, Texas, college students worked in small groups or one-on-one with youth, which allowed for the identification of learning needs and academic strengths of individual youth. Similarly, the evaluation of the Camp Invention program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame found that small groups allowed staff to spend more individualized time with each participant. However, when determining appropriate staff–youth ratios, it is important to consider the nature of the activity as well as the age of the participants. For some activities, such as sports programs, a high staff–youth ratio may be acceptable (e.g., one coach for a team of 10); similarly, some programs for older youth may want to consider having slightly higher staff–youth ratios that promote youth-to-youth bonding and interaction, rather than lower ratios that could promote more intensive staff–youth relationships.

Develop mechanisms to provide staff with accurate information on students' needs and backgrounds.
Programs found it easier to design and adapt programming if they had sufficient information about students' needs and backgrounds. As noted above, the BELL program conducted weekly assessments of youth in order to provide staff with data on youth's status and needs and to determine areas in which they should concentrate through the summer. In contrast, staff at the Summer Opportunity to Accelerate Reading program designed their application forms to collect information on the special needs of participating youth.

Challenge 3: Recruiting and developing highly skilled staff

Developing positive and individualized connections with youth is likely to be much easier when program staff are highly skilled at working with youth. Indeed, most strategies for implementing high-quality summer programming identified in this issue brief would be facilitated by identifying, recruiting, and developing a highly skilled workforce. However, many programs found recruiting and developing highly skilled staff to be a major implementation challenge. Programs in this review employed the following strategies for overcoming this challenge.

Recruit qualified and experienced school-year teachers for academic components of the summer program.
Most teachers have the summers off and therefore present a large pool of talented potential summer staff. This strategy is not without its challenges, however. The Wake County Summer Academy's evaluation found that more skilled and experienced teachers often prized their summers as a time for vacation and relaxation, leaving an available pool of teachers younger and less experienced. To address this challenge, programs may target more experienced teachers through special incentive packages, such as extra compensation for experience, letters of acknowledgement for teachers' personnel files, and professional development opportunities. As noted above, in the example of Chicago's Summer Bridge program, programs can also target potential staff who have preexisting relationships with youth.

Tap into the talents of parents, community members, high school students, and college students.
Each of these types of staff brings different strengths and assets to summer programs. Parents possess knowledge of youth's strengths and needs and often enjoy working with youth. Community members bring topical expertise in a variety of areas, such as science, dance, or art, which can be harnessed to create exciting programming. College students are a particularly promising source of quality staff, as they often relate well to youth and are sufficiently easy to recruit during their summer vacations. The Summer Career Exploration Program in New Jersey and Pennsylvania found that most site coordinators had little trouble recruiting college students, and often had many more applicants than slots to fill. They were able to successfully recruit college students through local newspapers, college placement offices, work-study programs, newsletters, and word of mouth.

Program evaluations reveal that, when utilizing these diverse types of staff, it is important to pay attention to issues of roles and responsibilities, lines of communication, and proper staff training. The evaluation of Kids on Campus in Ohio, for example, revealed that although parents and high school students brought strengths to the program's workforce, they were often less capable than other staff in effectively managing youth discipline and behavior. More training was necessary to most effectively utilize these less-experienced staff members. The same evaluation found that high school and college students sometimes clashed with each other over issues of respect and power relationships, as the roles and responsibilities of each were not always clearly drawn.

Provide adequate and timely training to staff members.
Though a majority of program evaluations found the lack of adequate training time for staff members to be a program barrier, some identified training and professional development opportunities as a program strength. One such program was the Extended Learning Opportunities Program in Montgomery County, Maryland, which provides staff training before the start of the program, focusing on understanding the content and structure of the summer curricula, instructional planning and strategies, and monitoring what students know and/or their progress. Staff also receive reading and math guides to help with these types of activities over the course of the program. Meanwhile, the evaluation of the Summer Opportunities to Accelerate Reading program in Austin, Texas, found that training worked best when it was responsive to the preexisting level of knowledge among the program's staff. Many program evaluations found a need for increased or improved training for staff in working with youth with behavioral challenges and special needs.

Challenge 4: Developing ongoing, mutually supportive relationships with schools

Many evaluations found that one challenge to developing quality academically focused summer programming was building solid relationships with the schools that educate their participants during the school year. Developing these relationships is important for many reasons. First, programs need schools' help in order to identify and recruit potential youth and staff for their programming. Second, schools can provide summer programs with critical information about youth's academic and social situations. This information is integral to creating summer programming that addresses participants' unique needs. Third, many academically focused summer programs are based in schools and need to establish strong lines of communication with schools to operate effectively. School-based summer programs need to communicate with schools to ensure adequate facilities and supplies and to clarify roles and responsibilities.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, schools and academically focused summer programs share the same mission—promoting the education and development of program participants. Developing ongoing, mutually supportive relationships is crucial to ensuring that schools and summer programs work collaboratively to best accomplish this mission. Schools' missions are hampered when youth fall behind academically during the summer months, just as summer programs' missions are hampered when schools do not build on what youth have learned in summer programs.

Relationships with schools were more often described as a program weakness than a program strength. However, one specific OST–school linkage strategy emerged from the review:

Create formal partnerships with schools through early planning and transfer of information.
The Break-Aways Camps in New York City created formal partnerships between summer camps and schools. Together, the partners collaborated to plan literacy activities in the context of camp experiences. These partnerships were able to enhance the quality of the summer program because working with the school's teachers allowed the program to identify potential participants, plan the curriculum in a way that would best serve the needs of participating youth, and better align activities with state standards.

Evaluators also recommended a number of potential strategies to make partnerships with schools stronger. These recommendations generally fell under two overarching strategies. First, programs should work with schools early, so as to ensure that students and potential staff are recruited more easily and to allow enough time to build relationships and engage in program planning. Second, programs should develop formal mechanisms that will allow schools to transfer academic and social information regarding students' academic and personal needs. Though it is not always easy, through planning and partnerships, summer programs can build strong relationships with schools to enhance the quality of youth's experiences.

Challenge 5: Building strong, positive connections with participants' families

Establishing and developing strong, positive connections with participants' families can provide academically focused summer programs with numerous advantages. Getting to know youth's families can help programs understand the needs of the youth they are serving. Programs can also encourage and facilitate families' support of youth's learning and development. Because families are critical to ensuring youth sign up for and attend programs, relationships with families can help programs to recruit and retain youth (Lauver, Little, & Weiss, 2004).

Linkages between families and OST programs may also benefit parents' involvement in children's education and schools and parents' relationships with their children and may also improve implementation outcomes (Kakli, Kreider, & Little, 2006). Just as importantly, these linkages can help parents better support their children's learning and development at home.

Many OST program evaluations have noted that they have found it challenging to engage participants' families, and the academically focused summer programs in this review were no exception. Programs, however, can adopt a number of strategies to facilitate the development of connections with participants' families

Programs can create opportunities for parents to get involved.
Inviting parents and families to participate in program events and opportunities can make parents more likely to be engaged and involved. For example, the Emery Summer of Challenge, the evaluation of which found strong parent engagement, provided an open invitation to parents to visit the program at any time. The program also held several events—including a 2-hour parent orientation session at the beginning of the program, an open house toward the end of the program, a Parent Night featuring exhibitions of youth's work, and an end-of-program barbecue celebration—to encourage parent involvement. Parent attendance at such events can facilitate communication about children's learning and development to families and create engagement of parents in the program, which in turn can support youth's active participation and engagement in the program.

Create strategies for coping with parents' schedules and child care situations.
Regular attendance by participants is critical to the success of academically focused summer programs. However, attendance often suffers when families have scheduling conflicts and child care challenges involving participants' siblings. Many programs devised strategies to cope with these problems. Some found it helpful to provide program slots for participants' siblings. The All-Around-the-Neighborhood program in St. Paul, Minnesota, discovered that by incorporating siblings into the program, it removed the barrier of some youth needing to care for their younger siblings. As a result, the program was better able serve the needs of youth and their families.

The District of Columbia 21st Century Learning Center similarly found that parents appreciated the opportunity to have multiple children attend the same program. Such strategies can improve not just youth attendance, but also parent involvement. Some evaluations also suggested providing on-site babysitting as a strategy for enabling parents to attend parent events.

Develop communication channels with parents to support their children's learning.
Programs can be more successful if they work directly with parents to support their children's learning. For example, the GEAR UP program in Austin, Texas, makes developing connections with families a top priority. In this program, each site employs a parent support specialist who is responsible for maintaining consistent and frequent communication with parents. Parents are formally asked to be partners in supporting their children's learning and development and sign contracts with the program pledging their participation. These communication channels have allowed the program to better support youth and have led to increases in meetings with parents, home visits, personal phone calls, and referrals of families to a variety of support services. Developing effective communication channels between programs and families can mutually benefit both families' and programs' abilities to serve the needs of youth.

Challenge 6: Engaging community members, groups, and institutions in programming

Since summer programs often have limited resources and capabilities, linking with other community entities can help them maximize the beneficial experiences they offer to youth. By engaging actors in the community, programs can leverage resources not usually at their disposal and thereby facilitate enhanced quality programming. Businesses, colleges and universities, museums, and other community institutions all possess valuable resources that can add to the format, content, and location of programming. Coordinating with other community entities can also help ensure a more seamless web of support for youth in the summer months, as well as minimize conflicts between competing summer opportunities in the community.

However, engaging and coordinating with other community settings requires commitment and work and thus emerged as a sixth implementation challenge. Program evaluations pointed toward some promising strategies for meeting this challenge.

Create linkages to colleges and universities.
Colleges and universities generally have more resources available for use in the summer months than during the academic year, and many youth programs take advantage of this opportunity to form partnerships with universities in the summer. As noted above, college students, most of whom are not in class during the summer, can provide an excellent source of program staff. College and university resources also include classroom space and laboratory facilities.

Linking with the local university allowed the Summer Science Academy in Rochester, New York, to gain access to modern lab equipment and technology, which in turn enabled the program to provide exposure to advanced science topics and lab techniques that youth could not get in school. One evaluation noted that the university setting helped youth and their families to experience the college environment, thereby contributing to their increased comfort with and excitement about the idea of attending college.

Link and align with other complementary summer programs.
There are a variety of summer programs and activities available to youth. Such overlap in programming can lead to competition for resources, staff, and student attendance. Linking and aligning with other summer programs by forming community partnerships can help reduce competition and maximize program potential. For instance, the GEAR UP program in Austin collaborated with other academic summer programs, referring youth between programs, sharing resources, and ensuring that programs did not provide duplicate services.

Challenge 7: Incorporating a variety of fun and engaging program activities

The summer has historically been a time of fun and relaxation for many youth, and programs in this review reported greater success when they incorporated a “summer vacation spirit” into their programming and attempted to avoid remedial instruction-based activities. Indeed, some program evaluations found that when programs emphasized remediation and conducted it in a dry, rote manner, youth tended to become disengaged and attendance flagged. Since youth engagement and attendance are critical to program success, finding strategies to ensure a “vacation spirit” is of the utmost importance for summer programs. The program evaluations revealed the following strategies.

Offer a variety of engaging and educational field trips.
Many evaluations indicated that field trips provided fun, engaging educational experiences that generated enthusiasm among participants. Field trips are a major component of the BELL program, which finds that trips to places such as children's museums, zoos, and planetariums provide enriching experiences and keep youth excited about attending the program week after week. Such field trips can be an opportunity for summer programs to provide experiences that school-year classes cannot or do not offer.

Design activities that are hands-on and focused on active learning.
Hands-on activities can also help keep youth excited, engaged, and learning. The University of Virginia Summer Enrichment Program in Charlottesville, Virginia, found that the active learning component of their program was critical, as youth stressed the importance of “actually doing something.” The program employed active learning approaches such as laboratory work, visits with experts in science, or use of computer technology. An Oceanography Camp for Girls in St. Petersburg, Florida, also found that its hands-on experiential learning activities led participants to become excited about science. In some evaluations, participants reported that they learned more about science in summer programs than during the entire school year. Taking a thematic approach to hands-on learning, such as focusing on oceanography, can also boost engagement in summer programs.

Putting It All Together to Implement High-Quality Summer Programming

While many summer programs face similar implementation challenges, each program has different components and needs, and not every strategy is feasible or even desirable for every program. Rather, the strategies presented in this brief are intended to offer “food for thought” about how best to develop and refine quality programming. Three major themes cut across the seven challenges and accompanying strategies identified in this brief.

First, many evaluations identified the important role of linkages, relationships, and partnerships. Most program goals can best be achieved through coordination, leveraging resources, and building relationships and partnerships. These connections can take many forms, from linking programs to families, to building and leveraging relationships with community-based entities, to developing partnerships with schools. Establishing such linkages can help ensure that youth experience a more seamless network of supports that works toward consistent learning and development.

A second theme that cuts across many strategies is youth engagement. For academically focused summer programs to achieve their goals, youth need to attend regularly and stay engaged in the program's instruction and activities. Engagement can help youth become more invested in the learning process and therefore achieve more positive outcomes. The goal of youth engagement drives many of the strategies identified here, including intentional and ongoing program planning, selecting and training staff members to work effectively with youth, and linking with community members and institutions to provide active learning experiences.

A final theme common to most of these strategies is the importance of operating with intentionality. Though this brief identified intentionality as one of seven unique challenges, all six of the other challenges in fact depend on a high level of intentionality and planning. This is consistent with current thinking in the after school arena, which promotes a theory of change approach to program design and implementation—in particular, an approach that intentionally links program goals, program elements, participant outcomes, and evaluations in order to best develop effective OST programs (C. S. Mott Foundation Committee on After School Research and Practice, 2005). Practitioners can use the challenges and strategies identified here to think about similar strategies that they can intentionally adopt in their own programs to maximize the quality and potential of their summer programming.

Out of the scope of this brief, but nonetheless key challenges facing the after school arena today, are sustainability of funding and responding to the increasing demands for accountability with more and better ways to demonstrate program results. However, the seven research-derived themes presented in this brief are consistent with an emerging consensus about what constitutes quality in after school and other out-of-school time programs (Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Rosenthal & Vandell, 1996; Miller, 2003). The specific strategies outlined here are tailored to the needs and experiences of summer pro-grams, but this set of research-based best practices adds to the mounting evidence base that all quality OST programming should include opportunities for youth engagement, skill-building experiences, practices that support positive relationships with peers and adults, and connections with other settings such as schools and families. Taken together, the quality indicators and the strategies identified in this brief provide a framework for programs to continue moving toward providing the highest quality services possible.

Widening achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged youth over the summer months are a major impetus for efforts to improve the accessibility and quality of academically focused summer programming. Our review of program evaluations builds on the findings about the academic benefits of such programs to illuminate how programs can produce these meaningful outcomes. By assessing the common challenges identified in our review and applying the appropriate research-based strategies, programs can make the summer months an opportunity for growth, rather than a time when at-risk youth fall further behind.

Acknowledgements

Preparation of this brief was made possible through the support of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation with additional support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. The principal investigator for this study is Dr. Heather B. Weiss. We wish to acknowledge Suzanne Bouffard and Priscilla Little from HFRP, and Brenda McLaughlin, Deputy Director of the Center for Summer Learning, who offered a number of insightful comments to improve the brief. We also wish to thank Joseph Davis of Ascend, Brenda Wojnowski of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and Tiffany Cooper of BELL, for speaking with us about how they strive to create successful summer programming.

Notes

1 The Appendix contains a complete list of evaluations that were included in the review.

References

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