Doris Maricle

OBERLIN — Summer school will be in-person in Allen Parish public schools.

Instructional Supervisor Lori Lemons says the summer school program will be beneficial to students in grades K-8 who are falling behind in learning while helping students with academic skills and enrichment.

“The benefit of summer school is to prevent the loss of learning over the summer and to address learning gaps to ensure students will be on grade level for the 2021-2022 school year,” Lemons said.

The program will also provide social and emotional activities to help students. Credit recovery will also be provided to students.

Summer learning students had to meet guidelines to attend summer school. The schools will contact parents to set up a meeting to enroll students in summer school by May 27.

Lemons expects up to 465 students will attend the free summer program which will be offered  8 a.m.-noon Monday-Thursday, June 1-July 1 at five host sites.

Kinder Elementary School will be the host site for Kinder Elementary and Reeves High School students (grades K-4).

Kinder Middle School will serve Kinder Middle Schools students and Reeves High School students (grades 5-8).

Fairview High School will be the host sites for students from Fairview High, Elizabeth High, Oberlin Elementary and Oberlin High schools (grades 7-8)

Oakdale Elementary School will be a single host site for Oakdale Elementary School students.

Oakdale Middle School will serve students from Oakdale Middle School and Oakdale High School students.

“We will continue to do credit recovery on all sites with the exception of Oakdale High School,”

 The School Board will provide transportation and food to all students that attend. Students will leave schools for host sites at 7:30 a.m.

“Students will be taught in areas of math and ELA,” Lemons said. “We will also have a component for enrichment with social and emotional activities taking place, along with other activities.”

Lemons said educators and school administrators have been working on ways to enhance and expand the summer school officer to provide the most help to students and offset the pandemic learning gaps.

The School Board is also partnering with EatMoveGrow (EMG) of Oakdale which will visit the elementary sites to provide heart healthy and nutrition-related activities. Guest speakers will also visit the schools to talk to students throughout the summer, she said.

Thirty-four qualified teachers have agreed to teach summer school classes with the assistance of paraprofessionals and student workers. Many of the student workers are college education students or Education Rising participants from local schools.

“I think that’s very important with our students helping younger students,” Superintendent Kent Reed said. “We are building our own teachers and giving them a little taste of what it is going to be like.”

There will be 15 students to one teacher with a support personnel. Grades K-2 will have a certified teacher and two support personnel.

The program is being funded by the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds (ESSER). Funds will also be available for a summer school program in 2022.

Classroom deskMGNonline