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Specialized second summer school for Youngstown third-graders
YOUNGSTOWN
Youngstown City School students are getting a more specialized education in a second session of summer school.
The second summer-school session is for third-graders who either failed the assessment required to meet the Third-Grade Reading Guarantee during the previous summer school session, or did not attend the first session.
The Third-Grade Reading Guarantee, approved by the state Legislature and signed by the governor, requires that all third-grade students take a reading test to determine if they are reading at grade level.
The first session helped students improve both reading and math scores, but the second session focuses only on reading and getting students to pass their reading assessment.
Linda Yosay, special education consultant from the Mahoning County Educational Service Center, said the second session is “much more targeted.”
“We looked at what we did with the first half [of summer school] and we readjusted to better fit the students’ needs,” she said. “So, we’re not doing the same thing over again. We’re tweaking it.”
More than 80 third-graders – out of almost 400 third-graders in the district – participated in the first session of summer school, which led to 16 of those students passing.
Now, about 41 of 66 students who didn’t pass the assessment are taking advantage of the opportunity.
“These students didn’t pass the guarantee and this is just another opportunity for us to help them succeed,” said Timothy Filipovich, city schools chief of academics, accountability and assessment.
“If a student is struggling with reading, we want to provide every opportunity to help,” said Krish Mohip, city schools’ chief executive officer.
“Reading is too important. If a child has difficulty reading, that struggle will spread to all other subject areas, and it will be hard for that child to catch up.”
The students in the second summer school session will be able to re-test once the 2017-18 school year starts.
The second session is also providing an opportunity for district educators to learn.
“We are learning things we have to do differently next year in this process so that we can better help our students moving forward,” Filipovich said.
One aspect he learned is that district educators have to work on doing a better job of identifying at-risk students.
All in all, summer school for the district is providing those in the city schools an opportunity to work on academic needs, said Amanda McGinnis, district deputy chief of transformation.
“We have bright kids here, and we are going to do great things,” Filipovich said.
The second session runs through Aug. 10.