Our HIT Program Manager, Maya, details how our HIT Program supports summer school at each of our four HIT partner sites.
This summer, our High-Impact Tutoring (HIT) program in Washington, D.C., started at all four of our HIT school locations: IDEA Public Charter School, Thurgood Marshall Academy, Theodore Roosevelt High School, and H.D. Woodson High School. HIT aims to support students in ELA and math, reinforcing core concepts outside the classroom to improve comprehension and grades. The program also seeks to boost student attendance through social and emotional learning exercises and mentorship relationships. Summer School is a difficult time to implement HIT when not all schools track grade progress in the same way, it is often a self-paced format, and attendance is notoriously low. It is essential that programming remains flexible to support summer school for each site and meet all student’s needs.
Thurgood Marshall Academy
The first school to kick off programming this summer was Thurgood Marshall Academy (TMA). TMA offers a variety of summer programs to aid students in their learning journey. Some students attend standard summer school to catch up on grade-level standards or classes they previously failed. Other programs provide a taste of college courses through dual enrollment and a program called Modern States, where students earn college credit. Additionally, TMA offers an SAT prep boot camp. Lana Learn is assisting with all these programs at TMA this summer. Our Academic Coach, Toju Omatete, is assisting with the standard and dual enrollment programs through HIT, while our Test Prep Program Manager, Adele Norton, is overseeing the SAT boot camp. This is our second summer supporting TMA through HIT, and we are thrilled to be back.
H.D. Woodson
The second school to start summer programming was H.D. Woodson. Our Academic Coach, Howard Fickling-Finley, is working with Woodson’s summer school for the first time. Howard has collaborated with the summer school principal, Dr. Richardson, to set goals for students this summer for time management, attendance, and goal setting and achieving. So far, Howard has helped over 15 students complete their summer school courses. We are excited to continue collaborating with and supporting Woodson through the end of July.
Roosevelt and IDEA PCS
We encountered a few roadblocks with the remaining two schools but are now working with small cohorts at each. At Roosevelt, a last-minute move to a nearby middle school created unforeseen obstacles. Fortunately, we resolved these issues quickly, and summer school teachers welcomed the assistance of our Academic Coach Jenna Sagan. At IDEA PCHS, we faced a similar challenge when summer school moved to an online platform. Although students still come to school for at least one hour, all classes are online. This required us to adjust our plans, but we worked with school staff to identify and prepare for a small cohort of students.
Despite some bumps in the road, we are happy to be supporting summer school at all four of our HIT schools this summer. We will continue to support students in summer school through the end of July to achieve their academic goals!