A new summer school bridge program in Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 — which has been years in the making and will give students with unsatisfactory performance an opportunity to advance to the next grade — debuts next week.
Amanda Patti, the district’s associate superintendent of strategy and accountability, said a plan was developed in 2018 to give students more tools to succeed rather than requiring them to repeat a grade or advancing them without the needed skills.
Though the plan had wide community support, Patti said in an email that when the coronavirus pandemic forced schools to close for the rest of the academic year in March 2020, and learning was remote for most of the following term, the program was never implemented.
“The policy has since been revised through an equity-focused review process,” she said. “The new policy emphasizes classroom performance and academic growth over standardized test results. In past years, retentions were rare, with just a handful annually.”
The Summer Bridge program begins Tuesday at select elementary and middle schools, as well as the Waukegan High School Brookside campus, giving students with poor grades over the past school year a shot at promotion, as well as traditional summer school.
Giving the District 60 Board of Education an update Tuesday at the Education Service Center in downtown Waukegan, Patti said students who complete third grade, eighth grade or their freshman year in high school with a subpar report card can choose summer school over retention.
All 253 students — 56 third graders, 121 middle schoolers and 76 freshmen — who did not meet the necessary academic benchmarks chose the bridge. They include 5.4% of the district’s third-grade students, 12.1% of those in middle school and 8.4% of the high school freshmen.
Patti said third graders performing below grade level in both math and reading must enter the bridge program to move on to fourth grade. Before entering high school, eighth graders must have a rolling 2.0 grade point average or go into the bridge program. Freshmen must enter the bridge program if they do not earn three credits.
The bridge program recommendation was not a surprise to the families involved, she said. With each report card, parents knew if their child was performing poorly. Simultaneously, Patti said there were interventions with the students and supports put in place.
“We had parent notification and conferencing throughout the year,” she said at the meeting. “So, parents and students had a lot of information to know where they were, and how to potentially get off this list for promotion/retention.”
Superintendent Theresa Plascencia said in an email that the policy is designed to avoid requiring a student to repeat a grade by helping them learn the required material rather than increasing the number.
“This policy is designed to identify students at risk of falling behind and ensure they receive targeted, timely support to address their academic needs before promotion decisions are made,” she said.
At the end of the first quarter of the school year, 85 third graders were notified. The number averaged 88 in the next two grading periods before dropping to 56 by the end of the year, according to district records. The number of middle school students needing extra help hovered at 200 at one point, but fell to 121. High school students were steady through the year, settling at 76.
Plascencia said helping students advance is a joint effort between the youngsters, their families and school personnel. It is important that everyone does their part to ensure students are not required to repeat a grade.
“We hope to reinforce that students understand their responsibility as learners, that parents are informed and actively partnering with us to support their child’s academic performance and that schools are expanding opportunities to ensure every student has access to the supports and interventions they need to succeed,” Plascencia said.
