Did you know that Summer Learning Loss accounts for more than half of the achievement gap between middle and low-income students?

Did you know that Summer Learning Loss results in a significant loss of academic skills— about 2 months worth of achievement— for students not engaged in any summer enrichment activities?

New Day for Learning is facilitating a Summer Learning Collaborative of individuals and organizations from all sectors of City life – school district, community based organizations, the Department of  Children, Youth & Their Families,  and other city departments, cultural and recreational institutions, and private industry. The purpose of the Collaborative is to prevent the well-documented summer learning loss that accounts for over half the achievement gap between middle class and disadvantaged children.

A further focus is to increase access to physical activity and healthy foods, as children gain body mass index twice as fast during the summer months. Join us in our efforts to expand and improve enriched summer learning opportunities for all children across San Francisco. This is a perfect example of how everyone — not just schools — can contribute to the success and well-being of our students.

As part of the Collaborative’s work, New Day for Learning, the Department of Children Youth and their Families, and the San Francisco Unified School District are sponsoring the first all-city event just for YOU to learn about summer possibilities for the programs you provide. The day will include:

• Opening session – Why summer is so important this year
• 4 Concurrent training sessions throughout the day from Bay Area experts on planning quality summer activities, behavior management, incorporating visual arts, integrating science, staff development, nutrition, physical activity, etc.
• 25 “Get-it-done” workshops featuring creative programming ideas on everything from literacy through theater and outdoor exploration to digital media, science kits and community building.
• 25 Resource tables filled with new ideas for field trips, admission to museums and other attractions, staffing, materials and more!

Summer Program Providers – Join us for a Summer Resource and Information Fair!

Check out the workshop schedule.

April 21

9:30 – 3:00 pm

First Unitarian Church

1187 Franklin Street

TO REGISTER

CONTACT: Melanie Hopson, New Day for Learning

hopsonm@sfusd.edu

Call 355-2202 with questions

George Lucas, founder and chairman of our foundation, has said: “It’s imperative that we create new kinds of schools, freed from an educational system deeply rooted in the distant past and the kinds of schools so many of us attended decades ago.” For more than a decade, our foundation has been chronicling solutions to Industrial Age educational thinking that treat students as widgets moving down an assembly line, where everyone learns the same content in the same way at the same time.

One common feature shared by the innovative classrooms we’ve shown from across the nation in our Edutopia films, website, and magazine is authentic learning, learning that makes “school life” more like “real life.” And one of the keys to authentic learning is taking advantage of all of the places and people in a community that can “keep it real” and ensure that students never have to ask that nagging question: “Why do we need to know this?”

San Francisco, our world-class city, has world-class companies, universities, labs, museums, science centers, parks, and many other places where students can learn about “real life.” In the areas of science, mathematics, engineering, and mathematics, the STEM skills that policymakers from the White House to the state house are emphasizing for the future, San Francisco ranks second to none. Already many of these groups have programs serving K-12 students and teachers, such as the California Academy of Sciences, The Exploratorium, the Golden Gate National Parks, San Francisco State, and UCSF. Many companies invite students to visit their workplaces and have employees who mentor and teach.

For instance, unlike many urban communities, we are fortunate to live near a national park. San Francisco middle and high school students have been working in native plant nurseries in the Golden Gate National Parks, propagating plants from seedlings and learning about the fragile biodiversity of the northern California ecosystem. National Park rangers, adult volunteers, and others work with their teachers to integrate the learning that happens inside and outside the classroom.

What have your children and students learned from one of these San Francisco organizations and companies that enrich their school experience? What more could be done to strengthen these experiences and bring them to more students? How could obstacles be overcome? Dream big. This city and these times demand a bigger vision.