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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 12, 2022
Ten Organizations Selected for Evidence-Based Summer Learning Program Grants
JUNEAU – The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development has issued an Intent to Award to ten organizations for the Evidence-Based Summer Learning Programs competitive grant funded by the American Rescue Plan Act.
The grant awardees include six school districts and four community-based organizations. The purpose of the competitive grant is to provide districts and community-based organizations the opportunity to establish innovative strategies to carry out activities that will address unfinished learning and provide enrichment activities through summer programs.
The funding amount proposed by DEED reflects a 6.77% reduction of each applicant’s funding request in order to fully expend the allocated grant award. Awardees and project descriptions are listed below.
Kuspuk School District: KSD’s Summer Camp
Proposed Funding: $466,024.81
Kuspuk School District’s application is for two years of robust summer programming to be offered to K-12 students districtwide. The major activities of KSD’s Summer Camp are divided between two age groups, Early Childhood/Elementary Years and Secondary. The focus of the Early Childhood/Elementary Years would include a Reading Academy and a STEM Summer Camp. The focus areas of Secondary include Career and Technical Education (CTE), Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) programming located at a remote cultural camp site.
Aleutians East Borough School District: Learn-Inspire
Proposed Funding: $103,611.43
The Learn-Inspire Project is an intensive summer intervention program for students who have had significant instructional gaps due to COVID-19 related absences. The district's highest need students will have a specialized program designed by certified teachers to bridge their learning gaps. Paraprofessionals will provide added support to decrease staff-student ratios, while also receiving high-quality professional development alongside teacher mentors. High School students will also gain hands-on work-based learning to support their interest in a possible career as a future paraeducator in our district.
Anchorage School District: Anchorage 2 – Creekside Park
Proposed Funding: $462,238.22
The 2023 and 2024 Creekside Park Elementary Summer Learning Program will provide a high-quality Summer Learning Program to 100 K-4 students that is designed to increase student reading outcomes and increase student attendance by pairing daily targeted reading intervention with enrichment activities, field trips, family nights, and family learning opportunities based on the science of reading. This learning program will be divided into four 3-week sessions during the 2023 and 2024 summer months.
Sitka Sound Science Center: ACE-IT
Proposed Funding: $231,107.38
Sitka's ACE-IT summer program proposal represents a unique partnership of community organizations to address the need for summer literacy development and enrichment of our youth. ACE-IT is a robust collection of summer activities that foster literacy through high-interest adventurous, cultural, and engineering/science topics and enhance career readiness skills particularly relevant to rural coastal communities.
Alaska Native Heritage Center: Ilitchut Project
Proposed Funding: $460,894.84
The Ilitchut Project is a summer internship program operated by the Alaska Native Heritage Center focused on building academic and career-readiness skills for Alaska Native youth.
Juneau School District: Mathematics Mindsets & Summer Fitness
Proposed Funding: $164,315.57
Juneau School District will provide about 40 students per summer with Mathematical Mindsets camp, and another 40 students per summer fitness concepts PE credit via a Native Youth Olympics (NYO) course. Both courses are designed for students who have struggled either with their previous grades, NWEA MAP scores (less than 30 percentile in math), or lack of credits - in an effort to build self-esteem in those subjects.
YWCA Alaska: Alaska’s Summer Program
Proposed Funding: $466,130.25
YWCA Alaska's Summer Program project is a three week, three track program for students in grades 7-8 and 9-12. All three tracks will focus on social-emotional learning Skills and reading comprehension improvement as well as subject matter related to their specific themes: STEM, Arts & Media, and Civic Engagement.
Lower Yukon School District: Intensive, Targeted, Extended SY
Proposed Funding: $466,130.15
This project will address the catastrophic learning loss experienced by the Alaska Native students in Lower Yukon School District through an extension of the school year. This summer school project will provide all 10 village schools with a four-week intensive program designed to target elementary students grades Kindergarten through 5th grade. The structure includes support for language arts, math, and social emotional learning with the addition of highly engaging Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math projects which will synthesize the skills practiced into real world application.
Dillingham City School District: Project ASSIST
Proposed Funding: $310,362.31
The Dillingham City School District to proposes project ASSIST (A Summer School Intervention Supporting Thinking). The overarching goal of ASSIST is to develop and implement a wraparound summer school program that will provide Dillingham students with kindergarten readiness skills, kindergarten through 8th-grade academic programming and hands-on instruction, 9th through 12th-grade direct remediation and credit recovery, social, emotional, and physical supports along with direct access to a mental health counselor, food and transportation services, and skilled staff support and professional development through alternative compensation models.
Best Beginnings: Kindergarten Readiness Camp
Proposed Funding: $456,894.35
Statewide kindergarten readiness summer camps for students with limited to no preschool experience. Kindergarten readiness camps increase emerging literacy skills, build kindergarten readiness skills, decrease inequities in emotional background of students entering kindergarten, and fill critical gaps in social emotional development of children impacted by pandemic related closures and interruptions in quality early childhood programs and opportunities.
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The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development provides information, resources, and leadership to support over 130,000 students in 505 public schools across the state of Alaska. The mission of the department is to ensure an “Excellent Education for Every Student Every Day.”
Media Contact: Grant Robinson, Public Information Officer, (907) 500-4983
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