Springfield students offered free summer school

Students from other districts can use city programs, too.

Springfield City School District will offer summer school for remediation or advancement free for its students this year.

For students who attend other districts or charter or private schoools, the cost will be $430 for a full-year course, $215 for one semester and $107.50 for a quarter.

In previous years, the district charged Springfield students $75 and county or private school students $150.

“Residency in the Springfield City School District has its privileges,” said Superintendent Dave Estrop. “People of Springfield are paying, through their taxes, and one of the benefits they get is summer school.”

For elementary students, summer programs will focus this year on students in kindergarten through third grade who are not reading on grade level, but the district will work with other interested families to find appropriate programs.

“At the elementary level, that will be the focus, in reading, as we prepare the child and parents, community, staff for the Third Grade Reading Guarantee,” said Estrop, referring to a new state law that requires districts to retain students who don’t past the reading portion of the third grade Ohio Achievement Assessment.

But middle and high school students will have the opportunity to take classes to make up credits for classes they’ve previously failed or to take classes to move forward.

Springfield is offering students this chance at a time when many schools either offer only remedial summer school or are cutting their programs due to budget woes, said Estrop.

“We’re taking a very different look at summer school,” he said. “Certainly, there will be opportunity for remediation … At the high school, in addition to remediation, there will be a chance to move ahead. We want to broaden the opportunities for the students of Springfield and do that using the summer school.”

Some classes are offered in the traditional setting with a teacher on site, but students also have the full range of the online catalog, including many electives, offered to them.

Senior Kristy Bowen, 18, took government and gym during summer school last year.

“I wanted to take summer school in order to clear up my schedule for post-secondary,” she said.

Bowen has taken four post-secondary classes during her high school career and will start studying psychology at Wittenberg University in the fall with 17 credits already taken.

“I loved it,” she said. “It was fun and it gave me something to do over the summer … I would recommend it to anyone who maybe is bored over the summer (or) just wants to lighten their load a little bit.”

For more information about Springfield’s summer school, call 937-505-2800 or visit spr.k12.oh.us/summer.

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