Since the Summer Achievers program is an integrated academic and enrichment model, with SDP teachers offering morning academic instruction to the same students that OST providers are offering enrichment activities to in the afternoon, we will need to be more targeted in recruiting students to fill classrooms by teacher and grade band to maintain a SDP teacher: child ratio of 1:15 (not to exceed 1:20) during the academic instruction portion of the day. 

The SDP teachers will be providing morning academic instruction through four different grade bands, 1st-2nd grade, 3rd-4th grade, 5th-6th grade and 7th-8th grade. Summer slots by grade band were determined on the basis of current School Year OST enrollment numbers by grade level at each targeted Summer Achiever site, and OCF-OST network historical trends where sites are under-enrolled. 

OST site providers will manage the overall student recruitment and registration for the Summer Achiever program, as they have done in past summers with a traditional enrichment only summer learning model.  Once a student is successfully enrolled in the program, OST providers should send out an enrollment confirmation to each enrolled student family (phone call, post card, text, email), OST Providers should also maintain a waiting list.

90% of recruited students should be from the provider’s home school site, up to 10% can be from other SDP schools. If a site has been relocated for the summer, 90% of their allotted slots can be filled from students from both their home and relocated host school site, with up to 10% from other SDP schools.

Since this is a collaborative partnership with SDP, student enrollment data must be entered into Cityspan accurately and uploaded weekly by Friday, so OCF can share with SDP to vet student eligibility and SDP can begin rostering students by teacher/classroom per site, and best support any targeted promotional support to boost recruitment efforts where needed. Once OST has recruited and enrolled students, SDP will roster them to a teacher/classroom and OCF will share this information back to each OST Site Director. Once the academic portion of the program day is over, OST Staff can reassign students to groups to align with OCF-OST required staff: child ratios by age/grade.

Summer Achievers Recruitment Materials

• Promotional Flyer (Different Languages Available): All Summer Achievers Sites should use this OCF and SDP branded flyer for their recruitment efforts. There is an editable text box for OST Providers to add their site-level contact information before printing and distributing to families and school staff. The flyer is available in Spanish, Arabic, Albanian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Portuguese, French, Khmer and Russian.

• Sample Recruitment Messages for Families and School Staff

Student Attendance Guidelines and Materials

Providers should develop their own Summer Achievers attendance policy for students and share with families during both enrollment and orientation. If an enrolled student does not attend the first week of the Summer Achievers program, without notice from the family, that child should be removed from the roster and another student should be enrolled off the waiting list.

Students are expected to attend every program day. Despite there being both an academic and enrichment portion of the program day, this is ONE summer learning program, being led by the OST Provider. Attendance should be taken only once per day, in the morning. If a student is not in attendance by 10am the OST Staff should contact the child’s family to discuss the absence, identify the reasons for the absence, help trouble-shoot to resolve any attendance challenges, and reinforce the provider’s attendance policies. 

Students are expected to attend both the academic and enrichment components of the day. If a student demonstrate a pattern of skipping the morning academic and yet attends the afternoon enrichment component, the provider should also contact the child’s family to understand why, help resolve any issues, reinforce the benefit of attending the academic portion (reduce summer learning loss, help child start next school year strong, increase child’s confidence in school), and remind the family of the provider’s attendance policies. The more the child attends, the more they’ll learn and grow and the more friends they’ll make.

The Summer Achievers Target Attendance Goal is for all students to attend at least 80% of overall program days, or 21-22 days out of the 27 scheduled Summer Achiever program days. Research shows that attending 80% of summer learning programs days is the dosage needed to achieve positive academic gains into the upcoming school year..

Morning Community Meeting Guidance and Materials 

SDP Summer Achievers Teachers will lead a 20-30 minute Morning Community Meeting activity on Academic Days (Monday-Thursday, Weeks 1-5). OST Staff will be expected to design and facilitate a 20-30 minute Morning Community Meeting on Enrichment-Only Days (Fridays, Monday-Friday in Week 6).

• What does Morning Community Meetings look like? 

• Additional Morning Meeting Resources

1. SEL Morning Meeting Handbook (Grades K-6th)

2. Mindfulness Activities 

Examples of Aligning Program Theme into Enrichment & Academic Time

• Theme: Growth & Resilience

• Program Core Values:

  • Flexibility (like the Willow Tree who bends in the wind, instead of breaking)

  • Perseverance (like the California Redwood who endures over centuries through rain, flood, fire, earthquakes or like the Dandelion who keeps finding ways to grow)

  • Innovation (like the succulent who finds ways to meet its needs in any almost condition)

  • Nurture & Support (be the sunlight that others need to grow: be kind, be attentive to others feelings, ask for support when you need it)

• Culminating Project: creating an urban garden at the school

• Field Trip: visiting a local community garden and farmer’s market

• Sample lesson plans and activities by grade level: https://kidsgardening.org/

• Teachers read stories about gardening, nature, habitats, the environment in ELA, include word problems and math projects related to water, sunlight, plants and nature, etc. in Math.