Districts and School Leaders Encouraged to Take Advantage of Summer Learning Resources

The New Jersey Department of Education announced the release of resources designed to support summer learning program development in a recent advisory.

When utilizing these resources, local educational agencies will have the opportunity to engage in tasks, starting in September, that will be instrumental in curbing the summer slide and increasing opportunities to support academic recovery. Through programmatic support and implementation of this guidance, LEAs may grow summer learning programs that are sustainable, accelerate learning and have an increased capacity for serving all learners.

This guidance consists of The Summer Learning Program Development Resource and Workbook. In the calendar section, LEAs will find several tasks organized by their corresponding stage, according to the National Summer Learning Association’s Quality Improvement Cycle. The calendar provides guidance for planning summer programs and may be most useful to school leaders. The tasks in this calendar start in September and continue through four stages, over a 12-month period.

The workbook is designed to provide guidance on completing these monthly tasks, which are organized by stage and category corresponding to the ideal month of completion. The purpose behind this design is to give summer program leads and teams an easily accessible and tangible agenda to encourage the most successful development and implementation of summer programs.

Districts with well-developed programs may find the workbook to be most useful during the assessing and reflection phases, which occur largely in the spring and summer. Districts wishing to rethink current programs, or develop more robust ones, may find this workbook useful in guiding them during all phases of program development.

Technical Assistance Sessions

Two separate virtual technical assistance sessions will take place on May 4 and May 11 from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. To join either of these sessions, LEAs can sign up on the NJDOE’s Events Registration webpage.

For questions, reach out to the Office of Educator Effectiveness.