Seaford School District Leads the Way in Implementing Accelerated Summer School (Camp Blue Jay)

Denise Burson
Aug 23, 2010

How can Acceleration be effectively implemented in a Summer School format?

I first met Heather Bethurum and her team of administrators at our Learning-Focused Catching Kids Up training for the Seaford School District. I was impressed with their leadership and their desire to help struggling students catch up. I asked Mrs. Bethurum, assistant principal of Blades Elementary School, in Blades, DE, to tell me about her experiences with implementing Camp Blue Jay and the impact that Acceleration has had on her school district.

Mrs. Bethurum, reported, "We began by preparing for a change in our summer school program during the 2009 school year. The purpose of Camp Blue Jay (Acceleration Summer School) is to focus on previewing key essential concepts/skills for the upcoming year, especially those concepts/skills of the first grading period. The goal is at the end of September for these students to say, "This is the best yea r I have ever had in school."

When the Seaford School district began implementing Learning-Focused we decided to move to the Acceleration/Previewing model for our summer program. The first thing we tackled was designing a curriculum for our teachers to follow. The reading specialist, Wendy Sammons, and I created a template and outlined the first unit of Language Arts. We incorporated ideas and resources for utilizing Learning-Focused strategies for vocabulary, reading themes, phonics skills, and more, divided up into sections matching the main skills being presented for that grade level. Once the Language Arts section was complete, the lead math teacher at Blades Elementary, Alison Tingle, pulled together the ma in math vocabulary and skills for teachers to use as well. A! ll the r esources and curriculum maps were provided to each teacher in a summer school resource binder. Before our first session, we had Learning-Focused Instructional Specialists come to Seaford and train our summer school staff to use the strategies outlined in Catching Kids Up with Accleration.

We received high praise from classroom teachers following the first "Previewing" summer school. In fact, as a result of the surveys and teacher e-mails that we received we changed our extended day program during the school year to a previewing format as well. Teachers expressed delight at the change in some of their students. Many students who did not usually respond during class were suddenly responsive and engaged.

For the 2010 summer school program, we added E ssential Questions to the curriculum and began to flesh out the math units. We invited Learning-Focused Instructional Specialists to return and train our summer school teachers in Catching Kids Up with Acceleration. Even though some of the teachers had the training last year, they benefited from the training. They were more knowledgeable and were able to share their positive experiences with the new summer school teachers. Everyone walked away excited. The strategies and support we received were so valuable for designing their summer units using the provided curriculum and resources. This process helped our summer school teams develop a stronger understanding of their content and the importance of previewing.

We will be holding "Camp Blue Jay," our previewing summer school for the second year. We have moved the program to later in the summer so that students can preview information closer to the start of the school year. We have supplied teachers with resources, an organized framework in which they can plan for student learning and the Acceleration training. It works! With resources and instructional time being in short supply in education these days we must utilize every second with these students that we can. Double dosing them, triple dosing them, giving them every advantage possible. We are excited and can't wait to share our results with others.