School District Scaling Back Summer School

Budget cuts mean shortened summer school this year, gone next year

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By Corey Allen-Young
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Story Created: May 17, 2012 at 8:18 AM AKDT

Story Updated: May 17, 2012 at 8:24 AM AKDT

ANCHORAGE - For better or worse, Thursday is the last day of school, and for students trying to catch up on classes, this summer will be more challenging.

The Anchorage School District is scaling back the successful summer school program because of budget cuts. With money running out in June, the way it stands now, summer school will only be one month long this year, and completely gone next year. It could affect as many as 5,000 Anchorage students who could end up behind their peers academically.

For ASD’s high school executive director Mike Henry, getting rid of summer school was a tough pill to swallow. “June 30 will be our last day of summer school,” said Henry. “For the first time we'll have to tell students and parents that there are no seats available. I'll tell you what, our superintendent and our school board are not happy about having to make these cuts.”

In the past, thousands of kids have enrolled in summer school to catch up on credits, or just to get ahead with courses offered in the classroom and in cyberspace. “If a student does well at the computer and does well with online, we're going to offer a whole variety of courses for online,” said Henry.

It's a formula of specialized education that has proven to be successful in getting students to focus on their work so they can not only graduate but pursue bigger opportunities.

“We have found that if students are able to concentrate on one class or even two classes students have been able to take in the past, they are much more successful,” said Henry.

But budget cuts are forcing major changes. Summer school will not continue past July 1 this year.
“We believe we're going to be able to serve about half the number of students that we served last year,” said Henry.

So how exactly will that affect kids' education? “We're not exactly sure what it is,” said Henry. It could mean some kids won't make the grade.

The deadline to enroll for summer school is Friday, which could be a problem for some parents who won't get their kids' report cards in time to sign them up.

With limited space and time ASD officials say they will have to say no to anyone who wants to enroll after Friday. For more information please click http://www.asdk12.org/summer.
 

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Robo said on Friday, May 18 at 7:02 PM

Check your property tax bill...looked at mine and found I pay more to the school district, than for police, fire and roads...I say cut administrative bodies before you cut one teacher.

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Fisher said on Thursday, May 17 at 11:18 AM

Dear Anonymous, Last year they went to Las Vegas. Hope your kid is getting everything they need from the school system.

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Anonymous said on Thursday, May 17 at 10:49 AM

If only they had known there were budget concerns, they might have cancelled the staff trip to Florida they all took in April.

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Bad4us said on Thursday, May 17 at 9:41 AM

Maybe the principals could return all of their free iPads from last year to put towards education costs.

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