The end of summer is the best time to start planning for the next. In our most recent webinar, Reflecting on Summer, Planning for Next Year: Best Practices from Wallace-Commissioned Summer Learning Research, researchers from the NYU Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools (NYU Metro Center) shared key learnings and insights from studying how 44 school districts plan for summer.  

The District Summer Learning Network (DSLN), supported by The Wallace Foundation (Wallace) and convened by FHI 360, brought together more than 165 districts across 25 states to build evidence-based summer programs as federal relief funding expanded summer learning nationwide. NYU Metro Center’s Center for Policy, Research and Evaluation (PRE) studied how 44 of those districts, from tiny rural systems to large urban ones, planned, partnered, and made decisions about summer learning. 

Their findings around how districts used evidence-based practices for planning engaging summer programs are published in the Summer Snapshot series, commissioned by Wallace, with a full report expected this fall. 

Demand for summer learning is outpacing supply 

Sara McAlister, Principal Research Associate at NYU Metro Center, opened by sharing the current state of summer learning.  

By 2025, about one in four children in the U.S. participated in a structured summer learning program, and for every student enrolled, another family wanted a spot. She noted that unmet demand is highest among low-income and rural families. 

DSLN was built to help districts scale with the evidence base in mind, and most of the 44 districts made real progress toward evidence-based practices, especially on recruitment, hiring, curriculum, and enrichment.  

“Districts were really looking at the evidence and research, but they were also responding to the moment, said McAlister, “and they were very attuned to students’ specific needs in the wake of the pandemic.” 

A few priorities showed up consistently among districts: 

1. Making summer accessible to the students who need it most 

1. Tailoring programs to key student groups, like multilingual learners and students with disabilities 

1. Making summer feel distinct from the school year 

1. Connecting students to local histories, cultures, and communities. 

Program duration proved to be the most consistent challenge, as many teachers and students felt burned out after the pandemic. It was difficult to staff six-week long programs, and student attendance dropped in later weeks.  

Partnerships are the cornerstone 

Every district in the study said they could not do summer alone. Summer is often run by one person wearing several hats, or in rural districts, by someone who may also be a school staff member, like the middle school principal. Partners, from community-based nonprofits to local businesses, help fill that gap with staff, facilities, and expertise, while cultivating relationships for young people with adults outside of school. 

Rhea Almeida, a researcher with the NYU Metropolitan Center, walked through seven ways partners plug in: daily enrichment blocks, field trips and campus visits, hands-on academic support, career exploration, social and emotional learning, cultural programming and community connections, and in-kind support.  

She shared an example of districts with significant Native American populations where tribal nations co-designed programming and elders volunteered to teach stickball, basket weaving, and beadwork. A small rural western district brought in a STEM nonprofit to lead a full day training for summer teachers, who then built their own STEM kits and four-week units.  

“The partner themselves is not going into the classroom and just putting on programming and leaving,” Almeida said. “They’re building capacity within the school district, they’re training teachers, and then the teachers for the next decade can continue that programming without the partner having to come back every year.” 

The depth of those relationships matters as much as the number. Almeida drew a line between partners treated as one-time vendors and partners who co-design the program. For example, Rochester, Minnesota used a $5,000 DSLN stipend to work with a local community organization that convened mothers of African American students to talk about what they wanted from summer. Those conversations surfaced a desire for stronger connections between students’ cultures and their learning, and the district responded by engaging minority-owned businesses to host field trips and share their stories as entrepreneurs of color.  

“The deeper the relationship,” Almeida said, “the more hands-on, the more co-created the summer learning can be.” 

Sustaining the work after ESSER 

Federal relief funding let districts expand seats and build evidence-based programs, but it was time-limited. McAlister’s first lesson is that good planning practices build a foundation for sustainability. Central office teams should be involved so summer is treated as part of their regular work, and buy-in can be built by engaging teachers and families in the planning process. .  

“The rub is that building commitment takes time,” McAlister said, “and that was what districts didn’t have in the context of ESSER funding.” 

Almeida offered a more hopeful frame in response to a question from the Forum’s Gerod Blue about the role of place-based learning. She described a small rural southern district that built a career exploration program by knocking on neighbor’s doors to ask what they did for a living and then inviting them to be speakers in their program.  

“What ESSER did is give districts the resources to be able to build out these models,” she said. “Then, when the money goes away, the model still stands. The capacity at the district level has been built, the buy-in in the community has been built, and people care about the program.” 

What? So what? Now what? 

Shavon Dotson from The Forum for Youth Investment facilitated breakout sessions for attendees to work through a three-part reflection: what happened this summer, why it matters, and what comes next. You can access the worksheet that we used here to use for your own work! 

Start now, and be the champion 

Asked which would be their most critical recommendation, McAlister pointed to timing. “The earlier the better,” she said. “If you can start in the fall, reflecting, as we’ve just done here, on what went well and what can be improved, I think that sets you up nicely for a solid year.”  

Partnership came a close second, and she added that the county and local intermediaries she saw on the call, the organizations coordinating funding, enrollment, and support across providers, are essential to sustaining summer learning. 

Almeida closed with the observation that where summer is a priority rather than an afterthought, it’s happening because of champions. 

“Individual champions can change what a summer program can look like,” she said. “They can pull resources, build buy-in, and get leadership to invest in summer. So be your individual champion.” 

Resources 

• District Summer Learning Network Study, supported by The Wallace Foundation (this webinar featured their “Snapshot” Series here) 

• What? So What? Now What? breakout worksheet from the webinar 

• Forum for Youth Investment training workshops, like the ones facilitated in this webinar