On a sweltering Wednesday morning in July, a group of second graders in a summer school program called Summer Rising gathered around their desks to inspect and prod at soil and plant vegetable seeds.

Their teacher engaged them in a call and response: “You can poke it!” she says. “You can?”

“Poke it!” they responded in unison before she added, “and take a little bit of dirt out!”

Down the hall, in a kindergarten classroom, kids spent the morning working on math problems before moving into a purposeful play session focused on fossils.

“I’m working on three plus three equals six … using blocks!” exclaimed one student, Gabriella, who shared that her favorite parts of the day are “snack and recess and lunch.”

Later that afternoon, she and her classmates headed to one of a number of extracurricular activities ranging from martial arts to step dance and soccer.

These students at New Bridges Elementary, a school which sits along a stretch of the Eastern Parkway in the heart of Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, were participating in Summer Rising, a partnership between New York City Public Schools and the Department of Youth and Community Development. The program, launched in 2021 in the depths of the pandemic, gives students access to free academic and enrichment programming over the course of six summer weeks — a time when schools have historically been shuttered to all students except those in need of the most concentrated, remedial academic support.

New York City is one of scores of districts across the nation who have worked to transform traditional summer school into a more inclusive, enrichment-filled yet still academically rigorous space.

Some of these districts began this shift over a decade ago, following the release of a 2011 research report, which put forth a case for rebuilding summer learning and highlighted the ways in which this time could be used to fight some of the academic backslide typically seen between June and September, especially for students from low-income backgrounds.

Read the full article about Summer Rising by Amanda Geduld at The 74.