Districts Continue to Invest in Summer Programs
Selected Findings from the American School District Panel
- Author(s)
- Melissa Kay Diliberti, Samantha E. DiNicola, and Heather L. Schwartz
- Publisher(s)
- RAND Corporation
Summary
How we did this
This report draws on selected data from surveys fielded by the American School District Panel in the fall of 2023 and 2024. The surveys were administered to a nationally representative sample of kindergarten through grade 12 public school districts to investigate the prevalence and quality of districts’ programming in summers 2023 and 2024. Approximately 200 districts completed the survey in 2023 and 300 districts completed it in 2024.
Summary
Quality summer learning programs have long been a key strategy for districts to help students keep up academically and avoid summer break–related setbacks. These programs have taken on even greater importance in recent years as students recover from COVID-19-related learning loss.
Against this backdrop, the National Summer Learning Project (NSLP), offers districts program design recommendations to increase the effectiveness of their summer programming. Funded by The Wallace Foundation, the National Summer Learning Project was a multi-year initiative with five districts and their community partners exploring how voluntary summer learning programs combining academics and enrichment benefitted students.
How prevalent are summer learning programs across the country? And do they meet NSLP’s indicators for quality?
This report from RAND sheds light on these questions. It is based on surveys of a representative sample of K to grade 12 school districts and administered by the American School District Panel (ASDP).
The report gives an overview of what summer learning programming looked like in 2024, how that compared with programming offered the prior summer, whether and how closely programming adhered to the NSLP’s evidence-based design principles. It also anticipated funding challenges for summer 2025.
The survey was administered in the fall of 2024 and completed by approximately 300 school districts. Data from a fall 2023 survey is also incorporated into the findings.
The data show that:
- Eighty-four percent of school districts nationally offered programs in summer 2024—a percentage that is on par with the percentage of districts that offered programs in summer 2023.
- Although districts’ largest summer programs were typically free for families and offered at least three hours of academic instruction daily, only about one-third of districts’ largest summer programs met the other recommended academic quality indicators.
- In both summer 2023 and 2024, urban districts offered more summer programs than their suburban and rural counterparts and offered programs that met more quality indicators.
- About one-half of districts (56 percent) anticipate a decrease in funds for programs in summer 2025.
Ninety-one percent of districts overall said that their largest summer learning programs had an academic focus, most often in the form of small group or one-on-one academic tutoring or literacy instruction.
Key Takeaways
- High-quality summer learning programming is one of two main strategies (along with tutoring) school districts have used to help students academically recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Researchers assessed the quality of programs against quality indicators set by NSLP.
- To better align with quality indicators, researchers suggested districts could take steps such as increasing the duration and targeting programming toward students who are most academically behind.
- The anticipated decrease in funding in upcoming years presents potential challenges for summer learning programs, but it’s unclear whether this will bring a decline in the quality or quantity of programs.
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