• Put a single staff member with project management experience in charge of planning. That person should also set aside specific time for that work and have enough authority to deal with leaders of various departments.
• Decide early on whom to serve. It takes more time to develop curricular materials for a wide variety of students than for a specific subset of children.
• Schedule regular morning meetings and other rituals—everything from chants and dances to discussion of a word of the day—that can help reinforce positive messages.
• Recruit top teachers by presenting summer learning as a chance to build the classroom skills that lead to career advancement. 
• To reduce the number of students who register but never attend, improve outreach to families between the time children are accepted into the program and the start of class.
• Use outcomes data to present evidence that programs were not only effective but also helped the district achieve its main academic goals. 

Also see the Summer Learning Toolkit for more tips on how to run an effective summer program.