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SCRInsider: Make Your First Day Your Best Day

After more than a year of postponements, closures, and breaks, summer 2021 is poised to be an exciting and productive time – a time for reconnecting and re-engaging. The infusion of stimulus dollars for summer learning has the potential to allow for bigger and more robust summer programs than ever before, albeit with less time for planning.

Never fear. This month, we are sharing three new resources designed to ease your summer planning and take a few things off your long to-do list.

Beyond these new resources, don’t forget to peruse the Tools section of our web site for even more practical tools for planning, delivering, and assessing a high-quality summer learning program.

As always, we at SCRI will be making the most of this summer to learn and grow right alongside the talented educators and youth development professionals we work with across the country. We’re wishing you a clear path to a memorable summer.

P.S. Have you heard? SCRI is partnering with Partnership for Children and Youth and California Collaborative for Education Excellence to offer free technical assistance to California LEAs that need support on design/staffing, attendance/outreach, curriculum ideas, and more for their summer learning programs. Check out The Summer Technical Assistance Hub here: partnerforchildren.org/summer.

About SCRI

The Sperling Center for Research and Innovation (SCRI) is part of BellXcel, a national nonprofit with nearly 30 years’ experience innovating educational solutions rooted in evidence. Drawing on decades of firsthand implementation experience and a culture of continuous improvement, SCRI bridges the research to practice to policy gap, to help partners strengthen goals, implement high-quality practices, expand to reach more young people, and advocate for improved policies.

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Related Resources

Families Are Key to Building Back Better: Unpacking Elements of Effective Engagement in Remote Learning

May 20, 2021

Tasked with planning and implementing remote learning for over 55 million children in the U.S. in the wake of COVID-19 school closures, districts and teachers relied heavily on families to support youth learning. SCRI discovered that remote summer programs using the BellXcel model were able to established supportive and consistent relationships between staff and families which empowered families to support their children’s learning. Staff integrated high-quality family engagement strategies throughout the program which included frequent communication and meaningful outreach to support participants.

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Building Bridges During Challenging Times: How BellXcel Remote Summer Programs Kept Youth, Families and Staff Engaged in Learning During COVID-19

December 17, 2020

SCRI found evidence that BellXcel Remote did help to bridge the gap between a disrupted 2019-20 school year and the new 2020-21 school year and was able to engage youth in summer distance learning. Analysis of end-of-program stakeholder surveys demonstrates that the program kept scholars, families, and staff engaged in a myriad of academic, enrichment, and SEL activities.

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