The Baltimore school system, struggling to balance its budget, will no longer give tens of thousands of students a last chance for promotion, ending its costly summer school sessions. Instead, the financially strapped school system has asked Baltimore City Community College and other community groups, agencies and organizations to help some students catch up over the summer.
The community college will offer make-up coursework for failing high school students -- using the city school system's curriculum -- on three campuses. Community college professors and city school teachers will teach the courses, and the city school system will collect a fee from students for every course taken.
Those students will be eligible for promotion to the next grade, based on their summer performance in class, school officials said.
Pupils in grades one through eight who have failed courses or the grade will be encouraged to attend academic or recreational programs -- called "Summer Learning Opportunities" -- run by nonprofit, religious, community and other groups.
Even if students participate in the summer learning opportunities, they will not earn credits or be able to make up failed coursework.
Some of the programs will be held in schools; others will be held elsewhere.
The proposed initiative is so radically different from the remedial summer programs of recent years that school officials have dropped the term "summer school" altogether.
Last summer, the board asked more than 39,000 students to attend summer school, saying that if the students did not attend they could not move on to the next grade.
The previous summer, almost 25,000 students attended summer school. With the system facing a $58 million deficit, all that has changed.
"We can't do it this summer," said interim Chief Academic Officer Linda Chinnia. "Because of the current [fiscal] situation, we really had to look at different ways in terms of how we were allocating our money. ... We clearly know that there are children who, at the end of the school year, will not be able to move on to the next grade. We are not losing sight of those children. The key is to focus on the 180 days of [regular] school."
School officials said they hope that by participating in the organization-run programs, struggling students will not lose any more ground over the summer months, and will be better prepared to catch up next school year.
