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Q&A
Council member and DOE discuss strategies to engage middle school students in summer programs
2:22:56
·
139 sec
Council Member Althea V. Stevens and DOE representatives engage in a discussion about how to better attract and engage middle school students in summer programs.
- Stevens emphasizes the need to move away from purely academic approaches, as they may be deterring middle school students from participating.
- She highlights the increasing numbers in juvenile detention centers and the importance of providing appealing options for all students.
- Chancellor Aviles-Ramos argues for the importance of engaging academic content, stating that students dislike having their time wasted with decentralized instructional approaches.
- Stevens agrees on the importance of education but stresses the need to first get students to participate in the programs.
Althea V. Stevens
2:22:56
I just want y'all to know, don't this is not even a hit at you guys of being like, want you guys to do more academics.
2:23:00
I actually want to kind of move a little bit away from it because this is why the middle school's kids are not coming.
2:23:05
Right?
2:23:05
And and because like I don't think that anything's wrong with them not like doing rigorous, you know calculus and all this stuff, think that that's part of it, and so how are we getting them in there?
2:23:15
I think you know the data is the data, and I think that we need to use it to refresh it, but I don't want us to get stuck there because we now that I have this juvenile detentions are filling up.
2:23:27
They're filling up, and and the academics isn't why they're filling up.
2:23:31
So I think this is why we need to be thinking about what is it that they need, and how do we get all and have different options for all the kids.
2:23:39
And so that's why I'm asking, are we thinking about doing something different?
2:23:42
Because I think even in this work, we work in silos.
2:23:45
Right?
2:23:45
So, you know, it's those kids over here who are doing without detention, we have the kids over here who are going to the after school programs, we have these kids.
2:23:52
So I'm just trying to close some of the gaps of thinking about what are we doing to make sure that all these kids have options, and summarizing isn't necessarily a good option for a lot of our middle school kids because they're not coming because of the academic fees.
Melissa Aviles-Ramos
2:24:04
So council member, a couple things.
2:24:06
One is and and I hear what you're saying, we need to make it more engaging and and incentivize it for the kids to come, but respectfully, do think that the academic piece is also important because what kids don't like is coming to school and having their time wasted.
2:24:19
And so if there is a decentralized instructional approach to meeting the needs of kids, then they probably will not want to come.
2:24:29
That's not to say that children are jumping, you know, with excitement to do any type of academic work over the summer, but I do believe, and I've seen it happen, that when there is engaging curriculum that or engaging instructional expectations that are meeting the needs of kids, they do they do attend.
Althea V. Stevens
2:24:45
Agree.
2:24:46
And we're on the same page.
2:24:47
We're a % because for me, at the end of the day, as adults, our job is to pull education and academics out of all the experience that young people have.
2:24:56
So anything that they're doing, we can pull the academics out, but for me, we also gotta get them there.
2:25:01
So my that's my thing on how we get what's the carrot?
2:25:04
Because when they get in the building, we're teach them.
2:25:06
Like, that's just the that's what we do.
2:25:08
And so that's probably what I wanted to focus more.
2:25:11
What's the carrot to get them there?
2:25:12
Because what we're offering isn't getting them there.