In January of this year, we shared a first-of-its-kind national study of teacher professional development opportunities during the summer months. The Promise of Summer as a Time for Teacher Professional Learning offered many valuable lessons on how to design and deliver meaningful PD that teachers could use year-round. We distilled those lessons into a companion guide and tool to make it easy for districts and youth development providers to zero in on key insights and put the evidence into action. Use the planning tool to ensure your summer staff PD is focused, specific, collaborative, and offers sufficient time for practice and feedback.

Speaking of summer, we’ve had the privilege of working with nine districts in Texas to help them design intentional and impactful summer learning programs that will be implemented in just a few weeks. In 2020, SCRI was selected by the Texas Education Agency to provide technical assistance to districts participating in the Additional Days School Year (ADSY) Planning and Execution Program (PEP). The ADSY program provides funding for districts to increase instructional days from 180 up to 210, an acknowledgement of the power of additional learning opportunities. We’re proud of the work of our district partners and we think this inaugural summer is going to be great; but don’t take it from us – read what our partners have to say. We hope to support many more districts in their planning for summer 2022.