- Everybody say, "The best!"
- "The best!"
- "Summer school kids in all the land."
- [Caroline Watts] This has been a grueling year
for teachers
and for parents
and for kids.
And when we started planning this
months ago,
our first focus was,
we need to have something in-person for children.
Our Building Capacity and Bridging the Gaps grant
is to provide,
first of all,
a jumpstart for students in
West and Southwest Philadelphia
to get ready to come back to school
after a year and a half of virtual learning.
And then after this summer jumpstart,
to infuse more supports in
Network 2 schools
in the same areas that the summer program covered.
So that's literacy, math,
social-emotional learning,
and mental health supports,
and project-based learning.
- What do we think?
Did she prove it?
- [Regina Bynum] The Netter Center,
We do university assisted community
school work anyway.
So we're always in
West Philadelphia schools providing
school day and after-school programming
Because we provide after-school programming
during the school year,
the trust is there,
and I think families were really hoping to have a safe,
immersive environment that was fun
for their children.
I think people were looking forward to
having an opportunity
to have their kids come back out
and be in person and have
and have,
you know,
social interactions and,
you know,
fun and learn and
do all the things that
we did pre COVID, right.
Just to embrace some normalcy.
So really just presented a
great opportunity to come
together in this collaborative way
to address some of those
really important things
that are affecting the local school
children in the community.
- So really it's Netter provides
the foundation and
we could not be doing this without that.
And GSE's capacity is
really a professional development
coaching and enrichment
and extension capacity.
- Knowing what I'm going to be going into next year,
when I start in the fall,
like, seeing what areas I need to
focus on.
Seeing what deficits they might have
and then just trying to build up
from there.
So yeah, this has been a good experience because,
you know,
getting that experience of getting back into the classroom.
- I see a lot of activity.
I see a lot of movement,
so there are a lot of things that
I see happening that
really make me feel great about
this collaboration.
And it makes me feel that it's happening at
a great time
where students might be apprehensive about being in a
learning environment.
I don't see that apprehension when I come in.
- I feel like my old self again, really
because when I was online and stuff,
I didn't feel like anything.
My grades were on point and stuff,
but it just wasn't the same.
It's helped me more because
I get to see more of
my friends and we get to talk and stuff.
And like,
since we do like activities and stuff,
like ELA and math,
it's just getting me back, in like, the routine
and stuff for
school and like preparing me for high school.
- The fact that there are
so many schools in
West Philadelphia
that could benefit from
the resources that come through Penn,
I think that's very important.
They're getting used to
re-socializing with their peers and
just getting into a routine.
A daily routine.
- We really committed to
in-person hands-on learning.
So no Chromebooks,
no digital learning of any kind,
because we knew students hadn't gotten that
holding a pencil and writing
or using math manipulatives experience.
So it's been great to see students
engage fully in academics
and get their skills back on track
and having our GSE partners who are
experts in literacy, math, and
social-emotional learning
to lead classes during the program.
I hope that continues during the school year
and in future summers to really provide
a high quality program
and kind of make up for
the inequities that our students currently experience.
- This whole initiative is
a wonderful example of how,
when we thoughtfully work together
to integrate the resources across the university,
that we really create something that's better than the sum
of its parts.
- Show me what you are doing.
Why did you cut it into these pieces first?