Before the Covid-19 pandemic, After-School All-Stars had limited funding to hire staff and cover the costs of the activities it offered to low-income schools during the summer months. But over the past two years, an influx of federal Covid relief money has provided the nonprofit with approximately $1.3 million for its after-school and summer learning initiatives.  

Using the funding, the nonprofit offered summer programs ranging from field trips to the Polynesian Cultural Center to hip-hop and baking classes, said president and CEO Paula Fitzell. After-School All-Stars served approximately 850 students in its summer school programs on Oahu and Big Island last year.

With student achievement still below pre-pandemic levels, advocates say that affordable and accessible summer learning opportunities are critical for children’s academic and social recovery. But the federal funding that supported After-School All-Stars and other summer learning programs throughout the state will expire on Sept. 30.

“Are we going to have such robust summer programs next year? I don’t know,” Fitzell said about summer opportunities in 2025.

The Hawaii Department of Education has cited summer learning as a top strategy for addressing pandemic learning loss and has offered free programs since 2020. Before Covid, the DOE offered summer school to students who had failed their classes or wished to get ahead in their coursework, but families had to cover the costs.

Summer learning in DOE now includes a range of opportunities, from traditional academic classes to enrichment programs and extracurriculars offered by schools and nonprofits like After-School All-Stars.

The department is now seeking $20 million in state funding to sustain its summer offerings, although the impact of summer programs on students’ academics during the pandemic remains unclear. The latest version of the state budget being debated by the Legislature includes DOE’s funding request for summer 2025.

David Sun-Miyashiro, executive director of HawaiiKidsCAN, said he fully supports programs offering learning opportunities for students outside of the traditional school year. But, while DOE has developed new summer programs in recent years, it’s unclear which initiatives have resulted in the greatest gains for students, he said.   

“We want to have a smart, strategic approach moving forward,” Sun-Miyashiro said.  

In 2024, DOE will offer six different types of summer programs, including official summer school and learning hubs. Official summer school provides courses students can take for credit, while learning hubs have a variety of programs targeting academic remediation, social development and more. 

‘Finding The Joy’ In New Offerings

Derek Minakami, the principal at Kaneohe Elementary, said families seem to have taken a greater interest in summer learning since the pandemic. After seeing their children struggle with online classes, Minakami added, some parents want to use summers to remedy or advance their children’s studies, especially when DOE’s programs are free of cost.   

Before the pandemic, families paid up to $190 to enroll their children in a one-credit course. The DOE has spent more than $40 million in federal funds to make programs free for public school students. 

In 2020, the first year DOE published its summer learning data dashboard, almost 21,000 students enrolled in the department’s programs. Last summer, DOE enrolled more than 27,000 students. 

In addition to making summer school free, federal funding also allowed the department to develop learning hubs at more than 90% of its schools, said Teri Ushijima, assistant superintendent of the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Design.

At the hubs, Ushijima said, teachers try to improve student attendance and motivation by making lessons engaging and exciting.  

“You can create an experience that is a rich learning environment while the students are still finding the joy,” Ushijima said. 

Keevan Matsumoto, student services coordinator at Kaimuki High School, said the school was also able to use federal funding to hire a counselor to serve students throughout the summer. The same counselor also works on campus during the regular school year and is already familiar with students’ mental health and academic needs.

“Our school just couldn’t afford it,” Matsumoto said about hiring summer counselors before the pandemic. Typically, he added, counselors at the high school are only 10-month employees.

Learning Outcomes Are Still Emerging

While DOE expanded its summer offerings to address students’ needs during the pandemic, it has also received scrutiny on its approach to summer learning.

“I couldn’t see the relationship of the money that we spent on summer school and what impact it had on our students,” former Board of Education member Kenneth Uemura said in a fall 2020 meeting.

In 2023, more than 90% of students received passing grades in DOE’s official summer school and learning hubs, but the department did not provide additional information on students’ academic achievement. Ushijima said the department is currently working on a report about the impact of summer learning on student achievement.

A 2023 study from Hawaii P-20 Partnerships for Education found success in DOE’s summer start kindergarten transition program, a three-week initiative exposing incoming kindergarten students to their new elementary schools before the start of the academic year. Using federal funding, DOE increased the number of schools offering the transition program from 13 to 82 during the pandemic.

It took time for some schools to find the the best approach to maximizing student learning over the summer.

Minakami said Kaneohe Elementary offered intensive math and reading tutoring for struggling students in 2020 and 2021, but students had a hard time remaining motivated and focused for hours at a time. Students maintained their academic progress from the school year, he added, but they made minimal gains in learning.  

“As much as we tried to make it interesting, it can get repetitive,” Minakami said. 

Now, Minakami said, the school has shifted its approach to enrichment lessons that integrate core subjects into hands-on curriculum and projects throughout the summer. Students might spend part of the day painting murals with a local arts foundation, he said, or learning about native species and agriculture in a science class.

The school plans to track students’ progress carefully this year to see if the focus on enrichment can lead to more summer growth, Minakami said. 

Ideally, all students should participate in summer learning, Sun-Miyashiro said, adding that schools should take advantage of any extra instructional time they can offer outside of the academic year. But with limited state funding available this year, he said he would like to see DOE provide more detail on the outcomes of the department’s summer investments thus far. 

“I think we need to be as strategic as possible,” he said. 

Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.

Civil Beat’s community health coverage is supported by the Atherton Family Foundation, Swayne Family Fund of Hawaii Community Foundation, the Cooke Foundation and Papa Ola Lokahi.