Lawmakers didn’t approve Oregon's summer learning funding — $35 million to be distributed over the next two years — until mid-April, giving school districts just a couple of weeks to apply.
Brookings-Harbor Superintendent Helena Chirinian said the timeline for the grant was too tight, and there were other issues as well.
"We have a little bit of a difference philosophically with the summer learning grant. We really want summer to be fun for our kids," she said. "The grant is highly restrictive."
Brookings-Harbor turned down a $191,000 allocation, the second year in a row the district has rejected the funding. Chirinian said the district still will offer credit recovery, tutoring and other services this summer.
The funding requires at least 80 hours of instruction per student, assessments before and after the program and a focus on literacy.
"Last year, we were able to also [put] math in there. This year, it's a literacy focus," said Doris Ellison, director of elementary curriculum at Klamath County School District, which will receive $1 million. "If we do anything with math, we have to center it around the literacy of mathematics, so we're looking at story problems and those kinds of things."
Ellison said the grant parameters were more limiting than in past years.
"We're kind of time-bound to this 80 hours of literacy," Ellison said.
The money was not available to every school district. Instead, it was prioritized for districts with the lowest reading proficiency rates.
Meanwhile, Oregon has experienced a steep decline in student test scores over the last decade, despite increased education spending.
The Medford School District is set to receive $1 million, said Athletics and Activities Director Fred Kondziela.
He agreed that districts had a very limited time to complete the grant, but for Medford, it was worth it.
"Funds are limited across the state. I know several districts are looking at potentially having to make some cuts," he said. "But collectively, we're looking at close to $400,000 in savings to the Medford School District [as a result of this grant], which is fantastic."
That’s a welcome boost for the district, which faced a $15 million budget shortfall last year.
