Summer school offers fun, learning

Nearly 1,500 Poplar Bluff students are getting extended learning because of summer school, which is being held through June 28.

Summer school offers elementary students a chance to receive enrichment in important content areas and focus on core skills, explained Dr. Scott Dill, Poplar Bluff superintendent.

At the high school level, students receive credit recovery or time recovery, to ensure they are on track to meet graduation goals.

Incoming student Adalyn Moss is among many youth getting a chance to experience kindergarten through summer school. Photo provided

“Really, it’s a mirror of what we do all year long,” Dill said. “We’re intervening to meet the kids where they’re at and get them to where they need to be.”

The program also helps battle regression that inevitably occurs during the summer, he said.

Summer school additionally allows the district to use state grant money for a meal program that serves anyone under the age of 18 breakfast and lunch, Dill said.

Summer school at Poplar Bluff, which run through June 28, is offering several students, like these incoming kindergartners, the opportunity to have fun, learn and get ready for the next school year. Photo provided

This is a program the district, in partnership with Chartwells food service, will also be able to continue in July for the first time, after summer school is closed.

Breakfast and lunch will be served at Wheatley School from 8:15-8:45 a.m. and noon to 12:30 p.m. June 1-Aug. 2.

Lunch is available to youth at Poplar Bluff Head Start Center at Karen West (1-1:30 p.m.) and True Believers Missionary Baptist Church (11-11:30 a.m.) for the same dates.

Incoming Poplar Bluff kindergarten students Eva Richardson and Luna Matthews-Fratesi play on the teeter totter at the Poplar Bluff Kindergarten Center. Photo provided

No meals will be served on July 4.

Eugene Field Principal Jennifer Taylor is serving as the coordinator over the summer school program.

Grade levels are serving the following students: Kindergarten, 198 students; O’Neal, 136/Oak Grove, 95; Eugene Field, 142/Lake Road, 117; middle school, 279; junior high, 240; and high school, 263.