For many children, summer is a nostalgic time filled with sunny excursions, afternoons on the lake, and the relaxed pace of long, lazy days.

But for our urban neighbors, summer also brings a detrimental widening of the achievement gap between lower- and higher-income students. Study after study shows that children backslide significantly in knowledge and skills over the summer months–and that many low-income students fall disproportionately behind their higher-income peers, year after year after year.

Enter Hope Academy’s four week summer session. This summer, our students enjoyed:

• Individual and/or small group reading time
• ACT prep courses
• Math fact fluency training
• Socratic reading discussions in middle school and high school
• Fine arts instruction through the Inverted Arts program
• HOPEWorks internships for high school students
• Numerous field trips and urban excursions

“Summer school makes a remarkable difference for our students,” said one of our teachers. “My room is stocked with excellent literature, and students come in, grab their book, and read for one whole hour in complete silence every day.”

“My readers are thrilled for an uninterrupted hour to be devoted to reading. The books get them hooked on how enjoyable it is to read for pleasure, and how important it is to always respond to reading with thoughtful connections.”

Thank you for partnering with us to enrich the lives of our students, and to maintain the critical progress they’ve worked so hard to achieve throughout the school year.

A special thanks to the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation for the grant it awarded to Hope Academy in support of our 2015 summer enrichment program.

With deep joy,

Russ Gregg
Head of School