SEI Fights ‘Summer Slide’

Each year as students excitedly approach a three-month break from school, educators worry about the knowledge and skills that are lost in a season outside the classroom.

JaVonne WilliamsExperts have found this “summer slide” phenomenon does not impact all students equally: Studies have shown that in reading, middle class students tended to fare better and even advance over the summer, while low-income students showed a decline.

“Summer slide continuously puts Black and Brown students further and further behind,” JaVonne Williams, director of student and parent services at Self Enhancement Inc. (SEI), told The Skanner. “We go home and we don’t have access to the afterschool programs, and we don’t have access to private tutors, which can be a cost.

"And so we just continuously get further and further behind.

"And with no one there to push and help us, and to see what it is the students are lacking, students become content with where they are, they see how far others are, and so they slowly pull themselves away.”

Williams oversees SEI’s summer program, which aims to bridge the gap between semesters with five weeks of academic enrichment, life skills courses and recreational activities.

“We like to say that summer is the beginning of our school year,” Williams said. “It is where we are getting our students hyped to go back to school, but also getting them prepared to sit in a classroom.”

Full Days

SEI provides school support, academic resources and wraparound family services for Black students. Founded in 1981, SEI teamed with Community Development Partners to break ground last year on 5020 N. Interstate, a 63-unit apartment community in the Overlook Neighborhood that will have income restrictions and which is geared toward families.

“We started off as a one-week basketball camp,” Williams said. “And then Tony Hopson Sr. and Ray Leary saw our community needed more than a week of just basketball and learning fundamentals, and it turned into this.”

This year’s summer program enrollment is about 400 elementary, middle- and high school students, who are provided with breakfast, lunch and bus transportation to and from the program.

In the morning, students focus on academics, studying language arts and math. There is a special focus on reading this year, in response to dismal reports from the Oregon Department of Education last September that show reading and writing scores for third through eighth grade students statewide had dropped, with only 39% of students scoring at proficiency level or better.

The drop in scores was largely attributed to the disruption of the pandemic, but after a return to the classroom, students still struggle to catch up. That is especially true for BIPOC households. 

“What we don’t want to do is shame them,” Williams said.

“Our classes in the morning are pretty small, about 15 to 20 students max, and we’ll ask students, do you feel comfortable reading this out loud? But we pride ourselves on relationships, that is our number one thing, our special sauce. If a kid ever feels like they just aren’t getting it as quick as others, our coordinator can come and grab them out of that class, they’ll sit with them, help them read. We pull them away. We never want them to feel uncomfortable. We make sure it is at their pace.”

Special care is taken to choose reading material that is relevant to students and their age group, and which is written by Black authors.

“We look for something they can honestly see themselves in,” Williams said.

For high schoolers, this summer’s book is The Cost of Knowing by Brittney Morris, a work of speculative fiction that follows a 16-year-old Black teen as he grapples with his unwelcome ability to catch glimpses of the future, and the actions he takes when he has a vision of his younger brother’s death.

Curriculum is similarly customized, Williams said, explaining that during the school year, all SEI students are assigned an in-school coordinator that works with them throughout the year.

“The in-school coordinator reviews that student’s grades and academics and where they are for that year, we come together, and then as a team we say, ‘This student is high-achieving, this student needs an extra little push,’ and so we pair those students up and then we have certified teachers prepare our curriculum for the summer, and we hire teachers to help with that learning curve.”

In the afternoon, SEI’s summer program offers opportunities for community outreach, like volunteering at the Oregon Humane Society or the Oregon Food Bank, and learning about the Red Cross. Students also choose from a number of electives, including dance, cooking, podcasting, Lego robotics, art and rug design.

Wellness Wednesdays feature social and emotional learning, and on Fridays, the students take field trips in line with the typical summer break: a trip to Seaside, going to the movies, roller skating at Oaks Park, bowling and swimming.

This year, SEI partnered with Portland Parks & Recreation to give elementary school students tours of local parks.

Looking To The Future

High school grads who are SEI alums are also included in the program.

“Our post-high programs are able to come back, whether from college, trade school, to make a few extra dollars in the summer, they can serve as our activity leaders for our summer program,” Williams said, adding, “I was actually a participant in the program. I would come home from college and didn’t have to worry about a job, because I knew SEI would hire me.”

Williams remembers her SEI summers with fondness: learning how to monitor her credit, stretch a budget and pick out proper attire for a job interview – which she then wore to a mock job interview in class. She described filling out a federal student aid application alongside classmates.

She is quick to point out the necessity of such programs for marginalized students.

“The summer slide is not just education,” she said. “It can also be safety, gun violence and car accidents and teenage pregnancy. There’s so many dangers, seen and unseen. We just honestly want to be there to prevent it. At least we know for five weeks you are with us, you are safe.”