COLUMBIA, S.C. — Every South Carolina school district is required to have an academic recovery plan to help make up for lost learning time due to the pandemic.
One way many schools are kicking off the task is summer camp.
Many districts are offering a wide range of new summer camps to help catch students up on face-to-face instruction.
News19 spoke with two school districts: Richland School Districts One and Two to see how their summer programs will work.
Dr. Craig Witherspoon, Superintendent of Richland One, said they've enhanced their regular summer programming.
"We're offering drone programming, we're offering cooking, there's a camp at our challenger center as an example. So there are a variety of activities that we're offering for students to deal with summer slide, 'COVID slide' and unfinished learning," said Witherspoon.
He added that the goal is to catch kids up while also having fun. Elementary schools close by will be grouped together and Witherspoon said there's a very small student to teacher ratio.
"We do some of those basics with regard to decoding and word meaning and those types of things, and building those reading skills at that level, but we also build in some time for enjoyment and some activity as well," he said.
The new programs are in addition to the state mandated summer reading camps. These are for elementary students that need help improving literacy skills based off their SC Ready scores.
"We actually have two programs running," said Arthur Newton, the Executive Director of Elementary Instruction for Richland Two.
"We have one that we call SOAR, Summer Opportunity for Academic Readiness, that all of our students, pre-K through current 11th grade students, were invited," said Newton. Plus, they also offer the summer reading camps for elementary students.
The SOAR programs are three weeks long and summer reading camps are five weeks.
For a student to participate in a reading camp, they must be invited. "We identify students based on their reading deficiencies, and we invite them to camp. We invite second through fifth grade students. So, our focus is on ELA and mathematics with the integration of social studies in science," explained Newton.
Richland Two’s deadline to sign up for camps has passed, but Richland One students can still sign up for their programs.
To learn more about the different camps offered by Richland One, click here. This webpage lists out all the programs, when and where they are and the contact information to sign up.
Families can also call Richland One's summer SOAR hotline at (803) 400-1692.
