Photo by Miriam Footer
Though summer is an excellent time for kids to relax and unwind from the school year, it is also the perfect opportunity for students to further academic interests outside of a traditional classroom setting.
A variety of summer enrichment programs locally, virtually and even out of state can help students dive into their passions as well as prepare for upcoming school years and life ahead.
Rising Park City High School senior Sophie Sheppe has taken online summer classes almost every year in high school.
“They help me stay connected to school because I don’t forget the concepts I just learned,” she said. “They’re also a great way to catch up if you miss anything and help get you back on track for the school year.”
Summer classes can also give students a head start on the next year.
“For math, I had just gone over the material we learned in class, so once the school year started, it was easy to jump back in,” Sheppe said. She continued that the opportunity was especially helpful given that math is a subject people “often forget over the summer.”
Literary Focus, a new program founded for Utah high school students, strives to prepare students for high school English, in particular AP literature and composition, while also providing them with vital skills for college and beyond.
Founder and CEO Derek Bunting stresses that summer provides opportunities for students to go in depth into certain subjects they wouldn’t otherwise.
“During the school year, kids and teachers are so busy trying to survive that it’s difficult to go into depth in any particular subject,” he said.
Summer opens up time for students to dive into specific interests without having to keep up with homework and responsibilities in other fields.
“Maybe there’s one particular subject that you need more work with to keep up with your peers,” Bunting said. “Or maybe it’s a subject that you really love and you just want to pursue it with more intensity.”
Either way, enrichment programs allow students to explore these subjects in a new environment and with different classmates.
“Each school has its own little unique culture and in some ways is a bubble,” Bunting said.
Getting “kids outside of that bubble to interact with kids from different places” is a main goal of programs like Literary Focus.
Summer break is a unique opportunity for grade school kids to explore their passions before moving off to the greater demands of higher education and careers, according to Bunting.
“Things get really crazy once you get out of school as far as your time is concerned,” he said. “This is probably the one time in your life where you really can explore these academic options that kind of disappear once you get into the ‘real world.’”
Summer classes don’t have to be academically focused either. Sheppe, who completed online physical education, said that getting credit for her activity over the summer allowed her to focus on other material during the school year.
“For online PE, I still got the exercise, just not during school hours,” she said. “This way, I had more time at school to learn other subjects. I could do after-school activities like sports and take a full course load during the year.”
Sari Footer, a rising sophomore at Park City High School who has also pursued summer education, agreed with Sheppe.
“Summer classes give you the opportunity to open up your schedule more during the school year,” Footer said. “That way you can take more classes you are interested in because the others are out of the way.”
Sheppe added that summer learning also helped boost her self-esteem.
“Going into school, I was confident because I knew some of the material,” she said. “I could walk in and say, ‘I got this.’”
Summer learning programs like Literary Focus and those Sheppe and Footer completed are plentiful and always excited to welcome new students.
For Literary Focus, Bunting said, “We’re starting local. If Park City kids are interested, we’d love to have them.”
Sheppe concluded it’s important not to “feel bad” about summer education.
“It’s very common and a lot of help!” she said.
