After almost two weeks of freedom, tens of thousands of Miami-Dade County students are back in school for the summer. For some kids, the next five weeks could determine whether they’re eligible to move on to the next grade. Others are learning English for the first time.
On the first day of summer school, Isabel Suarez’s class — English for speakers of other languages — started with the basics.
“Ahh … ehh … ee … oh … oo,” Suarez’s students said, sounding out English vowels.
“It’s the same as in Spanish,” Suarez explained.
Suarez is patient and warm, with long brown hair. Her third graders are quiet and attentive, and are crisply dressed in the school’s colors of blue and white.
She says it’s been an emotional day for them.
“Some of them were crying today, in the morning because they don't understand the other teacher that doesn’t speak Spanish,” Suarez said. “But they're gonna get … little by little … more comfortable.”
Suarez’s students at Joella C. Good Elementary School in Hialeah are newcomers — to this school and to this country. They’re among the 20,000 new immigrant students who have moved into the district over the past school year.
“Most of them come from Cuba. Some of them are from Venezuela, Colombia. I have one from Ecuador,” she said.
READ MORE: 'I see myself in these students': 20,000 immigrant children join Miami-Dade schools
Suarez says many of her students don’t speak English and need help sounding out letters and short words.
“Mmm ohh ppp … mop,” Suarez says, sounding out the word. “What is a mop?”
“Trapeador!” says one student.
“Muy bien!” she replies. “Let’s go to the next picture…”
‘They're moving from school to school, or from country to country’
Around the corner, Alejandra Velasquez’s students are working on reading and writing skills too.
“What did you do to get ready for school?” Velasquez asked one student who needed help putting his thoughts down on paper.
“Got my clothes,” he said.
“You put on your uniform? What else?” she asked. “Did you eat breakfast?”
“No,” he replied.
“You ate breakfast here?” she suggested.
“No,” the student said.
Velasquez’s students seemed disengaged — unsurprisingly for the boy who said he hadn’t eaten yet that day. The students in this class didn’t pass the third grade last year, so they’re back for the summer to try and catch up.
“They're moving from school to school, or from country to country,” Velasquez explained. “I have a lot of kids that don't speak English fluently. But they might have been here for two years. But their English is still not where they need to be.”
What grade they’ll go into in the fall depends on how they do over the next five weeks.
“I know we're gonna work hard,” she said. “The kids and I … we know this is our chance to pass to the fourth grade.”
MDCPS offering summer programs at more than 100 schools
But summer school isn’t just about remediation. All students are offered free breakfast and lunch. And many kids just need a safe place to be during the day.
Down the hall, Matilda Ysidro is reminding her students how to be kind and respectful. They seemed eager and excited, multiple hands shooting up into the air as Ysidro peppered them with steady questions about classroom decorum.
“What is something that she did, Victoria?” Ysidro asked, using a student as an example.
“Raised her hand,” the student replied.
“She raised her hand,” Ysidro said. “And not only did she raise your hand but she waited for me to do what?”
“To call on her,” another student said.
“Very good," Ysidro said. "What is something else? How else do we signal to another person when you would like to say something as well?”
Ysidro says there are a lot of good reasons to offer school year-round.
“We should have school available to the students as much as possible to prevent that summer slide. Also, some of our students don't have supervision during the summer,” Ysidro said. “I think this is also an excellent opportunity for them to learn and to be well taken care of.”
The district is offering summer programs for kindergarten through twelfth grade, across more than a hundred schools.
For older students, there are college dual enrollment classes, creative writing courses with local authors, and programs focused on the arts and engineering.
School officials say they’re also offering mental health counseling over the summer. And there’s time just to play and get to know each other.
‘Here you can see all your friends’
In Melva Pio’s fifth grade class, students get to do some hands-on science experiments, tearing into bags full of supplies.
“Ok boys and girls, I want everybody to take out this packet right here,” Pio said. “We have four tires. We have two dowels. We have two straws, a balloon.”
That day’s assignment, for a physics lesson on force and motion, was to build little foam cars powered by balloons.
For Liz Ramos, a rising fifth grader, summer school means the excitement of meeting new teachers and friends — and tinkering with new science experiments.
“My favorite subject is science. Because when I was little I used to make little potions,” Liz said.
Liz says she could also use some help filling in the gaps from the last school year. Across the country, test scores have continued to slide as students struggle to make up for time lost during the pandemic.
“I could also learn things that … I didn't really understand during the school year. So it could give me more understanding for the next school year,” Liz said.
Believe it or not, some kids say they would rather be at school over the summer than stuck at home — like Grace Louis, who just finished fourth grade.
“It’s fun here. I actually like it and I’d rather be here than be at home doing something,” Grace said. “There's nothing bad about here. I really like it. And at home, you don't see any of your friends. You'll just be there like … chilling. And here you can see all your friends.”
Still, Grace admitted she’s already getting nervous about next year and the challenges fifth grade will bring.
“I'm a little scared,” Grace said. “But at the same time, I'm trying to relax a little and keep my cool.”
She hopes being back at school with her friends this summer will help her feel ready to be a fifth grader in the fall.
