What’s Right With Our Schools: Howard’s Summer Success
CHATTANOOGA, TN (WDEF) – A successful school year often begins in the Summertime. Students at Howard High had a chance to boost their skills and repair their grades through the Summer Success Program, and that’s a timely example of what’s right with our schools.
Francisco Carillo is the Assistant Principal at the Howard School.
He says, ” So, this is a program that specifically focuses on how Howard High School students. So, we have two buses that run every day to for students that need transportation they bring them here. We provide breakfast and lunch uh as well as um the instruction that they need. We have a college and career adviser. We have our truancy specialist. We have our uh site director who is also a counselor and then of course we have our teachers, that are here to support them. Being the biggest school here in in the county with 1600 students and over 200 plus Hamilton County Employees, we know that not every student gets the support they need while in classes. So, this is a great opportunity where they can come in and get the support they need. So, our executive principal Dr Ware, uh this is one of her ideas. So um, because we know that our students are not always successful the first time. We try to provide opportunities for our students to um to regain those credits that they missed during the school year. And this is a great place since we have teachers available that can help them uh one on one.”
Mac Dean teaches Algebra 1.
He says, “The thing I really like about the summer program is um a lot of it is online and students could do it on their own. But they need that motivation of a place to come in with teachers they can work one on and one with. We can sit with them like, I work with I’m a math teacher, but I work with kids on science and just that need someone to sit next to him and say,’ Hey, stay focused.’ ”
Vice Principal Carrillo adds, ” Some of the teachers you know might not be the teacher teach that they had during the regular school year. So, they build those relationships with those teachers. I think this is a great opportunity for our students. We know that our students face challenges outside of school. We know that sometimes we don’t meet the academic needs of every single student here during the school year. So, a great opportunity for them to come in and have that one-on one. We’ve had students that like the structure of the school they have somewhere to come, eat, breakfast, lunch. And they have some, you know, someone to care for since they might not have parents at home, we have it here. We, they, they know our teachers. They know our people. So, they feel safe in this environment.”
Mac Dean explains, “Most of them are very excited. You know I mean it is a social aspect as well. They get to come in and see their friends in the summer. That they may just be sitting at home board for the first week and then they come in here. So, you know it’s not really like, you know you have this whole stigma around summer school like, oh we got to go to summer school. Most of them are really excited to be here. And get caught up or get ahead.”
Vice Principal Carrillo concludes, ” We believe that uh each student should thrive and experience a future without limits. So why not provide them with an ex, um, additional opportunities for them to uh… to get those credits that they need in order to graduate. And become um citizens in their community.”
