{"id":22546,"date":"2025-07-09T01:55:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T07:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=22546"},"modified":"2025-07-08T18:06:45","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T00:06:45","slug":"at-alturas-schools-in-for-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/09\/at-alturas-schools-in-for-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"At Alturas, school\u2019s in for summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Public Money, Private Partners Bring SummerBridge To Life<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

BY Mark Dee<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Cheryl Zimmerman teaches a rising 1st grader. Photo Credit: Mark Dee<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s the middle of a Wednesday, and kids are catapulting off the swings outside Alturas Elementary. Inside, they\u2019re lining up for sandwiches and filing along the narrow tables of the cafeteria. Mrs. Zimmerman\u2019s class of rising first graders is counting into double digits\u2014in a few minutes, learn \u201c19\u201d and pencil the figures in thick Ticonderoga.
\nIn other words, it\u2019s another day at the Blaine County School District\u2019s busiest grade school. Except later, the temperature will tip towards 90 degrees. Up the road, the rodeo will pull into town, and Independence Day festivities will begin in earnest.
\nIt\u2019s July 2, the heart of summer, and class is in session.
\nFor five weeks, that\u2019s a standard day for the 289 local students and roughly 85 staff who make up the school district\u2019s SummerBridge academic camp, a partnership between the public school system and slew of local nonprofits. The program is as close to a free year-round school as you\u2019ll find in Idaho, with costs covered by local donors and, after voters passed a two-year supplemental levy last year, Blaine County taxpayers. In the view of Assistant Superintendent Adam Johnson, it has evolved into the \u201cpremier summer school in Idaho.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s what a lot of districts wish they could execute, we just have the infrastructure to make it happen,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe tend to get really sandbox-y\u2014this is nonprofit world, this is public education. To break that down, that\u2019s been neat\u2026 Rather than compete, let\u2019s focus on what we each do best and pour everything into this.\u201d
\nBorn in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when federal money aimed to make up for lost classroom time, SummerBridge has evolved into a model public-private partnership for students. The federal funds are gone now, but the program is steaming ahead. It costs between $500,000 and $600,000 to operate, Johnson said. About $320,000 comes from the BCSD\u2019s 2024 levy, according to district documents; nonprofits, spearheaded by the Wood River Community YMCA, come up with the rest of the funding and staff.
\nIn practice, those contributions give first- through fifth-grade participants a place to go from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday, with a field trip on Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. They get breakfast, lunch and, via The Hunger Coalition, two snacks a day. Most importantly, they get extreme attention from adults for individualized learning, with small group lessons pairing four or five students with each adult.
\nThe approach is intensive, but the data backs it up. Studies suggest that students can forget the equivalent of 2-3 months of math and 1-2 months of reading during the \u201csummer slide,\u201d with low-income students, who often don\u2019t have access to structured summer activities, tending to lose more. On balance, SummerBridge participants flip that on its head, scoring higher on fall math and reading assessments than they did the prior spring while non-summer school peers drift back.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re not just stopping slides,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe\u2019re making strides, and closing gaps.\u201d
\nOften, that requires more than academic lessons. It takes a restructuring of how kids feel when they walk into school. SummerBridge students are nominated by teachers during the year, and parents have to apply to the program. Interim Principal Kiley Hoefer isn\u2019t looking for kids at the top or bottom of the academic ladder; the top doesn\u2019t need the boost, and the bottom needs more than five weeks of class time to reach benchmarks. Hoefer is after the \u201cbubble kid\u201d: \u201cThey can rise to the top, or they can pop.\u201d Get those kids to grade level, and you can free up resources for students who need the most help during the school year, Johnson said.
\nMany summer school participants are classified as English Language Learners (meaning their first language is something else) and qualify for free or reduced lunch prices in the cafeteria (meaning their families are in the school\u2019s lower income echelons). SummerBridge has a higher percentage of each than the district writ large, Hoefer said.
\n\u201cIf I drew a Venn diagram of socioeconomic needs and academic needs, a lot of it would look the same,\u201d she said. \u201cIf things are not stable at home, it\u2019s hard to study. If you\u2019re hungry, it\u2019s hard to learn.\u201d
\nThose kids may not have access to childcare or summer camps, both expensive and in short supply valleywide. On the first day of SummerBridge, Hoefer arrived at 6:45 a.m. to find a father waiting outside with his kid. He had to get to work in Ketchum at 7:30 a.m., he said. Hoefer worked out a way bus the child the rest of the summer.
\n\u201cThey\u2019re doing the best they can to make it work,\u201d she said. \u201cWe always want to start with compassion.\u201d Her goal with families, she said, is \u201cto meet them where they are.\u201d
\nFrom the district\u2019s perspective, it\u2019s working. Hoefer has seen buy-in grow year over year; attendance is nearly perfect, and parents keep calling to add their children to a growing waitlist. For her, that\u2019s proof that summer school isn\u2019t seen as a punishment or a remedial track, but a safe place for kids to spend their day. Start there, and see confidence grow.
\n\u201cThis program, this school\u2014it\u2019s a place for kids to feel valued. Where people see them, and say hello,\u201d she said. \u201cI greet every kid who walks through the door, and I see the way their faces light up when I remember their names.\u201d
\nHoefer believes SummerBridge is now \u201cpart of the district\u2019s DNA.\u201d From an administrative standpoint, Johnson says a dollar spent on early intervention offers some of the best returns in education. But public funding isn\u2019t guaranteed past this year. The state of Idaho doesn\u2019t pay for summer school. And BCSD\u2019s current $1.85 million annual supplemental levy\u2014which pays salaries for Gifted and Talented education, preschool, full-day kindergarten and summer school, things the state doesn\u2019t support\u2014sunsets on June 30, 2026. Ultimately, the school board will decide if those programs are worth another round, and voters will agree or disagree on election day.
\nFour years in, Hoefer hopes the SummerBridge\u2019s success speaks for itself.
\n\u201cThis is a noble cause,\u201d she said. \u201cIt helps kids recognize that we care about them\u2014we want them to learn, and we trust that they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Public Money, Private Partners Bring SummerBridge To Life BY Mark Dee It\u2019s the middle of a Wednesday, and kids are catapulting off the swings outside Alturas Elementary. Inside, they\u2019re lining up for sandwiches and filing along the narrow tables of the cafeteria. Mrs. Zimmerman\u2019s class of rising first graders is counting into double digits\u2014in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":479,"featured_media":22548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,72,18,32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blaine-county","8":"category-community","9":"category-news","10":"category-schools"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22549,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22546\/revisions\/22549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}