The Northport-East Northport School District has expanded their Summer Learning Program, allowing any student in grades K-8 to enroll for one or both of the two-week learning sessions. The program focuses on reading and math, with students maintaining the skills they learned over the previous school year.   

With just a few students per class, individualized attention and focused lessons are administered by teachers. The district’s practice of providing a morning meeting for students is also continuing into the summer, giving students an opportunity each morning to ease into the school day with a positive mindset.   

“Our hope for this program is to create an engaging environment that helps our students maintain progress and provide multi-sensory activities that target individual student needs,” said Lindsey Andersen, Principal of the Summer Learning Program. “Students are able to engage beyond the traditional classroom, as teachers work hard to embrace the spirit of summer while providing fun and engaging ways to reinforce reading and math skills,” she added.  

Unlike past years, the 2021 program is being offered both in-person and virtually, allowing any student to participate regardless of their preferred instructional model. The district also expanded beyond their traditional reading support, adding math to the curriculum as well. Over 200 students are participating in the program, with many students enrolled in both two-week sessions for a total of four weeks of summer learning.  

The district also provided “At-Your-Own-Pace Summer Learning Calendars” for all students in grades K-5, and grades 6-8 have the opportunity to engage with grade level specific choice boards throughout the summer as well. 

The GET SMArT (“Get Engineering, Technology, Summer Music, Arts and Theatre”) program in Northport-East Northport kicked off the week of July 5 with students in grades 3 through 7 immersing themselves in various art, music and STEM offerings. The newly expanded district summer camp provides students with opportunities to explore all of their passions in one setting, from orchestra and musical theatre to robotics computer aided design, amongst others. 
Located at Northport High School, GET SMArT Campers are able to participate in the four week program which includes half and full day options along with an a la carte STEM menu. During the initial week, orchestra students could be found learning new songs and challenging their musical skills, while young engineers engage with CAD software, build solar powered model race cars, and construct and program VEX robots.
With over 370 students enrolled, students are taking more than a combined 1,200 courses while discovering the artist or musician within, finding their voice on stage, and diving into the world of coding, robotics, game design, and woodworking! In addition to the educational benefits of the program, students have an opportunity to meet students from other Northport-East Northport schools, providing some much welcome social interaction after a challenging school year. 
Program coordinator and music teacher Michael Sussino said “The overarching goal is to reignite that spark and show students this is a place where they can be together, where they can think, they can learn, they can problem solve constructively, and they can have fun while they’re doing it.”
David Storch, chairperson for science, technology & engineering added “We also want to ignite interest for the first time. We have current grades 3, 4, and 5 experiencing computer science, coding, programming and robotics and engineering for the first time, and my hope is they will discover a passion that they didn’t even know existed.” 
“It doenst matter if you’re an academic learner, an artist or an athlete, every student  can achieve success in any one or more of these programs.  Young GET SMArT campers will develop self confidence, resilience, and grit to persevere all aspects of school within and beyond the classroom;  that’s transformational and can light a spark which will last throughout their entire education,” he added.
“When you consider how excited the staff are, how excited the parents are and how excited the kids are, it’s been a great first week,” said Mr. Susinno.