Houston ends summer classes with barbecue

HOUSTON -- Houston's summer school programs have come to an end and to celebrate, the students, teachers and parents had a barbecue on Tuesday. Despite a little rain during an otherwise dry summer, the celebration went off without a hitch, and students and adults enjoyed the food and good company.

Norm Cosgrove is a tutor advisor in the Houston schools, and one of the planning team members that taught this summer's Title I summer program, which is federally funded and is designed to work in conjunction with the No Child Left Behind Act. Through the program students can make up credits they may have missed for any number of reasons during the regular school year; this year students ranged from sixth to 11th grade.

"We had 165 students that were eligible for the program," said Cosgrove. "We had to cut it off after 25."

The Title I summer school program focuses on hands-on learning in math, reading and language arts. Cosgrove, who is a Title I employee, worked with math teacher Chad Lusk and language arts teacher Trish Kohut during this year's program. Both teachers say they are planning to teach the program again next year.

The nine-week program was divided into three-week sessions with concentration on one of three major subjects: math, writing and reading. In the past, students have built computers and ordered furniture, this year students built picnic tables, wrote scripts for two senior citizen documentaries and two Spenard Builders Supply advertisements, and filmed those scripts.

"We always try to work in some sort of content area," said Cosgrove, who has been with Houston's program since it began five years ago. "This year our SBS movie may be on TV as an actual commercial."

Cosgrove said the students who enroll in the program are eager to learn and work on the projects assigned to them.

"The key to this type of education is it is supposed to be fun," Cosgrove said. "Summer is short in Alaska, so we don't want to make these nine weeks painful. Basically these kids gave up all but a month of their summer to be here."

Houston's Intensive Reading Summer School also celebrated their classes' end at the barbecue, excited about the next few weeks of uninterrupted summer but slightly saddened that the rain kept them from flying the model airplane they built during the six-week session. Separate from the Title I program, the reading program is also federally funded, through a High Intensity Reading grant. Instructors Kathy Sikora and Susan McCalley said their summer program has also been a big success.

"These are just great kids," said Sikora in an earlier interview.

Both Sikora and Cosgrove plan to offer the summer school programs next year; both say they believe funding for their respective programs will continue.