Hundreds celebrate summer learning at Summer Jam 2023

From the West Alabama Newsroom–

Hundreds of Dallas County students wrapped up five weeks of summer-time learning today — with a fun-filled day of food — music — and prizes.

Carnival rides. And water slides.

“Everything else was fun — but the water slides was the best. I went down like five times. It was fun.

Part of a day of fun — to reward students — who participated in one of the three summer learning programs at Dallas County Schools.

“We’re looking forward to doing more exciting and innovative thing s like this — to keep parents and families in the community totally engaged and involved.,” said Superintendent Anthony Sampson.

The purpose of the programs — are to help close the learning gap — caused by the loss of instructional time during COVID.

Summer literacy and numeracy programs — as well as summer enrichment — were available for students. And the Summer Jam program — gave students a chance to get a head start — on the upcoming school year.

“We were trying to give them a leap forward into the next academic school year,” said Sampson.

Isaiah Underwood will be a senior at Dallas County High School this year.

“That’s kind of like one of the reasons why I did it was because I was going into my senior year,” Underwood said.

“I wanted to learn as much as I can, you know, before I get out into the real world.”

The Summer Jam program — even gave students — performance incentives.

“We got a gift card — ipad — Beatz — nails and spa gift cards, they even have gifts for the parents,” said Underwood.

“It’s really fun and the prizes are really good. If anybody is trying to like get into it — they should,” said Stubbs.

About 500 students in the Dallas County School district — participated in the summer programs.