LAKELAND - This July, while most kids in the Lakeland region will be enjoying their holidays classrooms and teachers, some of their counterparts will be attending summer school.
Nicole Garner, a spokesperson for Northern Lights Public Schools (NLPS), said for this year, the division’s annual summer school will run from July 3-25. Summer school classes will be held at the outreach schools in the school division’s three largest communities - Bonnyville, Cold Lake, and Lac La Biche.
“It’s the same course that you would get over the course of a five-month period in high school,” she told Lakeland This Week, adding that the learning is condensed into a shorter period.
There are a variety of reasons why high school students attend summer school, Garner said. This includes re-taking courses they didn’t pass during the school year or trying to improve their marks. An example of this, she said, are students who took the diploma exam, are trying get into university, are not happy with their final mark.
“So, they would go to summer school and take the course, or they might want to just retake it so that when they move onto the next level, they’re better prepared,” she said.
The number of students attending summer school, Garner said, has been slowly increasing since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last summer 117 students successfully completed summer courses across the division, a big jump from just 60 the year before.
The core courses such as English, mathematics, sciences and social studies will be on offer at summer school, along with Phys Ed 10 and COMM 20, and work experience.
Students in the division’s Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP) can also catch up on needed apprenticeship work hours during the summer classes.
“That’s where high school students are completing their apprenticeship hours and training while they’re still going to high school... This allows them to continue it in the summer.”
Give 'em credit
Garner said that work experience has been very popular among summer school students, adding that students can earn upwards of 10 credits by working over the summer. For general work experience, she continued, students who have a regular job and track their hours, can get three credits for 75 hours of work experience and up to 10 credits for 250 hours. In addition to gaining valuable job experience, by going this route, they also earn credits for graduation.
Garner said registration for summer school is online through the Northern Lights Public Schools website. She pointed out that being a student in the division is not a requirement for enroling in summer school.
“We’re open to other students from any school jurisdiction in the area,” she said.
