GIVE A SUMMER FOR SCHOOL DAnalysis of the summer participation, future summer plans, and barriers to summer programs for School D’s students (grades 6 – 8) and areas for action.

Prepared by Give a Summerramon@giveasummer.orgGiveaSummer.org

Analysis from fall 2015Presented January 2016

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Background on report

• This is the public version of a report prepared by Give a Summer for a Boston area middle school analyzing the summer participation, future plans, and barriers facing their students. The school is referred to throughout the report as “School D.”

• Additionally, Give a Summer has anonymized the name of a summer programs that many School D students attend to maintain School D’s confidentiality. That summer program is referred to as “Summer Program XYZ.”

• To maintain School D’s confidentiality, Give a Summer has also removed analysis of summer participation and access for students from different parts of the Boston metropolitan area.

• With School D’s approval, Give a Summer is releasing a public versions of the report to show how communities can better understand and support youth participation in summer opportunities.

• Give a Summer believes that getting communities to collect and analyze data about where and why kids miss out on summer programs will:

• improve youth access to summer programs by broadly identifying high-need areas and barriers to summer program participation

• empower youth-serving organizations, such as schools and mentoring organizations, to more effectively target and support individual students to make great summer plans

• strengthen advocacy efforts by clarifying the need for opportunities• increase public accountability for improvement

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Outline of presentation

• Executive Summary• Findings: Previous summer program participation• Findings: Previous summer program enjoyment• Findings: Upcoming summer plans• Findings: Interest by type of program• Findings: Barriers to summer participation• Areas for action• Appendix

Slide #4791014182830

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Executive summary: key factsPast attendance: 68% of students attended a program last year, with an incredible 87% of 6 th graders attending one. Higher 6th grade participation came from shorter programs.

Satisfaction: Student enjoyment varies considerably between Summer Program XYZ – which students rated 2.2 out of 5 - and other programs – which students rated 4.0 out of 5.

Future plans: Students are evenly divided across interest in attending a program, not interested, and unsure.

Types of summer programs: Students participate in math and reading activities – principally at Summer Program XYZ – far more than their interest for next summer. Students have a wide variety of interests.

Barriers: Students’ main barriers revolved around interest in programs and program availability (available space, program cost, schedule conflicts with family plans). They were largely consistent across grades, student neighborhoods, and previous summer program participation (at Summer Program XYZ, another program, or not attending a program).

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Executive summaryInterest strong predictor of attendance: Students who last spring were interested in attending a summer program were 100% more likely to attend a summer program compared to students who were not interested. Students who were unsure attended at the same rate as students who did not want to go.

Previous participation – at programs besides Summer Program XYZ – is probably strongly predictive of future attendance at programs. While we don’t know for sure, this is likely given the much higher interest in attending a program from these students and their higher satisfaction in their programs.

Neighborhood differences were not that significant. Program attendance, future interest in programs, and barriers were similar across neighborhoods. Last year’s difference in program satisfaction across neighborhoods probably due to effect of different rates of Summer Program XYZ participation.

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Executive summary: key actionsHighlight great programs to students: Share information about the many programs students are already attending and really enjoy.

Focus on 3 groups of students: 1) 33% students who are unsure about attending a program. If School D can get these students

interested in attending a program, that doubles their chances of attending one. 2) Students attended Summer Program XYZ last summer. Their low satisfaction with Summer

Program XYZ, low interest in programs, but varied interest in different types of activities and similar barriers to other students makes them a potentially cost-effective group to target.

3) Students want to go to a program but didn’t go to one last year. With similar barriers to other students, they may just need an extra nudge and program recommendations to help them attend a program.

Use student-level data on barriers to effectively connect students with programs that match their interests and needs. The accompanying Excel file has student-level data on past and upcoming attendance, interest in different types of programs, as well as student ratings of summer program barriers to help effectively and efficiently connect students with summer programs that match their needs. It also includes the name and student reviews of all the programs that School D students attended this past summer.

[Excel file not publically released]

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68% of students participated in programs, including nearly 90% of 6th graders• Participation is up from 59% last year

• 6th grade participation increased from 61% last year. Last year, 7th grade had 71% attendance.• Greater 6th grade participation comes from greater participation in programs less than a month long

(see next slide)• Participation is moderately above other schools Give a Summer works with (average of 40% - 60%

participation)

Did you attend a summer program?

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Attendance in summer 2014 is a strong predictor of attendance in summer 2015

• Students who attended a summer program in summer ‘14 were 110% more likely to attend a program over summer’15 compared to students who did not attend a program in summer ‘14.

• This was equally true for current 7th and 8th graders

Attendance at summer programs in summer ‘15 based on attendance in summer ‘14

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Student program enjoyment varies considerably and is lower with 8th graders• Lower program satisfaction result of high attendance at Summer Program XYZ and low satisfaction: average of

2.2 (out of 5). • Average satisfaction at other summer programs was 4.0• Those other summer programs had far less of a focus on reading and math, activities students are less

interested in. • 6th graders – who had by far the highest attendance – also had the highest satisfaction, suggesting lower

satisfaction not driven by on the fence students being pushed into programs

Did you enjoy the program? (5 is yes, 1 is no)

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• The pattern of student interest is similar across grades and similar to last spring’s survey• 6th grade interest, while the highest, Is still well below exceptionally high attendance• 8th graders have stronger interest than they did last spring as 7th graders• Interest is below other Give a Summer schools (where interest was about 50%)

Student interest varies, with a 1/3 interested, 1/3 not interested, and 1/3 unsure

Do you want to attend a summer program this coming summer?

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High attendance outpaces lower student interest, as requirement that new students attend a program substantially boosts program attendance• Dynamic very similar to last spring, suggesting that parents and School D are able to generate

program attendance well above student interest – principally through School D’s requirement that new students participate in a summer program – but also that they’ll need to keep doing so to sustain high program attendance

• School D differs from other Give a Summer schools where fewer students attend program than are interested in them. Those schools do not have any required summer program attendance.

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Previous student interest is strongly predictive of subsequent attendance

• On the other hand, students unsure about attending a program are no more likely to attend a program than students who did not want to go

• Action: Focus on increasing student interest – which seems like a factor that makes program attendance much more likely – and particularly focus on getting students unsure about attending to be interested in attending (as opposed to trying to persuade students who do not want to go)

Attendance at summer programs based on previous interest in attending a program

Get unsures to want to go to programs to boost attendance

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Students who attended a program other than Summer Program XYZ are much more interested in attending a program in the future than other students• Among students who attended a program other than Summer Program XYZ, 48% of them want to go

to a program this coming summer, with another 37% unsure. • These students are far more interested in attending a program than students who did not attend a

program or attended Summer Program XYZ

Interest in attending a summer program based on previous attendance

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Students who attended Summer Program XYZ do lots of reading and math, while only a 1/3 of students who attended other programs did

• 50% of students at other programs participated in camp-like activities, with substantial minorities also participating in a wide variety of other activities: performing arts, reading and math, and visual arts.

What did students do at summer programs? % of students who attended who said they did that activity

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Students who went to Summer Program XYZ have almost identical interests to students who attended other programs

What do students who attended a program last summer want to do at a program next summer?

% of students who want to do that activity

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Due to high participation in Summer Program XYZ, students attend programs with reading or math far above their interest in those activities

• Program interest fairly similar across students regardless of their overall interest in programs• Action: Hook students who say that overall they are not interested in attending a program with

program that have sports activities, the one activity those students are interested in• Students participate in and are interested in a wide variety of activities over the summer

• Overall, there are 4 activities that more than 25% of students are interested in, with another 4 activities that more than 10% of students are interested in

What do students do over the summer and what do they want to do?(students grouped by interest in attending a program this summer)

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Program-related barriers (expense, transportation, vacation conflicts) are not strongly associated with certain types of programs

• Students with large program-related barriers are not disproportionally interested in certain types of programs, which might have suggested that students were confronting those barriers at those programs.

Do students with program-related barriers have different activity preferences than other students?

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Students rated the impact of the following barriers to attending great summer programs.

• Students were asked to rate how important various potential barriers were to participating in summer programs.

• Below, the text of those barriers is presented and barriers are grouped into categories.

• Students rated barriers as a “matters a lot,” “matters a little,” or “does not matter”• Those descriptions were converted to scores: “matters a lot” is a 2, “matters a little” is 1, “does not

matter” is 0

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Overall, students face many moderate barriers to attending programs, with general lack of interest and expense / family vacation conflicts standing out

• Lack of interest in programs was an undercurrent to several large barriers (don’t want to go, programs don’t interest me, went but didn’t like)

• Other large barriers related to the availability of programs: programs are full, too expensive, or conflict with family vacation conflicts

• Surprisingly, transportation was a lower barrier than at other Give a Summer schools even though School D has a more geographically dispersed student body

• Student barriers are largely similar to last spring’s survey

Low interest Program availability

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Barriers are generally similar for students who attended Summer Program XYZ or another program (or no program at all)• Family vacation conflicts is a bigger concern for students who went to Summer Program

XYZ, perhaps as it is a slightly longer program than other summer programs. • “Went but didn’t like” is a bigger barrier for students who went to Summer Program XYZ,

consistent with lower satisfaction scores at the program.

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Overall, program barriers are similar for students who did and did not attend a program, suggesting other factors driving attendance

• This overall picture hides different dynamics between 7th and 8th graders (see next slides)• Some barriers here – such as program expense – are rated more highly by students who previously

attended. One explanation may be that students who attended are more familiar with the challenges of program expense than some of their peers who did not attend and did not research program costs

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General lack of interest and family vacation conflicts are swing barriers for 6th graders

• Students who did not attend a program over the summer rated don’t want to go and conflicts with family vacations as greater barriers than students who did attend, suggesting these may be crucial swing barriers affecting eventual attendance.

• Students who did attend rated programs are full and program expense as greater barriers than students who did not attend. Given that students who attend programs may be much more familiar with these barriers, this suggests that if students who do not attend try to attend, these barriers will loom larger than those students currently expect.

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Barriers are consistently greater for 7th graders who did attend programs

• This leaves us without any swing barriers that might be preventing students from attending• Other factors besides student assessment of barriers – student or parent interest or parent assessment

of barriers – must be driving participation. • It is likely that if students who did not attend were helped to attend a program this coming summer that

they will likely run into greater barriers than they now expect (and more in line with the barriers reported by students who did attend a program last summer).

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In contrast, 8th graders have several swing barriers to target

• In contrast to 7th graders, 8th graders who did not attend programs rated almost all barriers more highly than 8th graders who did attend programs. This suggests that 8th grade student assessment of barriers is predictive of eventual program participation, unlike for 7th graders.

• Lack of interest, programs are full, family vacation conflicts, and being needed at home stand out as swing barriers to focus on with 8th graders

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Many students take short vacations. 8th graders were somewhat able to predict vacation, while 7th graders were not.

• 8th grade students are somewhat able to predict family vacation conflicts: those who rated it a larger barrier last spring were 35% more likely to take a vacation than those who said vacation conflicts did not matter.

• On the other hand, 7th graders were not able to meaningfully predict family vacations or long family vacations.

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Students rate barriers similarly regardless of interest in summer programs, suggesting that other factors are driving student interest.

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Support students interested in going to a program but who didn’t last year by suggesting low-cost programs with flexible schedules

• There are #A students who want to attend a program but who didn’t last year, students who seem like key candidates for effective support.

• Action: Help these students by suggesting low-cost programs with flexible schedules that address student obligations at home, the three largest, unique barriers facing these students.

Numbers replaced with placeholder letters to maintain client confidentiality.

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There are several school and grade-wide steps to increase student access and participation in summer programs.

Address students’ main barriers – program expense and conflicts with family vacation plans – by highlighting lower cost programs and ones with week by week schedules.

Increase student excitement – and therefore, likely participation – by highlighting great programs to students and parents• Action: Share some of the great programs students attended with students who did not attend a

program last year. Incorporate students who attended a program to spread the word.• Action: for students who attended Summer Program XYZ, highlight summer programs in their

other areas of interest, such as day camps or performing arts programs. • Action: for students uninterested in programs, recommend sports programs, the one type of

program these students are strongly interested in.

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There are 3 key groups of students to focus on:

Focus on 3 groups of students: 1) #A students are unsure about attending a program. If School D can get these students

interested in attending a program, that doubles their chances of attending one. 2) #B students who attended Summer Program XYZ last summer. Their low satisfaction with

Summer Program XYZ, low interest in programs, but varied interest in different types of activities and similar barriers to other students makes them a potentially cost-effective group to target.

3) #C students want to go to a program but didn’t go to one last year. With similar barriers to other students, they may just need an extra nudge and program recommendations to help them attend a program

There are #D students – about #E per classroom– who either i) want to go to a program but didn’t last summer or ii) are unsure about attending a program and went to Summer Program XYZ.

Use student-level data on barriers to effectively connect students (and families) with programs that match their needs. The attached Excel file has student-level data on attendance and summer program barriers to help effectively and efficiently connect students with summer programs that match their needs. • Action: Use data to best match students with programs• Action: Look at data on all the programs School D students attended for ideas about other programs

that may be great suggestions for your students• Action: Share “top students to focus on” with each classroom teacher.

Numbers replaced with placeholder letters to maintain client confidentiality.

Excel file not publically available

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Appendix

• Response rates• Barriers by grade• 7th grade student and parent barriers• 8th grade student and parent barriers• Most common programs

Slide #3132333435

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A high proportion of students responded, with exceptionally high response rates from 6th and 7th grade.

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Barriers were similar across grades, with 6th graders having slightly higher barriers

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For 7th graders, barrier ratings this fall were similar to last spring.

Question was not asked last spring

• Conflict with family vacation is a larger barrier.• On the other hand, lack of interest in programs and transportation challenges are smaller barriers.

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For 8th graders, barrier ratings are similar though slightly higher than they were for these students last spring.

• 8th graders have higher barriers this fall around lack of interest in programs and not sure of programs that interest them than they did last spring.

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Students at School D attend a wide variety of programs

• See accompanying Excel for data on all the #A programs that #B students attended across School D’s middle school.

• #C programs had two or more students attend them. #D students attended Summer Program XYZ, while another #E attended Program 2. No other program had more than #F students attend.

Program names and number of students who participated in programs deleted to maintain client confidentiality.

Excel file not publically available