Sage Oak Summer Branch Out & Credit Recovery Programs

In this episode, you will learn about Sage Oak Summer Branch Out enrichment program for grades TK-8 and the Credit Recovery program for high school students.

Summer Branch Out Flyer

Summer Branch Out is a self-paced enrichment program for TK-8th grade students.

Credit Recovery is our high school program supporting qualifying students who need to make up high school courses.  Enrollment thorugh your student's Education Advisor is required.

Thank you for listening to the Sage Studio podcast presented by Sage Oak Charter Schools and hosted by Tiffiny Webster, M.A.Ed. We invite you to follow the show and leave your review below. Sage Oak Charter Schools is an independent study nonclassroom based TK-12 personalized learning public charter school serving students in Southern California. Visit sageoak.education for more information.

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Transcript

0:15

Welcome to another episode of Sage Studio. I'm Tiffiny Webster, and today we are talking all about summer school. Summer school is such a great time for our students to just get a little bit of enrichment, review some of the standards they've been working on throughout the year, or in the case of our high school students that need a little bit of time to recover some of their credits, this is a great time for them to do that as well. So let's go ahead and break down all of the different summer school opportunities that are available to our Sage Oak students. So you may have recently seen in one of the editions of the Sage News that there's a flyer for our branch out program. The branch out program is our program that we offer to students in our elementary and our middle school grades. And this is an opportunity for them to just work on some enrichment activities to keep their skills sharp over the summer. So let me go ahead and take you through a walk of that branch out flyer that you can get familiar with all of the different offerings and then where those offerings can be found on our branch out website. All right, let's go ahead and take a look. So in the weekly edition of the stage news, you might have seen a post that looks like this that talks about the branch out summer bridge program. So you can see, there's a little bit of an information here on what the program consists of, as well as a link to the workbook that students can use for the summer school. Now at this time of the podcast recording the window to order that through Sage Oak is probably closed, so you'll have to do that on your own. That might be an out of pocket expense for you for the summer program, but we'll still give you a link to the workbook in case it's something that you would like to purchase for your students. So our Sage Oak branch out program is perfect for students in TK through eighth grade. They're going to be working through. The daily lessons that are provided in the workbooks. They can do as much or as little of the lessons as they would like to. It's a really great opportunity because it helps students to avoid that summer slump. Right? That little time where they have a little bit of learning loss over the summer just because they're not practicing their skills as much as they normally would. Another thing that students can do is they can really prepare for the next grade level, maybe get a jump start on some of the skills that they're going to be learning, so that when they start in the fall on that new grade level, they have a little bit of an advantage. And another great reason why students would want to work on the summer branch out program is really to sharpen any skills from the current grade level so that they're really strong going into next year. So, as I mentioned, we do have a summer workbook. It covers English language art skills. It covers some math skills, and it also covers some live skills, and there are also some pre recorded little videos that go with each of the lessons just to show you what to work on for the day. There's a middle school math program that highlights some middle school math lessons and then also some pre algebra and algebra lessons if some students are interested in that. Now in this lesson, there is not any extra curriculum needed. You can just click on the pre recorded video lessons and follow along. All right, so you might be wondering, where do I find all of these lessons? Well, at the very bottom of this flyer, there's a little tiny link that says, or they can be found here. So if you click on that link, that's going to take you over to our summer branch out program, Which is hosted in Canvas. Now if you are not yet familiar with Canvas, Canvas is our learning platform that we host many of our Sage Oak courses in at the middle school and high school level. So if you've not yet had a chance to see Canvas, this is a great opportunity for you to get to know this program. So you're going to click the button that says start here and that will take you to the grade level selection page. So you'll see that the grade levels are all organized here and the work is organized according to the grade level. So when you get to this page, let's say you want to work on first grade skills. You just click on the first grade link and then here you can see all of the activities. They've been divided into different sections. Sections. And you can see here is the activity for day one, section one, day one, section two, day one, section three. Let's go ahead and take a peek at what this looks like. All right. So I'm going to click on day one for section one. And then when I click on this link, you'll see that it brings me to this little video. That's going to tell me all about what I should work on in that section. So it's a really great way to follow along. Oh, let me go back here to our main page. It's a really great way for students to be able to follow along and have a little bit of guidance on what they should do every day. But again, you're going to have a lot of flexibility as far as when you want to work on these assignments, how many assignments that you want to complete, and you'll have access to the different grade levels here as well. All right, so that's a look at our summer branch out program. It's a really great program, and we are so happy that we're able to bring that to our Sage Oak students. The other program that we offer is for our high school students. Now, this program is a credit recovery program only. We do not offer enrichment courses for our high school students, but I have a suggestion for you on that. So hang on one second. So our credit recovery program is perfect for students who maybe felt a little bit behind in one of their courses, for whatever reason, it does happen. And so with the credit recovery course, your student's EA can enroll them in the course prior to the end of the school year so that they can go ahead and get started over the summer. And when they're working on the credit recovery courses over the summer, These courses are designed to help students get across the finish line. So we know that your student has already spent a semester diving into the material. They maybe just weren't able to perform at the passing level, or maybe fell behind on their assignments. So these credit recovery courses will help them to kind of pick up where they left off, to go through the course at a rate that will help them to accomplish the tasks, to have success with the program. Last year, I had the chance to work with many of our high school students in this program, and I was really excited to see the progress that they were able to make in such a short time. We really make it digestible and doable for the students so that they can work through the Classes that they need to recover because sometimes our students might have more than one class that they need to recover. And summer is the perfect time to work on these courses. They don't have any other distractions from their other classes. They go through one class at a time. If they need to complete a second class, they do that once the first class is completed. And so they're really focusing their efforts and their time and their energy into one class at a time. As they walk through the different modules of the courses, they're completing the assignments or the projects or the assessments that are all embed in the the curriculum that's there for them. And then, as I mentioned, once they finish that course, then they can go ahead and move on to a next course. This is really important that our students use this time over the summer to catch up on their courses because in high school things move pretty fast and students are on a a scheduled pace to complete 220 graduation requirements by the end of four years. And if they fall behind in some of these courses, Then the time starts to slip away from them, and we don't want that diploma to be out of reach. We want our students to be able to confidently cross the finish line and know that they're ready for earning that high school diploma and whatever waits for them on the other side of that. And so by making up these credits over the summer, the students are able to then stay on the pace that they need in order to meet those graduation deadlines. You know, we had some students that we worked with last year and then talking with them. They were starting to get a little bit defeated about having failed in some of these areas, not doing the work that they should have, regretting some of the choices that they'd made. Maybe there were some life things that had gotten in the way. It made that diploma seem pretty elusive. Like it was just going to be too hard to get. And I really have to hand it to these students because they didn't quit, and instead they took advantage of this incredible credit recovery opportunity, this second chance, this do over, this opportunity to get it right, and they did, and they earned their credits that they needed, and as a result, put themselves back on track to graduate. And for many of them, once they get these skills under their belt, once they start to understand how they can make better choices, manage their time better, focus their energy. These are skills that translate well beyond just a summer school credit recovery class. One of our students that I worked with personally was telling me that one of the things that he walked away with more than just the credit recovery was finally like the time management skill. He figured out that this idea of working on one subject for a concentrated amount of time really benefited him and really allowed him to stay focused and get his work done. And so he was going to be applying that strategy to the fall semester, knowing that, okay, it was better for him to really dive deep in an area like English or math and really work on all of his assignments for an extended period of time. Before switching to another subject, he found that he was able to be a lot more successful when approaching his work that way, versus just an hour here with this subject. And now we're here with that subject. And now we're here with that subject. And so that was a huge breakthrough for him. It really made a difference. And not only His ability to do well in the summer courses, but now he's taking that approach that he's learned about himself, his learning style, what works best for him, and he's applying that to his fall semester so that he can be successful going forward and he won't find himself in the situation again. So that's a huge learning opportunity, and that's really what it's all about, is helping our students to discover how do they learn best how can they be successful, what is the way that they need to work around the own obstacles that they either put in their pathway, Or that just happened to land in their pathway because that's how life works. They figure out how to navigate that and then in turn apply it to their next semester so that things can go a little bit more smoother, maybe with a little bit more focus, a little bit more direction, and they keep taking steps towards their goal, towards their finish line. So, it's a really great program. I'm always So proud of the students that we have that go through our credit recovery program. If you're not sure if your student qualifies or what courses are being offered, and if they're a match for the courses that your student needs to enroll in just talk with your EAs. They are really fantastic at getting you enrolled in these courses. The teachers that are going to be in the summer school program, they will help your student to Progress through the courses, they will stay in touch with them. They will be on the phone, in the email, doing whatever it takes to just keep getting them through. Keep checking on them, keep motivating them, keep getting them, you know, one step closer to getting that course complete. So definitely chat with your EA if this is a program that you would like to be part of, and they can make sure that your student qualifies, and they can support you with the enrollment process. Okay, now I did promise to circle back to students who are looking for an enrichment opportunity with the summer. And here's the thing, in our high school program, many of our students also take advantage of rolling in a community college course. Such a win win, because when students are at Sage Oak and they enroll in a community college course, they can earn both high school and college credit at the same time. So great. And so they are earning credit for high school work that they need to do. And then they're also getting that extra bonus of having those college credits so that when they graduate, say joke, they're already ahead of the game a little bit. So I bring this up because many colleges offer summer courses and students can enroll in these summer courses and use them to get ahead. So that's a really great way to get some of your classes taken care of. If you are a motivated student and you want to kind of get ahead of the game, I would suggest that you enroll in a college course. Now here's the other cool thing is you don't always have to enroll in your core courses. It doesn't have to be something like, you know, English 101 or a math course or a chemistry course. You can just play around with some of the electives or the career and technical offerings available at some of these colleges. It's a great time to take a class in, you know, design or a class in music or a class in mechanics or class in film. Just find something that you're interested in and give it a try. Just one thing to remember, though, is when you are in those community college classes, your grades will stay with you. So, this is not the time to start a class and then not stay committed to it because you get distracted by all the other fun things that are happening during the summer. But if you're ready to get ahead, if you are dedicated and you are motivated, It's a great opportunity and I highly suggest it. All right, so that is a look at summer school at Sage Oak, all of the great offerings. Again, just keep an eye on your email inbox for the Sage News because the Sage News will have that summer school information and we'll also be running a Sage News Summer edition for all the things that are happening during the summer and the podcast will be going as well. So you can check into a couple of episodes of the podcast over the summer, learn about maybe some of the curriculum and the community providers that we have here at Sage Oak. So you are ready for enrollment when it comes up again in August, which will be here before we know it. All right, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. That is all about Sage Oak summer. I hope you have a great day.