From the Field: Ready. Set. Summer!

This summer has drawn more attention than any other I can recall to the need for summer learning opportunities to strike a balance between academics, enrichment, social emotional learning, health and well-being, and fun. While the need to engage students in programs that find this balance has never been more important or in demand, doing it well requires not just monetary investment, but a commitment to partnership, collaboration, and coordination.

We’ve been tracking and sharing with you Tulsa’s journey to Build Forward Together to become a city of learning since March. With a strong foundation of and commitment to partnership, Tulsa Public Schools and The Opportunity Project saw this summer as a key opportunity to make a significant down-payment to their broader vision. They knew their goals were ambitious (access to summer programming for any interested TPS student) and that crunched planning time would present challenges (standing up new funding structures and program models in just three months), but the potential was immense and the need for students even greater.