The National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth : evaluation of the summer school 2003

An evaluation was carried out of the second year of functioning of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY) with an emphasis on the summer schools as experienced by the students, their parents and the course leaders. The evaluation included pre and post questionnaires sent to students and their parents, as well as interviews with students and course leaders. Specifically, a pre-summer school experience questionnaire was sent to students and a post-summer school questionnaire was sent to both students and parents. Also, a sample (n=87) of students who had responded to the first questionnaire were interviewed at the end of the three-week period at all five sites to obtain their views on the summer school experience. Finally, 26 of the 28 course leaders involved were interviewed during the third week of the summer school

Hunger Doesn't Take a Vacation: Summer Nutrition Status Report

This report measures the reach of the Summer Nutrition Programs in July 2015, nationally and in each state. This report is based on a variety of metrics and it examines the impact of trends and policies on program participation.First, the report looks at lunch participation in the Summer Nutrition Programs -- the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), among children certified for free and reduced-price meals, combined -- using free and reduced-price participation in NSLP in the prior regular school year as a benchmark against which to compare summer. Because there is broad participation in the regular school year lunch program by low-income students across the states, it is a useful comparison by which to measure how many students could -- and should -- be benefiting from the Summer Nutrition Programs.Second, the report looks at the number of sponsors and sites operating SFSP, as this is an important indicator of access to the program for low-income children in the states.Finally, the report sets an ambitious, but achievable, goal of reaching 40 children with the Summer Nutrition Programs for every 100 participating in school lunch and calculates the number of unserved children and the federal dollars lost in each state that is not meeting this goal

Do Summer Reading Programs Prevent Regression in Literacy in Primary Age Students?

When school lets out for summer students are excited for their break from school, but do not realize the damage they are doing to their learning. For students labeled at-risk the damage done over the summer months can mean using valuable time in the next grade re-teaching all that was lost. Teachers can spend the first months catching the students up before being able to move onto new material, putting them again behind their grade level. One solution to this regression is summer reading programs. This paper will compare literature on this topic, giving many insights into difference aspects of these programs. It will also provide the results of a research project done to prove the benefit of these summer reading programs

Advisor and Student Experiences of Summer Support for College-intending, Low-income high school graduates

Summer melt occurs when students who have been accepted to college and intend to enroll fail to matriculate in college in the fall semester after high school. A high rate of summer melt contributes to the lower postsecondary attainment rates of low-income students, in particular. This article presents qualitative findings from two interventions intended to reduce summer melt among low-income, urban high school graduates who had been accepted to college and indicated their intention to enroll. Results from student and counselor surveys, interviews, and focus groups point to a web of personal and contextual factors that collectively influence students' college preparation behaviors and provide insight into the areas of summer supports from which students like these can benefit. The data fit an ecological perspective, in which personal, institutional, societal, and temporal factors interact to affect students' behaviors and outcomes. A model of summer intervention shows that obstacles in completing college financing and informational tasks can lead college-intending students to re-open the question of where or whether to attend college in the fall after high school graduation. Given the pressure of concerns about how to actualize their offer of admission, students rarely engage in the anticipatory socialization activities that might help them make optimal transitions into college

An Introduction to Pure Spinor Superstring Theory

In these lecture notes presented at the 2015 Villa de Leyva Summer School, we give an introduction to superstring theory. We begin by studying the particle and superparticle in order to get a better understanding on the superstring side. Afterwards, we review the pure spinor formalism and end by computing the scattering amplitude for three gravitons at tree-level.Comment: Villa de Leyva Summer School 2015 proceedings, 28 pages, 2 figure

Summer Snapshot: Exploring the Impact of Higher Achievement's Year-Round Out-of-School-Time Program on Summer Learning

Assesses the impact of a multiyear, intensive, academically focused OST program for motivated but underserved middle school students on test scores, summer program participation, and summer learning loss. Examines contributing factors and implications

ESA/ELGRA gravity-related research summer school

Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version