Troy Schools to offer new learning experiences during the summer

TROY — The Troy School District is reminding families that education doesn’t have to stop with the summer months.

There are numerous activities the district offers, from athletic groups to personalized tutoring.

“Troy provides a wide range of opportunities to decrease the educational ‘summer slide,’ help with educational gaps, provide accelerated learning opportunities and share enriching opportunities for all ages,” said Continuing Education Supervisor Tammy Brown. “I would like to highlight our High School Summer School opportunities. We provide students the opportunity to recover credits lost and/or take new credit courses to move up in an area of study or make room for specialized classes during the school year. For example, taking PE and Health in the summer is very popular for incoming freshman students to make room for band, advanced classes, theater, etc.”

She added that information on specific classes can be found at www.troyceonline.com/programs/hsss.

Christin Silagy, the district’s director of English language development, said even elementary students can find opportunities to keep learning over the summer if they need support in a particular area.

“I am most familiar with our elementary programs. Kids can qualify for some programs. I oversee our English language programs,” she said. “We also put resources together for other subjects, like math. … They are invited based on their needs. They might need extra practice on reading, for instance, so we would target them for extra reading help. My program focuses on kids we know who aren’t a full English speaker yet or who we know won’t be practicing their English during the summer. Other students might just need something to do during the summer and something to engage them with in the off-school months.”

More one-on-one resources are also now available for students, many of which don’t even require the students to leave home.

“Kids have access to a tablet for online learning,” said Silagy. “It’s all a matter of matching them with the right kind of help. Additionally, most schools in the district open their media centers a few days so students can come in and get books and other resources. Check with your individual schools, though, because some have construction and other work being done, which makes them closed all summer.”

She added that programs are suited toward particular subjects or topics.

“We have online programs like Litera, which is a literacy program for students who need some extra tutoring in a Zoom-like format,” said Silagy. “We have a math online program called Math Champs, which is similar. We want to connect students with a live person even though it is all online.”

The district works with the Troy Recreation Department regarding athletic programs during the summer.

“We work with the Troy School District,” said Troy Sports Recreation Supervisor Meghan Veiga. “They provide the coaches and most facilities. We provide equipment, advertising and so forth. We then offer a number of camps to students. This includes our basketball camp, our track and field camps, and our agility camps are the most popular so far this year. We also have others, such as tennis, soccer, volleyball, football, wrestling, softball and rugby. It’s almost any sport you can think of. We also have a junior golf camp we run at Sanctuary Lake Golf Course and a dance course we coordinate with another group called Gotta Dance, which is a local dance studio, to host.”

She added that there are numerous activities those in Troy can take part in for children of all ages.

“They are open to residents and nonresidents for the summer, so they don’t need to be in Troy Schools,” said Veiga. “It’s all ages, kindergarten through 12th grade. They can visit our webpage at rec.troymi.gov/camps for more information or to sign up. They have various costs depending on the programming.”