Online learning and real-world internships are starting to take the place of traditional summer school sessions in Montgomery County.
This summer, the number of students enrolled in the county’s regional high school and elementary-school programs is dropping, while newer, more innovative alternatives are rising in popularity, summer school coordinator Allen Trenum said.
So far, 7,000 elementary and high school students are registered for summer school, with a few thousand more expected to sign up during July.
“It goes down slightly each year,” Trenum said.
One reason for the decline is the push for individual schools in Montgomery County to start tailoring programs of their own to fit their specific students’ needs, rather than simply offering general countywide courses, Trenum said.
At this point, almost all 26 high schools in Montgomery have some type of school-specific summer school component.
Also, the explosion of the Web has translated into more upperclassmen learning over the summer via their computer screens.
Trenum said 300 such Internet students have enrolled this summer, which is “at least double” years past.
“It really frees up their time when they’re on vacation,” he said. “They can do their work at night and do what they want during the day.”
Internships, too, are catching students’ interests. This summer, some of the participating employers include the Capitol and the National Institutes of Health.
Unlike their older counterparts, middle schoolers don’t have quite as many options.
Trenum said each middle school in Montgomery County operates independently of the regional summer school office to offer a traditional local program. Generally, about 5,000 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders take part.
