Report proposes $100 million summer learning investment with more to come

Oregon should be spending $100 million per year by 2030 on summer and after-school learning, an Oregon Department of Education report says.

Funding additional learning time, especially in summers and after school, is one of the prime goals this session of education advocates, including OSBA. Research clearly shows academic and student success benefits from high-quality summer and after-school programs, especially for students from low-income families and historically underserved student groups.

School leaders say they need reliable and regular funding so they can properly plan and sustain those high-quality programs. ODE's report, "Building Oregon's Educational Ecosystem: Summer and Afterschool Programs for Student Success," proposes a strategic plan to do that.

The report's plan starts with an initial state investment of $100 million for the 2025-27 biennium. It proposes increasing that investment to $100 million per year by 2030 with the help of philanthropy and collaboration with businesses and community partners.

The 2024 House Bill 4082 started this ball rolling. It allocated $30 million for summer learning last summer, less than what education advocates and Gov. Tina Kotek sought but an improvement on the zero additional state support the previous year.

School leaders say such gyrations raise costs because they are forced to start and stop programs as funding waxes and wanes. School leaders also say quality programming requires months of planning, more than is often possible with the late-in-the-session allocations of recent years.

HB 4082 directed the Oregon Department of Education to create a better approach to summer learning and after-school programs that offered more opportunities for all students. The bill also required ODE to provide recommendations for an "Oregon 21st Century Community Learning Program" that would address education disparities.

ODE called together an HB 4082 workgroup that included service providers, district staff and Eugene School Board member Maya Rabasa.

The report highlights four key pillars that are being considered across the education landscape:

• Move Oregon from fragmented and short-term funding to reliable multi-year investments.
• Reduce grant process barriers and provide flexibility, including up-front funding.
• Encourage school, state and community partners to collaborate to create programs that are cohesive with state goals and meet local needs.
• Develop a system that supports high-quality programs with shared standards, workforce development and data-driven approaches.

The report proposes setting up a dedicated Summer Learning Fund separate from the State School Fund. It estimates that the initial investment of $50 million per year would serve approximately 75,000 students each year.

The goal would be to ramp up funding support by showing its effectiveness and bringing in community partners to reach all school districts. Great swaths of the state, though, have few or no community organizations that school districts can partner with.

The report suggests Oregon should try to build on the lessons from the 2024 summer investments so participating districts don't have to reinvent the wheel. ODE said it expects to release an analysis of the 2024 summer grants by late January.

- Jake Arnold, OSBA
[email protected]