good morning. this is "news 4 your sunday." good morning. i'm pat lawson muse. it's been a special summer for students taking part in a local program in prince george's funty that works hard to keep those studentsm losing in summer what they gain during the school year. it's called summer bridge academy. it uses summer camp to stimulate the interest in s.e.m. our guests are with community youth advance and joining us now are a site coordinator, cindy martin is director of academic programs, and also with uss t morning is sheritala iter, a site coordinator. welcome. i know you finished up

successful summer bridge session recently. 200 students. tell us how summer bridge works, cindy? >> it's a program that's open to students. they engage in academics and have summertime fun. in the a.m. students are in class, in math and literally and s.t.e.m. programs. in t afternoon we offer them a tsbust number of programs in culinary s.t.e.m. and sports. so they can have academic and summertime fun. >> which grade are your sdents in? >> we started them k through 8 during the summertime. >> and they all go to the same location? >> all of our students -- we meet at high point hig school. we pull from nine different feeder schools in the area and eventually the students willma

iculate to the high school. >> a couple things that stand out about your program a how interested the students are in doing this in the summer and how excited and energized your teachers are. what's your secret? >> we have a dynamic staff. our staff is very energetic. the children feel loved and supported and get excited. we go from the traditional way of learning and making it more hands on and with a learning opportunity for them. tey go from classroom learning to i'm doings and it matters. when you have the buy-in it t keepsm coming. hi have a solid team and that we build relatio with families

and that's reall having the kids come in on saturday and in our summer program. >> how largehe is staff? how many teachers? >> we have two teachers per grade level. we have two siteto coordi. a director of the program. translators on staff. juor tas, high school students, who work with us as well. it's pretty robust staff. >> nbc 4 and telemundo 44 and the nbc universal foundation awarded communities a $50,000 grant. how is that helping the summer bridge ac>>emy? ne of the major goals was to ensure students had access, firsthand access to those projects and s.t.e.m. learningo rtunities. so with the grant we were able materials in e order to deliver those services and take them out on learning activities and give them that

firsthand application with those s.t.e.m. learning skills they're learning in the classroom. >> just one of the programs in prince george's county. tell us about some of the others including saturday school. >> during the school year we do a program on saturdays where we bring in students, fir through high school, and we bridge the gap between the classroom learning and what they ced to improve on. so the kidse in and we do math focus projects, hands-on learning, and combine that with s.t.e.m. >> and some of those experiences include what bay?g to the >> whenever i can create and make an academic nnection. definitely. we've taken our children to the esapeake bay and they had the

engineers.y to be they're actual engineers, no air quotes, and they build ndbuoys get to go out into the environment and capture wildlife and water quality and talk about pollution. making all those connections. >> those are super fun field trips. >> they had a ball. they had a ball. they were picking fish up. it was a lot of fun. >> we'll continue talking right after this break.

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of progress. so a program like yours one a week the saturday school on saturday really helps to compensate for that loss. or prevent the loss. >> we try to focus on five target skills that we notice that our students are struggling in. we work to close the gap to make sure our students are prepared. the students need the extra time and it helps to prepare th. >> you do a lot of work in a short amount of time. >> i think with the focusing on the certain skills it takes e lot of pressf. as teachers we're having to move at a pace the curriculum i saying such this skill this skill, this skill and with this it slows it down and becedes

more foc that reiteration and repetition in the long term. so that's what we can do in that time. >> you work with prince george's public schools. >> we have an awesome collaboration with the public schools and they definitely do work with us. we work with nine targeted schools. any parent in the district who learns about our program after we give priority to those students by the program. for the saturday school it's $50 gistration fee and that covers everything. we feed them breakfast. th's instruction by our teachers, all of the enrichment, the learning which are field

trip opportunities and for the summer bridge academy the fee i5 nd they get breakfast -- >> for six weeks? >> for six weeks with breakfast, lunch. all of the learning aasivities well. >> that's a lot of bang for your buck. and how long is the smer saturday school program? >> we start in october and end in may. >> you're all parents. so you have a special appreciation. you have for a program like this. the feederchools are low performing, correct? >> yes. that.dditional he money does not have to become a factor. our teachers are ready,hey're dedicated and are classroom teachers. they want to help their students.p it does h us to slow down the curriculum and fill in the gap.

they're already on target. it gives us the opportunity to move them to the next level. m e sure there's a student that is already profient, mastered the skills, and we bump them up. it's one-on-one learning for a low cost. >>skid i you about successst ies already? >> o student last year, we give them a post test at the end and only 2% of our students when they started the program weret the expectations we had for them. our students m that expectation. increased fromo not needing the expectation to actually meeting the

expectations that's established for our students. >> o if you had word to sum up what you're doing, what would it be? amazing. >> amazing would be -- >> i feel very connected to the work tt we do. >> being a part of the team, from the students to staff, we're doing amazing things. >> you certainly are. how do we get more information? >> ours website www.communityyouthadvag. >> okay. cindy martin, you are amazing. thank you for sitring that us. and up next prosperous counties and students in need. we'll be rig back.

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by many to be affluent counties n. fact, all three have a number title 1 schools and many students who are in need. that's why we sponsor backpacks to help as many students get the supplies need to get the school year started. joining us now are barbara, partnership's officer for the prince george's county public schools. joining us for thisegment is elizabeth murphy, executive director of the f foundatio tirfax schools. welcome, all of yoo the program. how many of your students are entitled to free or r priced lunches? >> in montgomery county 35% of oual population is entitled to free and reduced meals.

we see higher percentages at the elementary levels. >> a what aboutyou? >> in fairfax county public schools we have 189,0 students and about 55,000 of them are actually qualifying so that's 28%. >> we have 82% under the farm ,0ogram. we have about 13000 students in total. >> maria, is there ala coron between income levels and academic success? obviously if you have a county that is wealthie and households with more resources and students have a better opportunity to succeed and to perform academically. is there a correlation?

>> we can see those over time and what we are worki towards is to break those correlations, to break those and your household income level is not a determinant of your academic success. graduation rates of students is an important piece. montgomery county has auld strived to ensure publicio educ is of high quality for all students. we have increased the number of studrom -- affected by poverty that are accessing rigorous course work. those classes also support students being able to effectively transition int college.

>> i would say we are very county n. montgomery fairfax county the county government and the school district adopted the policyg to br equity into everything that we're delivering to our students and trying to break down the barriers and provide whatever they need, a meal or clean clothes so that they come to school ready to learn. that's what our focus will be. >> barbara, how about the challenges in prince george's? >> we look at challenges. we have amazing programs from the academic of health scidces an opportunity to go into the schools itself with our career programs and some consist of students learning how to operate and build a car. students are being celebrity artists. they'll get the education but

get hands-on training and progms. many of them haveertificates or an associate degree through the collegehat can propel them to greater opportunities as well. >> areraduation rates movin in the right direction? >> we're excited about that. >> each oficour dis has private/public partner opportunities to help students and their families to prepare. you have a very unique program. >> the programlled collect for kids. it is a consortium of nonprofits and faith-based organizations and businesses who want to help by giving supplies or backpacks or whatever is needed for students and we kind of let them do ithe way they want to do it. we meet them where they are. mayba a business wants to d backpack drive. that'sine.

maybe they want to make a donation through the foundation and we'll buy the kits for them. we're trying to help the 55,000 students. >> we'll be right back. w

>>re continuing our talk nowbout counties and how they're helping students who are in need.

marie, you have public/private partnerships working for you. what are some of those? the bell program is for students who have extended learning opportunities over the summer and that is a private/public partnership betweed the county undation. we also engage our business community. this is the second year of our rise proam where business communities and nonprofits, anybody can have young people do internships over the summer, learn about the workforce similar to prince george's preparing students. we, too, are preparing them and think the summer is good way to try some jobs out. >> so important. i know youere doing that or

something similar. >> we are. last year that foundation donated $155,000 in scholarships for our students. have partners who work throughout the school year and we're getting up, as many of us are, the big back to school. we have an event asking the goals.ty to those 15,000 backpacks we need to collect. comcast is one of our great partners that will continue to help us build that. educational systems, federal credit union has been one of our major ptners and actually gives about 2,500 backpacks.

we're excited. very excite >> and that's excited for the students getting those and the schools that are receiving them. >> what changes do you have planned for the upcoming year? >> in montgomery county we are expanding our two-way immersion program. students learning another language and all their academics. schools that have those programs at the middle school level we m expand toe sure every one of our middle schools has more access to technolesy and cou they can take as middle schoolers to prepare them for high school as well as s.t.e.m. and robotics and we are expanding o programs for certification and preparation for the career world throu our career programs including cte and different pathways sohat

young people can graduate with a diploma and opportunities to be in the workforce and some certifications that allow them to work right out of high school as they cose to >> has it been a challenge? there have been challenges with increasing population of students who come from at risk and needy families have you had to make an adjustment? >> we always work to look atur allegations and support student learning needs. this is a continuationuef the core vo do so. it supports the learning of every opportunity. some students need different levels all of our programs are goerd to continue toaintain excellence for many students and continue to support that access to many

students that traditional have not had access. >> tell us about that same challenge and how you're approaching it. >> we are similarly positioned where we want to help what they're going to do. whether that is post secondary, a certification opportunity. we try to expd the knowledge because it's difficult. we have a strict requirement for our diploma. it's hkd to w these into their curriculum. this is a job you could get, make a ling wage and help all of our students to be successful.

so we know that you all are getting backpacks. so grateful for the work to help our students. we are supporting our schools with the backpacks for kids campaign. and to learn more logon to our website and search backpacks. see you next week.

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welcome in on this sunday morning.h thank you so mr being here with us. >> we got two people from philly in here.