Dorchester County Public Schools cancel summer classes

CAMBRIDGE, Md. – Recently, Dorchester County Public Schools made the decision to cut its summer school program.

Assistant Superintendent of Academics and Student Services Dr. Jodi Colman of Dorchester County Public Schools said it wasn’t an easy decision to cancel summer school classes this year.

But, she says this decision will help free up money for the next school year.

“We have been analyzing all of our programs that we are using, all of our different programs that we offer for students, after school and during the summer as well as staffing allocations and having to make some very difficult decisions,” said Dr. Colman.

Dorchester County Public Schools tells WMDT canceling summer school classes is one of many difficult decisions the school system will have to make in the coming months.

Right now, the school system faces a budget deficit of $5.5 million.

“We’re just looking at our personnel right now of what we might need to eliminate, any programs that we use that we could possibly do without or could we use another program to accomplish the same task,” said Dr. Colman.

Dr. Colman said the goal is to limit the impact on their regular school year programs as much as possible.

She said one of the reasons they are not having summer school is because they are trying to reserve that money to retain some staff going into the next school year.

“Our main focus has been making sure we can keep as many staff members as possible, especially those staff members that are student facing, the ones right in front of the students on a daily basis,” said Dr. Colman.

She said the cancellation of summer school classes will have some impact on high school students.

“We have put some things in place at the high school that could potentially help students do some credit recovery next school year during a class period and a schedule,” said Dr. Colman.

The impact will also be felt on middle school students as well.

“We have also been working at the middle schools making contact with families of students who are struggling to pass a course, offering them tutoring sessions after school that we are offering now trying to get students in the best possible situation before the grades close out at the end of the year,” she said.

Dr. Colman said the school system is working on getting a list together of outside agencies that offer summer programs so families have some options for their students during the summer months.

Some outside agencies with summer programs include The Empowerment Center in Cambridge, the Boys and Girls Clubs and the YMCA.