The Ector County ISD Digital Learning Department has organized an event called Summer Spark designed to be a one-stop shop for resources to keep kids engaged during the summer when they aren’t in school, but without having to attend summer learning.
Summer Spark is set for 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. April 30 at the Wilson & Young Middle School cafeteria, 601 E. 38th St. It will be a come and go event.
Digital Learning Specialists approached Executive Director Lauren Tavarez because they really wanted to put on an event for all ECISD families with kindergarten through 12th grade students to share resources, activities and supports available around the community for families during the summer months.
“They decided to call it Summer Spark because it’s sparking student success in the summer months. ECISD has a fantastic summer learning opportunity for kids. This is beyond that. This is not anything that’s going to require kids to be somewhere in the summer” but it offers ideas for students — digital and not, Tavarez said.
She added that there will be representatives from the Ector County Library, the ECISD School Nutrition Department, Curriculum and Instruction and Guidance and Counseling among others. The library has devices that families can check out.
“It’s helping families know what resources they have available. I think oftentimes there’s so much out there, it’s hard to know where to even look for it and so we’re hoping to offer an event that families can come by and just get some ideas. We’ve got some great prizes. Our community has really come behind us on this. We’ve got 10 bicycles that need to be given away and passes to games for our local sports teams and passes for the trampoline parks. Just all kinds of fun things. It’s not just resources that families can access during the summer months but also activities that keep kids active and moving around in the summer as well at no cost to the families,” Tavarez said.
Families will be able to explore table set-ups with different activities and ideas students can use during the summer. They will have coding and other STEM activities.
She added that activities will be organized by age group, so if you have a 6-year-old and a 10-year-old, there will be different areas set up for them to explore.
“We will have punch cards that get initialled and after a certain number activities families complete, they get to go and pick a prize. Every family that comes will leave with something. We’re so appreciative of the community partners that we’ve been able to make because they really stepped up and gave a lot of great prizes for us to give away to families,” Tavarez said.
Research shows that students’ brains must stay active to avoid the “summer slide.” Tavarez said students might not attend summer learning and there’s nothing wrong with that, but they need to be active mentally, thinking, creating and communicating in different ways. The resources they will be sharing will be able to provide that to the students, she said.
Tavarez said the digital learning specialists met first and came up with the idea for Summer Spark and then came to her to see if Tavarez would be supportive of it.
“They’ve been planning this for probably about a month now,” she added.
