Learning Academies

Learning Academy 2019: A Fourth Class

Posted November 14, 2019

Thirty-three students, three classes, one summer. By its fourth year, BASIC’s program had grown past reading alone — it was now the Learning Academy, with English Language Development and math sitting alongside the original literacy classes, all under one roof at the Steele-Burnand Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center.

Full-day classes began July 10, 2019, and ran for four weeks — over 100 hours of instruction for every student who walked through the door.

Two Learning Academy students writing at their desks, one wearing a San Francisco cap

100% of third-grade reading students were at or above grade level for passage and word fluency by the end of the summer.

The rest of the cohort made real, if less dramatic, gains: half of all reading students grew in passage fluency, and 41% grew in reading comprehension over the four weeks. Attendance held at 97.4% — thirty-three students enrolled, and thirty-three finished the twenty-day program.

A month, in four pictures

Learning Academy students holding up folded paper crafts in a group activity — A group activity mid-summer.

A Learning Academy student building a candy-and-toothpick structure — Engineering, one gumdrop at a time.

Learning Academy students and staff joining hands in a circle — Closing out the day together.

All events