On a rainy summer day in Washington, Maine, students filed into the cozy main building of Camp Medomak. Looking around at the room full of smiling faces and picnic tables covered in books, games, and crafts, you may assume you’re at classic summer camp. However, these students are here for RSU 40’s Summer School program.

The RSU 40 Summer School program, now in its third successful year, was one of over sixty Summer Learning and Enrichment programs that ran from June to August of 2024. Using Federal Emergency Relief Funding, the Maine Department of Education funded Summer Learning and Enrichment programs to address k-12 students’ academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs over the summer break.

“A lot of kids in very rural locations, sometimes with grinding poverty, face a lot of barriers, chief among them the trauma of isolation,” explained RSU 40 Assistant Superintendent Tom Gray. “Here, they are having rich experience. Safe experiences. They have access to things they’ve never done before. They can be themselves. They can let their guard down when they learn. They can be successful. We know, both intuitively and from all of the research, that when kids experience success, it sets them up to have more success. So that is really the aim here. And that’s what we’re seeing.”

“If I wasn’t here, I would probably just be watching TV at home,” explained a returning student named Abby. “I like coming here instead, seeing my friends and teachers from school.”

Like many programs in Maine’s Whole Student Pandemic Response, the RSU 40 Summer School program prioritizes underserved students and students most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was created by RSU 40 to aid students’ post-pandemic recovery by offering extra math and literacy instruction, tutoring, and outdoor learning.

“Students have a rotation of five activities, so while we do have writing and math every day, they choose what the other three-fifths of their days look like,” explained Co-Director and Medomak Middle School Art Educator Sherry Casas. “They know, if they’re writing postcards home from camp, that’s writing; if they’re playing Yahtzee and Farkle, that’s math; and when they’re building structures with spaghetti and marshmallows, that is STEM. While they’re doing these things and having fun, they also are empowered knowing they have activities available to them that they’ve said, ‘that is what I’m interested in.’”

Students’ interests spanned from paddle boarding to quilting this year. They could choose from traditional summer camp activities, like swimming and crafting, or take a chance at something new, such as acting or gardening.

“Many of these kids do not have access to things like paddle boarding or pedal boats or even swimming and fishing. We offer so many high-interest activities because they are unavailable to our students at any other time in their life,” said DeAnn Vigue, whom the campers lovingly call Yaya.

“I love camp because it’s in Maine,” said Daniel, a returning student. “I play tennis, swim, and went on a canoe for the first time.”

“It’s quite fun here,” said Amy, a student in her third year of the program. “And it’s preparing me for middle school.”

Amy is one of many upcoming seventh graders at the camp. For herself and many of her classmates entering Medomak Middle School in the fall, RSU 40’s Summer School program is an opportunity to bond with new classmates.

“When we started, this whole thing was only for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, and I came up with the idea of having the outgoing sixth graders come back as seventh graders. So, they could build that relationship before they start at [Medomak],” explained Vigue. “We just found out one of our groups will be in the same school wing when they hit the middle school, which we didn’t know when we put them together.”

The true testament to how beloved RSU’s summer program has become is the educators and students who come back year after year.

“This could not have happened if the educators here weren’t passionate about this program,” commented Superintendent Gray. “It has given educators the opportunity to be alive and impassioned. And that’s really, really valuable.”

Hannah Fecteau was a previous camper who got involved in the program and now comes back as a volunteer. “I enjoy making connections with the kids, and since I’m also younger, I just kind of easily connect with them. And I enjoy helping them out,” she shared.

Quinn Overlock, an RSU 40 graduate and Biochemistry major at Colby College, is in her third year in the program. She shared that she keeps returning to work at the RSU Summer School program because “seeing the growth of some of the kids is so rewarding. We’ve had many of these kids for all three years, and seeing where they were socially and academically and then seeing where they are now, you can see that growth.”

The American Rescue Plan Act funded all Summer Learning and Enrichment programs as a part of Maine’s Whole Student Pandemic Response. You can visit the DOE website here for more information on the Summer Learning and Enrichment Grant and Maine’s Whole Student Pandemic Response.