Izzy Connors ’18

While their peers spend their days lounging by the pool under the sweltering sun, some students will be spending part of their summers sitting in the air-conditioned classroom. Although ‘summer school’ has often been stigmatized in the past as a punitive place for slacker students, it now has a new reputation as Staples students volunteer to attend summer courses through Westport Continuing Education.
Westport Continuing Education is a program that offers a variety of academic and nonacademic courses to members of the community aged pre-k to adults. From ceramics and pottery to American Government and Advanced Placement courses, Continuing Education offers many class options.
Aly Sivinski ’20 is one of the many students who has decided to sacrifice part of her summer for academic enrichment. As a self proclaimed science fanatic, Sivinski is taking the six-week chemistry course offered by Continuing Education this summer that meets Mondays through Fridays from 8 a.m to 12:15 p.m. so that she can, “take A.P. Biology as a sophomore and not double up on classes.”
William Jones, the teacher of the course along with Dominick Messina, said the course is beneficial to students who want to “get a science credit out of the way if they want to take more science classes or get ahead in the science program if they want to take more A.P. or elective courses in science.”
This is not enough of an incentive for some to give up days spent under the sun at the beach. To Calum Gordon ’19, this concept is not appealing “because summer isn’t meant to be spent learning; it’s meant to be having fun.”
For Sivinski, however, “the desire to learn and to challenge yourself” is more important as “it’s benefitting [her] more in the long run with taking higher level classes.” Besides, “it ends at 12:15” so Sivinski is confident that she is not sacrificing her entire summer to participate in the course.
Like Sivinski, Victoria Cao ’19 is taking the six-week physics course this summer so that she will have more space in her junior year schedule. She acknowledges that many teenagers “see summer school as having a negative connotation [due to] stereotypes we’ve seen across the media.” However Cao said, “the large majority of people [she has] talked to are doing it to get ahead and some are even doing it for fun.”
In fact, Jones notes that although his course is essentially the A-level Chemistry course, “many of the students who opt to take the class are pretty high-powered science students.” The courses tailor themselves to students who can succeed in a rigorous course, with “a small class size of about 10-20 students, a fast moving pace, frequent quizzes and tests and a new concept covered every day,” according to Nicolina Pugliese who teaches the Algebra 2 six-week summer course.
While the concept of quizzes and homework over the summer might make some people squirm, others, like Cao and Sivinski, associate learning with enjoyment and look forward to challenging themselves. “I think that it really comes from personal drive or interest. I’m really excited to go to summer school and see my friends, but for people who dislike school over the summer, they should take that well earned break,”Cao said. “I love science, so this isn’t a sacrifice at all for me.”