Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds requests nearly $58 million for summer learning camps

Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds (Photo by Tennessee Department of Education)

One of the key investments in Tennessee’s 2021 special legislative session was the creation of summer learning camps designed to help children overcome pandemic learning losses. The state has continued operating them ever since, including recent years where they additionally served a role helping students advance under the Third-Grade Retention Law.

Students taking part in a summer learning camp at Elizabethton City Schools (Photo by Elizabethton City Schools)

Tennessee Department of Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds says research has found students who attended the camps carried their spring academic gains into the fall semester.

“Students who attended summer programming maintained their learning, whereas students who did not attend demonstrated the summer slide. And while the first few years of summer programming were in direct response to the pandemic, and associated with learning loss, we are now finding that the summer camps are becoming more of an opportunity towards learning acceleration,” said Reynolds.

At Wednesday’s state budget hearing for the Tennessee Department of Education, Reynolds made the case for an additional $57.8 million investment into the summer learning camps and transportation expenses to put them on.

The department says 89 thousand rising K-9 grade students took part in the camps last summer, with second and third grade students demonstrating “educationally significant” improvements in English language arts.

Reynolds says the camps themselves have evolved over the last three years to be a tool for districts to hire teachers and to expand learning opportunities.

“You’re seeing a lot of hands-on learning. You’re seeing intervention happening in some of these classrooms where they have the small tutoring groups, but those kids go from there and they go into more enrichment type activities,” said Reynolds. “It’s really becoming an opportunity, almost an extension of the year, but in a way that doesn’t feel like school.”

Graphic by the Tennessee Department of Education

The department is also asking for an additional $950 thousand to increase salaries for educators at State Special Schools like the Tennessee School for the Blind, $10 million for paid paternal leave costs, and more than $7 million for IT expenses.

These proposed expenditures will ultimately be decided by members of the Tennessee General Assembly next year when it passes the state budget.

Reynolds also provided Governor Lee with an update on participation in the Education Savings Account (ESA) program in Davidson, Hamilton, and Shelby County. Roughly 3,500 students are taking part in the ESA program this school year, which is a 72 percent increase in students enrolling in participating schools compared to the prior year.

Governor Lee plans to introduce legislation next year to expand the concept of the ESA statewide through the Education Freedom Scholarship Act of 2025