Summer Experiences Shape the School Year—and Our City’s Future
In a new IndyStar op-ed, Indianapolis Foundation President and CEO Ahmed Young explains why access to high-quality summer programs is essential to helping young people learn, belong, and thrive.
The transition from summer to the school year brings a fresh sense of possibility. Families settle back into familiar routines, teachers prepare their classrooms for the year ahead and the busy pace of the academic calendar replaces the slower rhythms of summer.
As students across Indianapolis head back to school over the next few weeks, they also bring into the year everything they experienced over the summer. That’s why investing in their experiences during this critical extended break from school is so important.
Before entering philanthropy, I spent almost a decade teaching social studies across this community and beyond. Those experiences taught me an important lesson: Learning does not end when schools close for summer.
Young people learn everywhere: in museums and community centers, on athletic fields and theater stages, and in gardens and computer labs. They learn while earning a first paycheck, meeting a mentor, solving a problem with teammates or discovering a talent they did not know they had.
High-quality summer programming matters.
Read the full op-ed at IndyStar.com.