West Town Summer Academy
 

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Gale Cruise-Roberson is the coordinator of the West Town - Middle School GEAR UP Summer Academy. Her role as pre-planner and monitoring and administrating the academy has been vital to its success.


  "The artists, parents, tutors and teachers have started off with a very high level of cohesion. " Gale Cruise-Roberson

Read this article of her assessment after two of the four weeks of planned Summer Academy classes.

     
   Overall, at the academy, there is an incredible amount of good work going on. The artists, parents, tutors and teachers have started off with a very high rate of cohesion. They came in the very first week after a long week of planning, everybody had a clear sense of where they wanted to go and they were able to hit the ground running in terms of integrating the arts in the classroom.. The artists were very pleased to have had that additional time up front, as were the parents and the tutors.

So, the pre-planning became an integral part of this Summer Academy?
  That's right. The pre-planning was very important as to how we began this program and continues to help everyone as we go through various classroom experiences.

 How do you think the students are doing?
  I have had comments from the students who were here last year to the effect that they were very happy this year - happier than last year because everything seems more organized. There is a lot of creative activity in each classroom.

   There is lot of evidence from students from very different parts of town, very different cultures, collaborating and working together. This collaboration is taking place not just in teams but in small clusters. I have many reports of students have been helping each other both in English and Spanish. The students have clustered in the classroom to help each other depending on where they are. So, we have numerous heterogeneous groupings that are working together on projects.

   At the end of the first week we had a teacher who was given a surprise party after only four days of knowing his kids. The kids organized the party and he had no idea of their planning.

   So, there has been a lot of good leadership on the part of the students.

How does your enrollment compare to last year?
  The number of enrollments are double what they were last year. We have about 120 students with us this summer as compared to 60 last year. For the most part, I have found that everyone is pretty happy with everything that is going on. There has been a lot of opportunity to meet with people. A chance to work in different groups.

Tell me about the "team building" component.
   The team building is complete at this point (1/2 way through the 4-week process). Each classroom has been going to Barrington, Illinois and participating in a team building event. We wanted all the students to have that opportunity.

Are you having college campus visits?
   Yes. We have been taking each class to Northeastern Illinois University on a "walking tour" of the campus.

Have you had field trips?
   Each classroom is going on a field trip next week to someplace different. We waited for 2-weeks to have field trips because we wanted them to become part of a team before they just go walk out into the world.

How do you know each group is putting something of value together?
   Because we are half way through the program, today all the students will have a "sharing your work". Three students will stay in their room and act as a tour guide to visitors and the remaining people in the classroom will visit each of the other rooms and see what they have accomplished. It gives an opportunity to the "inquiry teams" to see themes that are not related to their area of focus and see other areas of study. Students are encouraged to provide positive feedback and ask questions and even provide suggestions to the students and artists.