By Tessa Balc of Times of San Diego
San Diego Unified School District approved a partnership with the Visual and Performing Arts Foundation at its March 11 board meeting to provide options for summer programming to seventh and eighth graders.
Currently, the district’s Extended Learning Opportunities programming comes from California State ELO-P grant funds, which are specifically for transitional kindergarten through sixth-grade students, as well as credit recovery options for ninth through 12th-grade students. In the past three years, this funding has reduced by $9 million.
As the district announced the shift in summer programming at its Feb. 19 meeting, the possibility of a partnership with VAPA was mentioned by Tobie Pace, senior director of Extended Learning Opportunities.
“Some opportunities for kids to learn the ukulele, for our seventh and eighth graders to participate in a play. So those are coming soon, but again, that has not been board-approved yet, so there’ll be more information in April,” Pace said at the Feb. 19 meeting.
This approved agreement with the VAPA Foundation will offer seventh and eighth-grade students the opportunity to participate in summer 2025 programs, according to the March 11 meeting agenda officially proposing its implementation.
The partnership is in place until the end of 2025, is acting as a temporary solution for this summer’s lack of programming and is set to cost the district no more than $200,000 in total, according to the approved item.
Updates on the programming will be made available in the coming weeks here.
Type of Content
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.