CSI Program helps minimize summer learning loss
February 8, 2021
For 10 years, the CSI: Community School Investigators program has been helping keep students’ minds stimulated and ready to learn during the summer months.
The Winnipeg Boys and Girls Club program, which partners with the Winnipeg School Division and Pembina Trails School Division, local universities and other organizations, has just completed their tenth session of safe summer programming. The program’s goal is to combat the well-documented research that if children are not engaged in mind-stimulating activities while school’s out for summer, they are at risk to lose about two months’ worth of knowledge from the previous school year.
The education system also can suffer because teachers may have to re-teach concepts from the previous year before they can move on to new material. Research has shown that summer learning loss is a major barrier especially for children living in poverty, as they are not given the same opportunities as their counterparts.
CSI is held at 16 schools, filling the summer learning gap for nearly 1,000 students. Every morning during the five-week program, team leaders headed out into the Winnipeg School Division community near each school in the program and “picked up” the students from their homes, in what the program calls the “walking school bus”.
“The walking school bus ensures that the students are safely picked up in the morning and returned home safely at the end of the school day,” Says Jennifer Garcia, Project Assistant for the CSI program.
Once all the students arrived, they sat down together with the staff and assistants and were treated to a healthy breakfast before heading to their classrooms where they would learn about math and literacy through different fun games and activities.
The challenge for the instructors is to engage the students in learning through fun activities that don’t look like typical homework. After the morning session, the staff and students had a healthy lunch together before heading out in the afternoons for more physical type activities such as field trips, games in the gym and “water days” on Fridays.
It takes a lot of help to make the program successful. Each location has five instructors, four student EA’s, junior volunteers who are graduates of the program and parent volunteers who generously donate their time, all to give the children a better opportunity.
Students who maintain a regular attendance in the program are eligible for a $400 bursary towards their post secondary education, Garcia said. “If the students start the program in Grade 1 and follow through to Grade 6, that is a huge chunk of money that they can earn towards their education should they choose to pursue a post secondary education.”
On July 31, all 16 schools participated in a day full of fun at the Jump Start Sports Day that at the Waverley Soccer Complex. With help from CSI’s partnership with Canadian Tire the students and staff had an opportunity to participate in activities like water games, soccer, and parachute games.
“We spend so much time in planning for a short 25 days, to give the children the opportunity to have a great start to the new school year,” Garcia said as the program came close to wrapping up one day. “It’s bittersweet – it will be nice to relax [for the rest of the summer], but at the same time I am going to miss my summer family.”
If you are a high school student and want to get involved in the CSI program, visit the Boys and Girls Club of Winnipeg website in the beginning of April for several opportunities, both paid and volunteer.
Story and photos by Jeff Miller