CLEVELAND — Cleveland student Nouh Shaik praised the city's expanding summer youth programs and believes they will play a role in improving academic excellence and reducing teen violence this summer.
Shaikh is hoping more families and teens will get involved in city summer programs, along with the Cleveland Schools CMSD Summer learning experience. Shaik believes the programs also promote leadership skills.
“I believe they’re helping a lot of children get out of their homes after COVID, they need to get some sunlight," Shaikh said. "I’m now working with CMSD as a student ambassador. I personally participated in chess, we won two national championships. See you've got to keep those kids busy, if they’re not doing anything at home, they’ll think of doing something bad.”
Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb said this is the first time the city went door-to-door canvassing to promote the city's 29 summer programs, including the new "Hoops After Dark" basketball program for young adults ages 18 to 26.
“We need to do a better job of bringing government and resources to the people," Bibb said. “When you’re productive from sun-up to sundown you’re less likely to get involved in violent crime or other activities that happen on our streets. Giving young people productive things to do goes a long way to cut down on violent crime, but also gives them hope and opportunities.”
The City of Cleveland released data that indicated the number of youth ages one to 17 who required hospitalization due to a gunshot would double from 25 in 2017, to 50 just last year.
Cleveland Metropolitan Schools CEO Eric Gordon also went door-to-door to promote the CMSD Summer Learning Experience program, which Gordon said is crucial in helping students maintain all they learned during the school year, especially after school district data indicated student absenteeism nearly doubled to 54% during the pandemic.
“Three weeks or more of inactive learning actually results in the loss of things we’ve already learned," Gordon said. “So that’s why we only had three weeks before the summer learning experience began, and only three weeks afterward. So it's not only what kids are doing during the day in the summer, but it’s also keeping all the things that they’ve learned during the year.”
Students pre-K through eighth grade can sign-up for five weeks of summer programs, and high school students can participate in four weeks of programming by signing up through the City of Cleveland website, or they can enroll at any of Cleveland's 20 recreation center locations. Enrollment for the CMSD Summer Learning Experience can be found on the school district website.
Meanwhile, Cleveland students like West Tech senior Lavelle Patterson, who has taken advantage of summer programming, believe the summer curriculum pays big dividends.
“They’ve got a better chance over the summer learning and getting their grades up," Patterson said “It was a good program, it got my grades up and I did everything."
