'STREAM' summer camp working to close learning gaps from pandemic

TOPEKA (KSNT) - School's out for the summer, but that doesn't mean it's time to put education on pause.

Quincy Elementary's STREAM camp is combining fun and learning to help students catch up that fell behind during the pandemic. STREAM stands for science, technology, engineering, art, reading, and math.

Some days students will be out in the community garden learning about agriculture. On other camp days they'll be inside, working on things like reading and math.

Those are subjects Quincy Prinicipal Katie Sonderegger said some students fell behind on during the pandemic.

"There was not only a learning loss but with everybody having to stay home during the year, there was kind of a social-emotional loss as well and there's a gap there," Sonderegger said.

According to the New York Times, many students will have fallen behind a full academic year because of COVID and the abrupt switch to online learning.

The study done in the midst of the pandemic found that racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps would also increase.

Something students at Quincy Elementary faced even before the pandemic hit in 2020.

"For many of our students, this is the majority of the food they get during the day," Sonderegger said. "They don't have the opportunity a lot of times to go on a long summer vacation and go visit places or go to museums or have some of those great worldly experiences that a lot of other students do."

Enrollment for the summer camp was open to any Quincy Elementary students and runs through the end of June.