With Thanksgiving Break here and Indiana’s first dusting of snow surely imminent, it may feel an odd time to bring up summer. But the quiet fact is that Indianapolis has been spearheading a summer school revolution over the past few years. And this revolution is spreading to all corners of the Hoosier state. 

Of what do I speak? Summer Learning Labs, of course, a program of the Indiana Department of Education that served nearly 9,000 Hoosier students in summer 2024, the vast majority of whom were students of color or low-income students. And I speak of it now because? Well, the state just released a new report following the program’s expansion to four new geographic regions. Academic results remained strong across the board, something that’s never a given in education when you try to scale a program. 

Other states ought to take notice. Families ought to make plans to enroll in this free or low-cost program in their community. And if your community doesn’t have a Summer Learning Lab site, start bugging leaders in your area to establish one. But before you do all of that, join me for an inside look at Summer Learning Labs’ success. (Yes, there will be data tables. Many, many data tables.)

Some Very Quick Summer Learning Labs Background

Summer Learning Labs originally launched in just Indianapolis back in 2021 with funding from the state’s Student Learning Recovery Grant. Operating as a partnership between The Mind Trust and United Way of Central Indiana, the program’s initial goal was to accelerate student learning after the pandemic while connecting students to meaningful enrichment opportunities. Multiple years of statistically significant academic growth later, the IDOE partnered with The Mind Trust to scale the program across the state through the state’s Expanding What Works grant. 

Some Very Quick 2024 Academic Results

All Summer Learning Lab students take a pre-test before the program and a post-test in the program’s final week. These bookends make it possible to gauge academic mastery and growth from where students entered to where they ended. Moreover, the tests and the curriculum used during the program are aligned to Indiana state standards. So the skills students master during Summer Learning Labs translate directly into classroom performance on grade-level standards.

I’ll dig into program-wide results post-expansion in a section below. For now, here’s a snapshot of this year’s results:

• Summer Learning Lab students saw a 26 percentage point increase in ELA proficiency and a 24 percentage point increase in math proficiency.
• For Black students, the gains were 25 percentage points in ELA and 24 in math. Latino students experienced gains of 28 percentage points in ELA and 27 in math.

Okay, those numbers are pretty abstract. I get it. So here’s an example. Let’s consider a random student. Let’s call this student Kevin. Let’s say Kevin takes the pre-test and scores a 50% in ELA and a 62% in math. On a traditional grading scale, Kevin isn’t doing so hot. He’s got an F and a D. Chances are Kevin has not mastered all the standards from the grade level he’s ostensibly just completed.

But five weeks later, Kevin takes the post test. Now he scores a 76% in ELA and an 86% in math. That’s a C and a B! Remarkable progress in a short span of time. How? Something that I think is key to the Summer Learning Lab design is that the curriculum is accelerated, not remedial like the summer school of most people’s imaginations. 

What does that mean? So glad you asked. Let’s stick with Kevin for a moment. Let’s say Kevin just finished the 4^th grade and is entering 5^th grade when summer ends. Let’s also say that Kevin’s pre-test indicated he’s at roughly a 3^rd grade level in both reading and math. He’s about a whole school year behind in terms of academic know-how.

Remedial programs would put 3^rd grade material in front of Kevin, essentially reteaching the same skills he’s already been taught but not yet mastered. Accelerated learning, on the other hand, delivers content that is at Kevin’s actual grade level but provides the support necessary for Kevin to meaningfully engage with the material. Now, that’s certainly an oversimplification of what’s going on between the remediation and accelerated learning approaches. But hopefully you get the idea.

From an Indianapolis Program to a Statewide Program

Meet Alli Vanneman. Alli is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at The Mind Trust. Why I am introducing her? Well, for the first three years of its existence, the Summer Learning Labs were purely an Indianapolis program. But they went statewide in 2024 and it’s not overstating things to say that Vanneman was the straw that stirred the drink (if you’ll excuse the obscure baseball reference).  

“The anchor partners we had in each region were key to the expansion’s success,” Vanneman noted. Think of an anchor partner as, well, an anchor. They hold things together in their region, help coordinate different individual sites, ensure sites have the materials and curriculum they need, connect sites to enrichment opportunities, etc. The Mind Trust plays that role for the Indianapolis program. Here’s the other anchor partners and the communities where they supported Summer Learning Lab sites in 2024:

• Boys & Girls Clubs of the Northern Indiana Corridor (serving Huntington, Logansport, Mishawaka, Monticello, Seymour, South Bend, and Walkerton)
• Urban League of Northwest Indiana and DHB & Associates (serving Gary, Merrillville, East Chicago, and Hobart)
• Creating Avenues for Student Transformation (serving Salem and New Pekin)
• Wabash County YMCA (serving Wabash and North Manchester)

“The people leading the work in these four regions were phenomenal,” Vanneman said. “Each partner is very unique. Yet each had impressive community support and buy-in behind them. Partners exemplified flexibility and adaptability to make the most of this opportunity for kids in their area. Notably, all of them had great relationships with local school districts in their region and were able to leverage different resources available in their communities to make this program work for kids.”

In our conversation, Vanneman emphasized the importance of a “variety of stakeholders” as to why this program is successful. Think of it as a four layer cake (my metaphor, not hers, which I specify because it’s crude, not because I don’t think Vanneman has good metaphors up her sleeve). The bottom layer is the state (the funding mechanism). The second layer is The Mind Trust as the key operational nonprofit partner. The third layer is the other anchor partners for their specific regions. And the fourth layer (you better believe this layer has all kinds of sprinkles and piped flowers and candles) is all the different individual site partners and enrichment partners and other supporters who bring a piece of this intricate puzzle to the table. The cake is tasty. Which in this circumstance means the end result is great outcomes for kids. Thousands of them. In all corners of the state.

When I asked for a highlight regarding the different anchor partners, Vanneman couldn’t come up with one. She came up with four, one for each partner. 

• Boys & Girls Clubs of the Northern Indiana Corridor: “It is so cool that they partnered with clubs far outside of South Bend, even as far away as Seymour and Huntington. Their willingness to work across a much wider geographic spread brought this opportunity to many more students.”
• Urban League of Northwest Indiana and DHB & Associates: “I’ve been blown away by the community enthusiasm and the number of organizations and partners who stepped forward to be part of the program in this region. It was amazing to see Northwest Indiana rally around this and come together to create a great opportunity for kids that ultimately achieved great results.”
• Creating Avenues for Student Transformation (CAST): “This was by far the smallest program, but that hardly limited what they were able to achieve in their rural community. They had a great team of teachers, many of whom already work together in their local schools. And they did a great job pulling together resources from the community in an area where there aren’t really other summer programming options available for kids.”
• Wabash County YMCA: “They’re a similar story to CAST in terms of maximizing the resources available in a smaller community. They’ve rallied multiple school districts together to partner and make this a possibility for kids in their area.”

Oh, also? Kids get to have fun. Everything from a professional magic show to cooking classes to dance to volunteer opportunities to a fishing trip to visiting a local farm. Vanneman shared, “What we’ve seen to be true is that these fun activities keep kids coming back day to day, week to week, and summer to summer. This is a really impactful program academically, we see that in the results. But these kids also get opportunities they wouldn’t normally have through the enrichment the different sites offer. And it’s all part of a program that is either completely free or low-cost to families.”

Summer Learning Labs Program-Wide Academic Results

I promised data tables. And so now it’s time for data tables rounding up results from across the different programmatic regions. Remember, the vast majority of students who attend Summer Learning Labs are either students of color or low-income students. 

For the sake of brevity, I’m including just overall results for each region for both ELA and math. But if you want to see results broken down by student group (Black, Latino, White, low-income, and English language learner), you can find those results for each region starting on page 16 in the report. I’ll spoil any surprise by noting the results are just as strong as the overall outcomes for each region. That said, go read the report (right after you finish this article, anyway).

One last note on what’s presented. The percentages represent the ratio of students who tested as “basic” or “proficient”, with the table showing the pre-test results, the post-test results, and the percentage point gain.

Without further ado, data away. 

Indy Summer Learning Labs (Anchor Partner: The Mind Trust)

	Pre-Test % of Students Scoring Basic or Proficient	Post-Test % of Students Scoring Basic or Proficient	Percentage Point Gain
ELA	32%	57.7%	25.7
Math	40.9%	65.2%	24.3

BGC Summer Learning Labs (Anchor Partner: Boys and Girls Clubs of Northern Indiana Corridor)

	Pre-Test % of Students Scoring Basic or Proficient	Post-Test % of Students Scoring Basic or Proficient	Percentage Point Gain
ELA	31.1%	57.2%	26.1
Math	46.9%	67.2%	20.3

Northwest Summer Learning Labs (Anchor Partner: Urban League of Northwest Indiana and DHB & Associates)

	Pre-Test % of Students Scoring Basic or Proficient	Post-Test % of Students Scoring Basic or Proficient	Percentage Point Gain
ELA	24.4%	56.8%	32.4
Math	35.5%	66%	30.5

Southeast Summer Learning Labs (Anchor Partner: Creating Avenues for Student Transformation)

	Pre-Test % of Students Scoring Basic or Proficient	Post-Test % of Students Scoring Basic or Proficient	Percentage Point Gain
ELA	21.4%	76.2%	54.8
Math	48%	92%	44

Wabash Summer Learning Labs (Anchor Partner: Wabash County YMCA)

	Pre-Test % of Students Scoring Basic or Proficient	Post-Test % of Students Scoring Basic or Proficient	Percentage Point Gain
ELA	31.1%	57.2%	26.1
Math	46.9%	67.1%	20.2

Something I hope you noticed in scanning these data charts is just how consistently strong the results are from region to region. The past three years proved this model works in Indianapolis. There was no guarantee it would work when scaled outside Indianapolis. But it did. Even better, it’s clearly working in very different types of communities. For instance, Wabash and Salem are quite different from Indianapolis or Gary or South Bend. It’s working in urban centers. It’s working in mid-sized cities. And it’s working in rural areas.

Here’s Vanneman again to close things out: “There is a lot of demand around the state for this program. All current regions intend to continue Summer Learning Labs in future years, with many hoping to expand the number of students they serve. There are also many new regions applying who hope to bring this program to their communities. We hope the Indiana legislature will see these results and continue to invest in something that is proven to work so we can continue providing this game-changing opportunity to as many students as possible across the state.”