DES MOINES, Iowa — Summer school looks different this year at Des Moines Public Schools.
Normally, their program only has a few hundred students. This year there are over 3,000 students working to redo courses or fill learning gaps caused by COVID-19 interrupting the school year.
Staffing and resources for the expanded summer school was made possible by extra federal coronavirus relief funding.
One of the over 3,000 students retaking courses is senior Shailyn Clark.
"The ones I'm doing right now [are] history, econ and then math. Then I'll be done," Clark said.
Mimi Willoughby, the academic pathways supervisor at DMPS, said part of the reason why their summer school is so big this year is how the impacted students' learning
"So what we did instead of issuing failing grades, we gave students incomplete grades and allowed them the opportunity to come to finish them in person during summer school," Willoughby said.
"There was more like [restrictions] to it, like you couldn't do as much at home versus being in school," Clark said. "Like you couldn't ask certain questions and get the help from the teachers you need because it's over the computer."
To make sure students are able to complete their incomplete courses, the summer school teachers are working more in-person with students to make sure each has a personalized learning plan.
"Sometimes that means working one on one with the students," said Edward Moody, a DMPS summer school math instructor. "It's really not about the grade at the end, it's about what skills you're going to teach me what skills. I'm going to teach them for them to be prepared for the next level."
Clark said her personalized plan is working and moving her towards completing all of the credits so she can "graduate and go onto the next steps in life."
By the end of the second week of DMPS summer school, Willoughby says over 400 incomplete classes had been completed.
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