Photo by nigelpilgrim on Flickr.

Summer isn’t just for lounging around anymore. DCPS’s kindergarten-through-8th-grade summer school program enrolled and retained more students this year than last. But many still don’t make it all the way through.

On the first day of its K-8 summer school program this year, DCPS had almost 2500 students signed up, about 60 more than last year. Attendance was up significantly as well. But by the fourth week of the 5-week program, 23% of those students had disappeared.

That’s not unusual. In fact, it’s better than last summer, when the attrition rate was about 26%. Why? Although it’s generally agreed that summer school is crucial in the effort to close the gap in achievement between rich and poor students, there’s no way to enforce attendance. DC’s truancy regulations don’t cover summer school.

DC Councilmember David Catania’s education proposals include a provision requiring summer school for students who are held back a grade. But no such requirement exists now for any K-8 student. In fact, under current regulations it’s virtually impossible to require a student to repeat a grade before high school.

Although Catania’s approach may have its problems, it’s a shame that more kids who could benefit from the program don’t attend or stay with it. That’s especially true now that DCPS’s program is getting better. This year, for the first time, the summer school curriculum was aligned to what is taught during the school year. And only teachers who were rated effective or highly effective were eligible to teach in the summer. Class size is smaller in the summer as well, averaging 17 students.

The big news is that average daily attendance jumped from 68% last year to 81%, resulting in about 300 more students per day in school. DCPS has no “stick” to enforce attendance, so the increase is likely due to the “carrot” of a higher-quality offering.

Although the results of the program will remain unclear until students take standardized tests in the fall, the Washington Post quotes one school administrator as saying that most students seem to have improved or at least retained their skills.

The program increased its enrollment despite some early confusion about who would be eligible to attend. This year DCPS decided to give priority to students it deemed most likely to benefit from summer school. As reported by the Post, that appeared to exclude some students who were struggling the most.

DCPS says that it never intended to exclude anyone. In late May, over a month before the program started, parents received a letter informing them that registration was open to all.

Several hundred students were placed on a waiting list even though some slots weren’t filled, but that’s because some of the 8 sites were full and others weren’t. Students on the waiting list were moved into slots as they became available. Overall, the program operated at 90% of its capacity, about a 10% increase over last year.

“We enrolled every student that was interested in summer school,” said DCPS spokesperson Melissa Salmanowitz.

That’s great news, but it would be greater if even more of DC’s neediest students, and their parents, could be encouraged to participate and stick with the program.

Natalie Wexler is a DC education journalist and blogger. She chairs the board of The Writing Revolution and serves on the Urban Teachers DC Regional Leadership Council, and she has been a volunteer reading and writing tutor in high-poverty DC Public Schools.