CRADLE BEACH
Summer learning opportunity thrives at camp for less fortunate youngsters
On Thursday, Cradle Beach was in turnover mode; one group of 157 kids just left after 10 days of fun with another 140 set to arrive Saturday.
This summer, a major focus of the camp is National Summer Learning Day, an initiative that will benefit about 800 economically disadvantaged and special needs children attending the Angola camp.
Timothy Boling, Cradle Beach’s chief executive officer, said that as a part of National Summer Learning Day, the camp — with the participation from the United Way and the Emerging Leaders Society—is offering underprivileged children summer learning opportunities.
“During the summer, there’s a disturbing trend that children of high-and middle-income families move forward because they have summer learning opportunities, but that those from low-income families fall behind,” Boling said Thursday, in the camp’s Jim Kelly House.
He added that while all youngsters lose some information during the summer months, when more time is spent on leisure activities, children of low-income families have fewer options for learning.
Research conducted at Johns Hopkins University shows that by the ninth grade, low-income children can be as much as two years behind because of a lack of learning opportunities during the summer. He said this is directly related to poor graduation rates among children of lower-income families.
“Missing or unequal summer learning opportunities are the number one reason for low-income students not to graduate from high school, especially in Buffalo, where the graduation rate is around 52 percent,” Boling said.
Cradle Beach is working to provide children with the chance to learn while they’re at camp.
Campers get hands-on learning experiences through their choice of 16 different programs geared toward providing fun summer-learning opportunities.
“For example, we have a culinary program,” Boling said. “It’s a fun way to show students fractions and percentages and weight measurements. It’s interactive learning, and we’re preventing that summer slide” into losing information learned during the school year.
Boling also noted that many campers don’t strictly fall into one category. Many children with special needs also come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“The strictly special needs population, their needs are totally different. There, we focus on socialization and independence. But with children from disadvantaged backgrounds, our goal is to help kids start building toward graduation, not in ninth or tenth grade, but in fourth or fifth grade,” he said.
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