UPA offers a Summer Bridge program for the new seventh graders and an online summer school program for students to make up any classes they failed.

English teacher Edward Voss teaches English 8 and English 9 during the school year. In the summer, Voss previously taught English and math in the Summer Bridge program. He also ran online classes on a platform called Edgenuity during summer school for high schoolers, so they could make up classes they did not pass during the academic school year.

Summer Bridge is only available for seventh-graders, and it is meant to introduce incoming seventh graders to UPA and give them a head start in the math and English classes they will be taking that school year. Summer Bridge does not allow incoming seventh-graders skip a grade level in math or English. Instead, it lets them practice academic skills and get a head start on the content they will learn beginning in the fall.

“Summer Bridge is a great experience for the 7th grade students coming to UPA,” Voss said.  “They don’t have any familiarity with the teachers or campus so this is a nice chance for them to work together in a low stress environment and make some friends.”

Junior Paloma Garcia-Carrasco was a part of the UPA Summer Bridge program when she was an incoming seventh grader in 2018. 

“[Summer Bridge] was a pretty fun experience,” Garcia said. “I got to meet a lot of my friends and I got to experience and get used to the UPA campus before I started school.”

She learned math and English during the class periods and meeting new friends during break and lunch.

There are only two classes and two teachers—who vary year to year—in the Summer Bridge program. A typical day starts at 8:30 a.m. with a two-hour math or English class. Then, students take a 15 minute break and switch to the other subject and have another block period for two hours with the day ending around 12:45 p.m. 

When teaching Summer Bridge, Voss receives the English curriculum from English teacher Claire Ballard and the math curriculum from Math teacher Nicole Sebek to administer the Summer Bridge program.

But on the contrary, the summer school classes that the highschoolers take-except for math and English which are taught by teachers-are self-paced. Students arrive on campus to work on assignments for around four hours. Both summer school and Summer Bridge are only Monday through Thursday.

For summer school, some classes are administered on Edgenuity while some classes are taught by teachers in person. Edgenuity is an online learning platform that UPA uses for students to make up credits in their courses 

“If a student fails science or history or any other class, they’re going to need to make it up on Edgenuity,”  Director of Alumni Outreach and Support Andrew Yau said.

Summer school for high schoolers lasts six weeks, and since non-English and math classes are self paced, a student can retake another course as long as there is time left in the summer school period after they finish work for one class.

Math teacher August Siu taught the Summer Bridge program and Integrated Mathematics for all grade levels during the summer. 

Siu structures the summer school curriculum differently for different grade levels.For  incoming sophomores, juniors, and seniors, she helps them make up any missed or failed assignments from the school year. But for any incoming eighth and ninth graders, Siu structures a curriculum of everything taught during the school year. She helps her students understand the important parts of each unit within a week and at the end of the week, she will give her students a quiz.

Siu structures the curriculum  differently because the incoming eighth and ninth graders failed a middle school class and do not need to make up any graduation credits. But when it comes to the rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors who failed a course, they are missing out on credits needed for graduation. Siu tries to help them with any assignments they failed so she can help them pass their class.

“It is also possible for students [to fail summer school],” Sui said. “That happens if students aren’t coming to school or just not doing well in summer school. Then, the chances are that they won’t be passing that class, and they’ll just be retaking it during the next school year.”