BACKGROUND: The US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) summer meal programs are designed to provide meals at no cost while school is out of session. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, several regulatory waivers were enacted to facilitate meal distribution. The aim of this study was to assess the rates of meal distribution before and after these…

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2013), more than 29 million people fall under the UNHCR's mandate, which includes "all persons outside their country of origin for reasons of feared persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or other circumstances that have seriously disturbed public order and who, as a…

Summer bridge programs are the second most common student support program in the United States. Though they vary in design, most are focused on supporting students who are at risk. Programs vary in terms of their curricular offerings as well. This study examined the ex post facto data from a summer bridge program at Manchester Community College in…

Social and cultural capital are critical components of success among college students. In this paper, we examine the creation, accumulation, and distribution of social and cultural capital by and among underserved college students who participated in a summer bridge program at one regional public state university. Using qualitative data from…

This paper reports a cross-case analysis of three summer writing programs for youth in the northeast United States, each a longitudinal study in the tradition of design research. Initially, all three programs were most concerned with leveraging cultural and linguistic diversity as a resource for multilingual participants. As the three principal…

There is a lack of consensus among school districts on how best to mitigate reading and math learning loss during the summer months. The purpose of this quasi-experimental quantitative exploration study was to determine if there was a statistically and practically significant effect of an educational program on summer learning loss in reading and…

In this article, I describe a few personal favorite contributions of Dr. Marcia Gentry, one of the most successful graduates from our doctoral program at the University of Connecticut, as well as a dear friend and collaborator. Marcia focused her life's work on the need to serve underserved and often-neglected populations in our field and…

One year after the COVID-19 pandemic forced state and school leaders across the nation and around the world to immediately close school buildings, the lasting impact on students is increasingly evident: Months of online learning and limited in-person interaction with educators, coaches and mentors have led to gaps in learning, and unknown…

Summer camp can be a setting for positive youth development, yet more understanding is needed about how camps measure youth development outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp--a medical specialty camp-- using the American Camp Association's Youth Outcomes Battery (YOB) over six years.…