Oak Park Education Foundation has announced that for the summer of 2023, it will not be offering any acceleration programs.

OPEF has been operating summer school programs at the Oak Park High School campus since 2010, when state budget cuts no longer allowed for summer school to be offered at no cost. OPEF summer school allowed students to be able to take classes during the summer, either for remediation or credit, however, students have had to pay for each course they enrolled in.

In Dec. 2022, OPEF was informed by the California Department of Education that if public schools in California choose to offer summer school classes, they must do so without any fees to students and parents.

“A longstanding opinion of the Attorney General states that a school may not charge a fee for attendance in summer school,” wrote the CDE on their Fiscal Management Advisory. 

Along with this recent law, a lawsuit had been filed against schools in California for violating summer school policy. 

“In addition, a lawsuit has been filed against the State of California, the State Board of Education, the State Department of Education and Tony Thurmond, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, regarding summer schools that violate the right to free public education. We want to assure you that neither OPUSD nor any of our schools or affiliated organizations have been named as a defendant in this lawsuit,” Oak Park Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Jeff Davis wrote in a Student Square post. 

What does this mean for students? 

Students that have earned a letter grade of a D or F in a class that need to enroll in remedial classes during the summer can still do so, however, they should discuss this with their counselors beforehand. Students hoping to take a summer school class for acceleration can do so at many outside programs in order to earn credits for the class that will transfer to their high school transcript. Students can enroll in Geometry during the summer at no cost at OPHS for both remediation and acceleration.

Visit this Student Square post for more information.