Extended School Year Program Serves More Than 1,100 Bucks County Students

ESY staff Pauline Edbrooke (left) and Kelly Housman (right) sporting their ‘In My ESY Era’ T-shirts as the program wraps up. Credit: Bucks IU

The Bucks County Intermediate Unit’s five-week Extended School Year program helped more than 1,100 students with special needs from across the region this summer.

Educators said the goal of the countywide program, which recently wrapped up for this year, is preventing a regression in students’ skills during the long summer break.

The program served students from 11 school districts and ranged from students in kindergarten to age 22.

A team of more than 540 staff members worked at six county-wide locations to provide more than 2,300 services.

Dr. Lenny Greaney, Bucks IU’s assistant to the executive director, noted the importance of the program.

“Helping students with special needs maintain their behaviors, social skills, knowledge, and hard-won abilities over the summer is so important to their continued development,” Greaney said. “When teachers don’t need to spend time reteaching skills in the fall, they can jump right into helping students grow in new ways.”

The Bucks IU’s ESY program runs for four full days each week, a schedule that Dr. Mark Hoffman, Bucks IU’s executive director, said provides consistency for students.

“Our program’s structure helps provide consistency and gives our students a schedule that feels familiar and similar to the school year,” Hoffman said.

Kelly Housman, ESY program coordinator for the past 12 years, said there is an increasing complexity of student needs.

“Over the years, our students’ needs have become more complex,” Housman said. “That means more one-on-one support, more related services, and more staff to help them stay on track with their educational goals.”

Students are eligible for ESY based on their Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting when data from previous breaks is reviewed to determine if a student is likely to lose skills and struggle to regain them.

Bucks IU officials said the program also serves staff as they can explore working in special education and related fields.

“Hearing from teachers and related service providers that they didn’t have to backtrack at the beginning of the school year and could instead dive right into helping their students advance and grow is the best reward,” said Housman.

The Bucks IU works with the county’s 13 school districts and more than 96,000 public and private school students.

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