Lufkin ISD Superintendent Lynn Torres
Summertime is enrichment time at Lufkin ISD. Fun camps and activities over the summer keep students engaged and enthusiastic to learn. Our administrative team has done an outstanding job preparing to make this summer one of the best for our students.
The GEAR Up Imaginarium Camp is just one example of our students mentoring younger campers in STEM activities.
Rising sixth-graders were challenged with the world’s “unsolvable problems” and put together a showcase to demonstrate their ideas for world problems including poverty and climate change while Lufkin High School rising 11th-graders mentored. The students assembled a showcase to display their ideas to parents and community members.
Dual Language Camp was another opportunity for fun learning this summer for our Dual Language students. The camp focused on oral language in Spanish. Around 100 students from kindergarten through fifth grade attended.
The students made cultural crafts, recipes and performed traditional Spanish children’s songs. Camps like these help students maintain their Spanish vocabulary over the summer.
We are fortunate as a district to be the recipient of the 21st Century-Texas ACE grant so we can offer a summer school enrichment program for our students who participated in the afterschool program during the school year.
The students are receiving lots of instruction while enjoying fun enrichment activities like dance, fashion design, technology and basketball, to name a few. The kids benefit from being together and are enjoying this “camp style” summer school program.
Bridge camp is held every summer for our incoming Early College High School cohort of students entering the ninth grade as the Class of 2026. This is a time for them to get to know the new campus, know the expectations of the ECHS, meet the teachers who will be teaching their dual credit courses, meet their success coaches, and just make connections with other ECHS students.
During this time, these students also will take the TSIA assessment to determine their readiness to take college courses. We are excited for the opportunities that these students will have to springboard their college studies.
This year, as we have stated many times, we graduated our first cohort of ECHS students as the Class of 2022. Collectively, these students amassed more than 4,000 college credit hours while still in high school at no cost to them or their families. What a great opportunity.
It’s easy to lose ground in education during the summer, and the “summer slide” is real. Lufkin ISD is serving our students to increase their knowledge as well as their experiences.
Our staff, volunteers and administration are working hard to ensure students learn and are engaged. When our students are successful, “together we rise.”