One District’s Story of the Potential Impact of the Opportunity Index for Students from low-Income Backgrounds 

By Dr. Jeffrey J. Thoenes, Superintendent 

Comstock Public Schools (CPS), an urban school district in Kalamazoo, Michigan, is in the midst of a turnaround. Through a combination of innovative programming, an indomitable spirit, and the support of a progressive and visionary Board of Education, all grades K-8, except one, experienced academic growth above national norms in both reading and math during the 2023-24 school year and as measured by the NWEA.  

While there are many reasons for this turnaround, our District’s Summer Success Camp is a prime example of how the Opportunity Index funding could fund a proven District initiative. 

First some background: Our district serves an ethnically diverse population of approximately 2,000 students and annually averages a free-and-reduced-lunch rate of between 80% and 85%. CPS also serves the highest proportion of students in the county with special needs (IEPs) at 19% or approximately 380 students. In addition, students who fit the federal definition of homeless are the highest in Kalamazoo County. Comstock Early Learning Academy and Comstock Elementary School, the District’s preschool and elementary school, have a staggering 20% and 18% homeless rate, respectively.  

For these and other reasons, student academic achievement is generally lower when compared to other, more affluent districts in Kalamazoo County and southwest Michigan.  

To complicate the matter, despite the best efforts of the Board of Education, Superintendent team, and staff, the COVID-19 pandemic and the social isolation it caused severely and detrimentally impacted the district’s students. Some families and students adapted well to virtual instruction, but the general trend in Comstock aligned with the post-pandemic research regarding the impact of the pandemic on impoverished communities of color – student achievement, academic growth, and learning all experienced delays. Attendance rates dropped, engagement suffered, and learning was stilted.  

Yet Comstock’s staff, administration, Board of Education, parents and community would not settle for these results. Working together – and using federal funding specifically designed to support students from low-income backgrounds — CPS designed programming and supports that have demonstrated how investments in students from low-income families can make a real a difference and improve outcomes. 

Using federal ESSER funding sources, the District began offering an annual in-person “Summer Success Camp” in June 2021 after health conditions allowed face-to-face instruction to resume. This six-week summer program runs five days a week, is free of charge, includes breakfast and lunch, and transportation to and from school. SSC takes place in our newly renovated Comstock Elementary School, which is air-conditioned, providing an attractive and comfortable location for the program.  

An examination of Summer Success Camp’s results indicates that students who attend SSC do not experience the “summer slide” or loss of learning generally associated with summer, allowing them to start ready to learn new material in the fall. 

When ESSER funds were no longer available in 2024, and seeing the positive results achieved by the program in 2021, 2022, and 2023, the Board decided to continue funding SSC from various at-risk funding sources and grants, even though the State of Michigan does not officially provide funding for summer school. This year’s SSC will be funded through 23g “Kids Back on Track.” The District did not want to resume the older, abandoned model of families paying for summer school. Previously that model resulted in no summer programming because families could not afford the tuition or the time and expense of transporting their children to and from summer school. 

But we have hope that this valuable and proven model to support students can continue.  

 If the State were to fund schools according to the Opportunity Index, which drives additional dollars to districts based on the concentrated poverty on their districts, Comstock could continue this program indefinitely using these dollars rather than relying on uncertain funding streams or competitive grants. Reliable and predictable funding for Summer Success Camp could ensure increased academic growth for our students for years to come.