For the first time in Flint, a Math Corps Summer Camp is being held at David M. French Hall, run by Carman-Ainsworth High School in partnership with the University of Michigan-Flint. The program runs for four weeks, from July 20 to Aug. 7, and teaches math skills to middle school students while providing leadership opportunities for high schoolers and college students.
Wayne State University started the first Math Corps Summer Camp in 1991. The program — originally held for six weeks — was designed for Detroit public school students to gain both leadership skills and new math skills, and to strengthen math test scores.
The Flint program has kept their design by having college interns from UM-Flint train teaching assistants and high schoolers from CAHS to serve as role models and instructors for middle school-aged students.
Assistant Superintendent of Carman-Ainsworth Community Schools, Adrienne Nathan, said that the partnership with UM-Flint was based on providing Flint students with exposure to college life.
“One of the pillars for Math Corps is that students have access and exposure to college life,” Nathan said. “UM-Flint is the premier college in the area; we have a lot of alumni, so this was our first choice on where to bring Math Corps.”
The high school students serve as mentors for small groups of seventh and eighth-grade students. They learn the curriculum before summer camp starts and are then tasked with helping teach it to the middle school students.
The program is split into teams of seventh and eighth-graders from Carman-Ainsworth Middle School, which the teacher’s assistants then lead.
Janelle DeClerg, a high school math teacher at CAHS, said that while math skills are the focus, the program also helps develop social skills for all grade levels.
“On top of math skills, I think it does help them develop social skills. With, specifically, the setup of our teams,” DeClerg said. “I think the high schoolers help the middle schoolers to develop socially in a positive way, and the college kids can be role models for the high schoolers.”
The program is free for all who are enrolled in CAMS. The program runs for four weeks at UM-Flint, Monday through Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Each day starts with a breakfast provided for the students, followed by an assembly with Nathan. After assembly, the kids are broken up into seventh and eighth-grade groups, where they each hold 45-minute to hour-long classes. After those classes, lunch is provided, followed by more classes and a closing assembly.
Declerg said that this program has been needed in Flint for a long time, and that she hopes it continues far into the future.
“I think that now is just the start. I think that Flint has probably needed something like this for a while,” Declerg said. “I think if you look at the structure of Detroit’s (program), and why they started in Detroit, the reasons are the same. I hope that this program keeps running in Flint for a long time.”
Maxwell Loxton is a writer for the Michigan Times he can be reached at mloxton@umich.edu.
