Summer Success

Jesuit High School’s Summer Bridge and Summer Enrichment programs are wrapping up very successful 5-week programs on Friday (July 17).

Summer Bridge, which is completing its fifth year at Jesuit, brings more than 40 middle school boys to campus daily for a power-packed day of comprehensive academic instruction mixed with an array of specialty sessions such as robotics and art.

“It has been an absolutely fantastic five weeks – it flew by,” Summer Bridge principal Michael Miller ’09 said. “We have had a dynamic group of young students engage with wonderful Jesuit teachers and Jesuit student counselors, working to significantly improve their grammar, reading, math, and problem-solving abilities – while also doing so many other interactive educational activities, making friends, and having fun.”

Along with Miller, who also is Jesuit’s Director of Community Service, Jesuit math teacher Paula Collazo is the Summer Bridge director, and Jesuit teachers April Bombka (math), Jonathan Barlaan ’07 (critical thinking - Barlaan is pictured in the homepage photo), and Rania Saade (grammar/reading) lead the instruction.

Summer Bridge students are entering 6-8^th grade this fall and are mostly from Hillsborough County public schools. The program is offered at a steeply discounted cost and also consists of P.E., cooking, art (with Jesuit fine arts department head Kevin Ball ’03), music, robotics, and videography (iMovies). The group took two field trips, to Lowry Park Zoo and the Replay Amusement Museum, and utilized programs such as Bricks 4 Kidz.

Each week of Summer Bridge featured a character-building theme: Work Hard, Respect, Humility, Integrity, and Leadership. Students stood in front of the class and spoke about what the theme of the week meant to them.

Jesuit campus minister/theology teacher Brian Greenfield addressed Summer Bridge about Humility in Christ. The students learned the Prayer for Generosity, and were exposed to other prayers. They competed in the “Question of the Day” every morning, with queries such as naming the most U.S. presidents. And they held a Summer Bridge basketball tournament and also played soccer, football, kickball, and flickerball.

Summer Enrichment, which is for incoming Jesuit freshmen, has also been very successful the past five weeks. The Summer Enrichment program is designed to improve the academic transition to Jesuit by bolstering the fundamentals and reinforcing the skills needed to succeed during freshman year.

For the second straight year, Summer Enrichment has been led by the trio of Jesuit math department head Molly Biebel, English department head Austin Freeman ’02, and English teacher Greg Malafronte ’05.

A few dozen members of the Class of 2019 got a jump on their high school academic careers through Summer Enrichment by upgrading critical English, reading, math, and study skills in preparation for the fall.