Maxwell Tauchnitz, 13, wants to be an engineer when he grows up. He’s not sure whether he’s going to specialize in aerospace or mechanical engineering, but he thinks he wants to go to MIT.
Although he’s only going into the eighth grade at Webb Middle School in Town ‘N Country, Maxwell is already preparing through the Berkeley Academy. It’s a free, six-year program run by Tampa’s private Berkeley Preparatory School that offers summer enrichment and college resources to low-income students in Tampa Bay.
Around 40 rising seventh graders have joined Berkeley Academy every year since the program started in 2016. To participate, students must qualify for free or reduced lunch. Director Kim Lawless, who runs and helped found the program, estimates the school spends around $20,000 on each student over the six years.
The goal, Lawless said, is to make learning enjoyable and accessible for the students who need it the most.
“We definitely want to stop summer learning loss and that slide back,” Lawless said. “We also want to ignite, or continue to promote a love of learning. We want learning to be fun, because learning is fun, right?”
What keeps kids coming back
Students from lower income communities benefit the most from summer learning programs, national studies show.
The most effective summer learning programs are at least five weeks long and have consistent attendance, said Catherine Augustine, a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit think tank. She said after two years of consecutive participation, kids start outperforming their comparison groups.
The Berkeley Academy has a 90% summer attendance rate and 80% retention rate over six years.
This is partially because of the benefits the program provides outside of academics, which Augustine said can attract students and keep them coming back.
Berkeley Academy offers eye exams, swim lessons and “brain food bags” with snacks and nonperishable food items.
Pablo Alvarez, principal of Tampa’s Pierce Middle School, was skeptical of Berkeley Academy at first. He thought it was another program that would last a year and then disappear.
But now, he says it provides invaluable support and mentorship to his students. Pierce’s entire student body is economically disadvantaged, according to the school’s most recent report card from the Florida Department of Education.
“We take everything we can get for free,” Alvarez said said. “Anything we can get for our students.”
Giving kids a fun start
Berkeley works with the Hillsborough school district to identify the skills students need to work on.
This summer, Maxwell spent six weeks taking science, math, reading, history and elective classes at Berkeley.
He’s always been fascinated by jets, rockets and other types of engines. But the first time he thought about science as a career was last summer in a Berkeley physics class, learning about forces through an egg drop project.
“I was like, wow, physics is actually really fun,” he said.
One recent afternoon in a Berkeley science class, instead of sitting in a classroom, Maxwell crouched on a carpeted hallway, staring at colored chunks of code on a laptop screen.
His class had spent the past few days working in pairs to direct a Lego SPIKE robot to move through a duct-tape maze and pick up a block. But he was getting frustrated because while his robot was following most of the commands, it kept missing the block by a few inches.
Maxwell changed the angle of the robot’s turn by 2 degrees. He lowered the robot’s speed. Then, he pressed start and held his breath as the robot wheeled straight towards the block, picking it up, then immediately dropping it.
Maxwell cheered and punched his fist in the air.
“It worked!” he exclaimed. “Kind of!”
Then, the bell rang, and he packed up his things. He’d figure the rest out the next day.
The final step: college
Once they’re in high school, students receive tutoring, SAT/ACT prep and information about applying to college.
The first time Ana Karla Porra Paz visited a college campus was through Berkeley Academy, when they took a field trip to the University of South Florida.
“It’s like a whole city in here,” she remembers thinking, surprised that there was a church, a Publix and dining halls.
Now, Porra Paz, 20, is in her third year at USF, and is on track to graduate in December with a degree in political science. She got into 12 of the 13 schools she applied to and received scholarships that, with financial aid, covers all her tuition and expenses.
Porra Paz’s family immigrated from Cuba when she was 7 years old. Her parents didn’t go to college, so they relied on Berkeley resources to help them through the process.
“They give you so much information about college and every teacher knows your name,” she said. “Everyone knows who you are and everyone tries to push you to be a better person.”
At a recent college fair Berkeley hosted, Van Hoang, 17, sat slouched in a classroom over a pile of college brochures: Eckerd College, the University of Florida, USF St. Petersburg. Van, a rising senior at Alonso High who wants to go into software engineering, felt overwhelmed.
He perked up as a USF Tampa representative spoke about different ways to become a student, like attending community college and then transferring, or working for a few years before going to school. A large percentage of USF Tampa students are transfers, coming from a state or community college, the representative told them.
Van nodded, leaned forward, started to pay more attention. He raised his hand.
“Regarding internships with engineering, are there any companies or organizations that are closely partnered with USF?” he asked.
The representative told him about clubs he could join, and internships he could look at during his junior and senior year.
“I’ll give you my card,” he said.
Van took it.
