INWOOD — An Uptown charter school is trying to raise $30,000 through an online campaign to provide a free summer camp to its middle and high school students.
The Inwood Academy for Leadership currently serves almost 600 students in the fifth through ninth grades. This summer marks the school’s second year providing a camp, but it is the charter's first attempt to use crowdsourcing to fund the program.
The Crowdrise campaign has raised $1,576 since it launched earlier this month.
The school launched the camp, which served about 200 students last summer, in part to combat the academic slide that many students experience during the summer months.
“We know lack of engagement during July and August contributes to students experiencing a summer learning slide as well as increasing their chances of engaging in at-risk behaviors,” said Christina Reyes, co-founder and executive director of Inwood Academy, in a statement.
About 83 percent of the school’s students qualify for free lunch, and many students are under-performing academically when they arrive, charter officials said. Only 14 of the 110 students in its most recent fifth-grade class could read at grade level, and only eight were proficient at doing math, the school said.
In addition, traditional summer camps are financially out of reach for most of the school’s students, the Inwood Academy said.
The summer camp will operate from July 20 through August 14 in weeklong sessions. While at camp, students have the opportunity to explore dance, visual arts, sports and woodworking. They also go on field trips to places such as the MoMA, Central Park and local institutions.
“We really feel that experiential learning is a really important part of what we do at Inwood Academy, and the summer camp pretty much 100 percent is learning through experiences,” said Denise Canniff, the school’s development director.
A $20 donation covers the cost of one day at camp for one child, which includes breakfast and lunch, the school said.
The school is hoping to raise $30,000 by the time the campaign closes on July 19.
