Newcomer Students Participate in Summer Programming

The Summer Academy for Integrated Language Learning (SAILL) has been a summer program at SFUSD for over seven years. This year, about 400 students are attending the program at Balboa High School.

SAILL offers a five-week intensive English program in humanities, math, science and computer science classes and the opportunity to earn credits towards graduation for recently arrived newcomer students. One example of interdisciplinary (humanities, English and ELD) lessons the group will be observing is on the history of students' fights for educational rights in the US, including Little Rock 9 and the East LA Walkouts in 1968. 

The program also includes wellness and counseling supports for students. Teachers in the program benefit through professional development and learning best practices for serving multilingual learners at the emerging level of English language proficiency across the district.

This year’s SAILL student cohort has students who have been in US schools for less than three years. The majority are enrolled in SFUSD's high school newcomer programs at SF International, Thurgood Marshall, Mission, Galileo, and Lincoln. Some students arrived in the US as recently as this spring. 

SAILL is currently being evaluated for its impact through a Federal Education Innovation and Research Grant, and has been previously featured in research and articles in collaboration with Stanford University.

• 2021 Stanford University Research Brief
• 2018 EdWeek Article: Summer Learning for Immigrant Youth: A Model from San Francisco
• 2019 EdWeek Article: Can Summer School Help English Learner Students Succeed?

Learn more about SAILL at SFUSD on their website.