We’ve spent over a decade turning that principle into results, with family participation above 89% nationwide.
New data from the 2025 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) found that students whose families ask about their schoolwork on a weekly basis scored about 35 points higher on the assessment’s science test, once researchers adjusted for socioeconomic factors. That gap is equivalent to more than 18 months of learning. The finding came alongside a broader trend: parental interest in children’s education declined in nearly every country measured since 2022. Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s director of education, said the pattern he’s watching is that parents increasingly “see themselves more as a client of the school, not as someone who takes personal interest.”
In the U.S., 74% of students met the reading baseline this year, the lowest share since the early 2000s. In math, 65% of students met the baseline, roughly matching the OECD average.
That correlation, between family involvement and student performance, is the premise Springboard Collaborative has built its work around since 2012. Family participation in Springboard’s programs exceeds 89% nationwide.
One Oakland parent recently told Springboard what she’s planning to try next: turning on closed captions during family movie nights, so she and her daughter can practice reading the words together. She picked up the idea at a Family Workshop this summer, one of the small habits Springboard’s decade-long partnership with Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) is built to create.
A decade in Oakland
That partnership started in 2015 at two schools with 257 students. It has grown since then to more than 50 schools and 11,876 students, in a district where four in five students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and nearly a third are multilingual learners.
The program looked different in its early years than it does today. “Before, four weeks was the standard,” said Julie McCalmont, OUSD’s coordinator of summer learning programs, “but that wasn’t enough to produce measurable growth or fight summer slide.” Those earlier models also focused mostly on students, with limited roles for families. “It wasn’t just about getting students ready,” McCalmont said. “It was about getting families ready to enter and navigate the school system, too.”
What changed
Springboard advocated for extending the program from four weeks to five, and OUSD adopted the longer model after seeing its effect on student outcomes. The district also reduced its student-to-teacher ratio during summer programming from 20:1 to 15:1, a change Springboard recommended that OUSD later built into its own budgeting and planning.
When OUSD adopted SIPPS as its foundational literacy curriculum in 2022, Springboard integrated the same curriculum into its out-of-school-time programming, and began administering DIBELS 8th assessments the following year to track student progress. “We wanted summer learning to feed directly into the school year,” McCalmont said, “and Springboard pivoted with us.”
Family involvement runs through the model at every level: Team-Building Huddles, one-on-one or small-group home visits, and Family Workshops offered in multiple languages. “Using familiar tools during the summer helps students work toward growth more quickly, because they’re already accustomed to the routines and expectations,” said Casey Beckner, OUSD’s summer school principal. One OUSD teacher described the effect this way: “I particularly enjoyed interacting with parents at the Family Workshops. Their mere presence motivated their children to continue working hard to become better readers.”
[Springboard is] part of everything, from planning and hiring to final data evaluation. Not just a vendor, but a true implementation partner. They've done a really great job of listening to school districts and meeting their needs.
Julie McCalmont, OUSD's coordinator of summer learning programs
The results
Attendance at Team-Building Huddles rose from 60% of families in 2015 to 96% in 2025. Family Workshop attendance, after a pandemic-era dip, reached 94% in 2025. The share of students meeting their growth goals climbed from 58% in 2018 to 78% in 2025.
Year over year, Springboard students in OUSD gained 1.1 months of reading growth in Summer 2022, 4.9 months in Summer 2023, 4.8 months in Summer 2024, and 3.9 months in Summer 2025. Oral reading fluency gains averaged two to three months over the same period, and up to 96% of students increased their reading proficiency in a single summer.
Teachers report a similar trend. In 2025, 84% agreed that “Springboard helped me develop as a teacher/leader,” up from 72% in 2023, and 81% said they had the training and information they needed to do their job well. “Knowing that our early literacy tutors are so well trained is a huge weight off my mental load,” Beckner said. “It means our students get high-quality phonics instruction during the school year and continue to get that same quality instruction during the summer.”
What a decade of partnership changes
McCalmont said the model has reshaped how OUSD evaluates summer learning generally, not only its work with Springboard: “Springboard Collaborative’s model has now become the standard by which we judge other summer programs. There are certain pillars of summer design that we evaluate all programs against: pre- and post-assessments, learning goals, family involvement, and small-group instruction that is differentiated.”
Beckner described the partnership’s durability in similar terms: “Because it’s been such a long-standing partnership, it works very organically and authentically. Students experience consistency across settings, and Springboard has found a way to provide systems and structures that support districts in implementing the curriculum they’ve adopted.”
Districts and school leaders looking to build that kind of partnership can learn more about Springboard’s Family Learning Series.