WORCESTER, Mass. - Worcester Public Schools released its students for the summer this week, ending a year with many changes and challenges.

Superintendent Maureen Binienda says there’s a concern there will be learning gaps since schools moved from remote, to hybrid and then to in-person during the year.

Worcester is planning ahead in hopes of filling those gaps. School held testing up until the last day of classes and the superintendent says areas of concern include reading skills in elementary school students. Binienda says they’re planning for extensive after school programming in the fall, and hope to have specialists ready to help kids in kindergarten.

"These are elementary teachers who are experts in teaching early literacy both in the areas of English and Math," said Binienda. "Focusing in on how do we assess the kids, look at the gaps or skills there missing, give them really focused instruction in those areas and then get them back into the regular first grade to access the regular curriculum at the same time." 

Binienda says they will be assessing students person to person starting with kids in summer school. So far, there are 750 students enrolled in summer school.