More Oregon children will get summer learning opportunities as state officials announced more funding Thursday. However, a number of school districts that had been shut out of grant money in the initial round of funding remain without state support, and may be unable to run programs after the school year ends next month.
Summer programs in the Douglas County, Hermiston, Bethel and Corbett school districts just found out they have state funding for 2026.
The Oregon Department of Education announced Thursday that the state can award Summer Learning grants to the four districts using “unspent resources from the prior biennium.”
“I want as many children as possible to access these incredible programs,” said Gov. Tina Kotek in a press release from ODE.
“Thanks to careful budgeting from all parties, we will be able to provide summer learning opportunities to more children than ever.”
FILE — The Corbett School District one of four school districts to receive summer learning funding Thursday, May 7, 2026. Corbett is a small school district at the eastern edge of Multnomah County, pictured in June 2020.
Elizabeth Miller / OPB
According to ODE, summer learning funds allocated for summer 2025 were not all spent. As a result, Douglas County School District in Southern Oregon will receive $999,216, the Hermiston School District in Eastern Oregon will receive $1 million, the Bethel School District near Eugene will receive $900,000, and the Corbett School District in east Multnomah County will receive $257,838.
These four join the 106 education institutions previously awarded summer learning money for the next three years. Research on summer learning shows mixed results when it comes to student outcomes, but some studies have found such programs have a positive impact on low-income students, especially in language arts. One of Oregon’s major goals of summer learning is to improve “academic learning with a primary focus on literacy.”
Since 2021, state leaders have appropriated funding to summer learning programs across Oregon. Initially, summer educational opportunities were provided to make up for learning losses during COVID-19 school closures, pandemic-era distance learning and the challenging recovery period that followed. Year after year, school districts began asking for financial support from the state until the Oregon legislature approved a plan to offer consistent summer learning money in 2025.
This year, the state offered funds through a competitive grant process “emphasizing student need and program quality.”
ODE said this year’s summer programs will support 35,000 students, an increase from last year.
“By leveraging available resources, we are able to increase access for more students now while continuing to build toward broader access statewide,” said ODE director Charlene Williams in a press release announcing the new district awards.
But 33 school districts, education service districts, and charter schools who requested support did not receive it, including three school districts in east Multnomah County. According to the state’s rankings, Gresham-Barlow School District is next on the list to receive funds if there is more to be awarded. Parkrose and Reynolds, two other school districts that say they may not be able to offer programming this year without state funds, are lower on the list.
In a Thursday afternoon message to ODE officials, Reynolds Superintendent Frank Caropelo said the new funding could have been split among districts who didn’t receive any funding, including Reynolds.
“This decision is unfortunate,” Caropelo wrote of the new grants awarded.
The grants were awarded based on a process that evaluated both a district’s plan for programming and the amount of need a community has, calculated as a district’s “priority points”. Priority points were awarded based on student proficiency in English, students experiencing poverty, the size of a district and whether a district is rural.
The maximum “priority point” scores given to a district or other educational entity was 50 points. Parkrose, Gresham-Barlow, and Reynolds all had scores below 20. Two neighboring school districts with similar demographics, Centennial and David Douglas, received summer funds despite having similarly low “priority point” scores. That suggests the funded districts received more points for their program plans, including implementation, enrichment offerings and academic goals.
ODE officials said if there are more funds available, it “plans to ask for unspent funds if necessary to support additional districts and students.”
