Summer school is up and going in what is likely its final year at Clinton Junior High School.

Principal Jim Peck indicates summer school is serving several purposes in its third year. Some of its students are trying to make up learning losses as they continue to recover from the pandemic issues while others are in summer school to do some credit recovery.

One thing the junior high continues to deal with is attendance issues. Peck explains they anticipated that being an issue getting back to school in a normal setting this year because many students got used to not having to be in class all the time.

For Peck, it's not just students that struggled during the pandemic. He believes everyone struggled and so the impacts of COVID were much more far-reaching than just students and their learning progression.

According to Peck, the responsibility for schools to be more and more involved in the raising and development of kids grows. A policy change that sent shockwaves across central Illinois was the banning of cell phones on students during school hours.

Peck says grit and resiliency were themes in the school building this year and teaching kids the skills and value of overcoming adversity. He believes that will be a bigger theme going into next year and something they expand on heading into the 2023-24 school year.