School districts across North Carolina are cutting back on summer school - or eliminating it altogether - to save money in difficult economic times.
The result will be that an academic lifeline for many struggling students will no longer be available.
Schools in Durham, Johnson and Mecklenburg counties, for example, are trimming their summer sessions. Some districts, such as Hoke County, are canceling summer school.
Minnie Forte-Brown, chairwoman of the Durham County school board, says cutting back the county's summer classes will help save jobs.
"It will help us keep more teachers employed," she said. "We're trying to protect the classroom as much as we can."
The state doesn't require school districts to offer summer school - Wake has it only for high school students, and Hoke does not have a long summer school tradition - so there's no official count of which districts are dropping summer classes.
But state associations for school boards and school administrators have seen a sharp uptick in districts planning to limit or eliminate them.
Of 35 districts that answered an informal query from the N.C. School Boards Association, more than two-thirds said they planned to cut or limit summer school.
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