Posted Date: June 11, 2008

Grade 1-6 Students Find NSU Summer Program Rewarding

By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide

   Some of the students who have attended the Summer Scholars program in previous years at Norfolk State University have gone on to earn a spot on the honor roll at their home school in the fall.
    The trend should continue this year for students in grades 1-6 who enroll in the program, said Ebyn Brinkley, who directs the four-week summer program.
    There was a fourth-grade student with academic and emotional programs, Brinkley recalled. “She came from a rough area. She was very aggressive. I mentored her in the Summer Scholars Program. The next year in the fifth grade, she told me she made the honor roll when I saw her later. The last time I saw her she told me she wanted to be a pediatrician or a lawyer.”
   Brinkley, 24, said she began working in the program as a NSU student in 2004, starting as a class leader. The next year she became the program’s assistant director. Although she is currently a busy public school teacher, she is also a graduate student.So why does she also teach children during the summer?
   “Since I was young, I’ve always known that I wanted to be a teacher,” said Brinkley, who has worked with the program for the past four years. “I loved it when a teacher called on me. I’ve always wanted to help someone. I’ve never seen myself doing anything else.”
    The program costs $500, which includes a $75 non-refundable registration fee. It runs from June 23 to July 18 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Bozeman Education Building on campus.
    It’s a chance for students to do more than sit around the house during the summer months, playing video games or whatever. The program offers the basics, as well as math, foreign language, computer skills, conversational Spanish, drama, dance, swimming, and sports.
“It’s a fun environment,” Brinkley said. “The School of Education has so much to offer to parents and their children. We provide a quality education with quality educators.”
   “I have seen some of the students come in sort of shy at first but after a while their parents tell me they want to return the next year,” said NSU Administrative Assistant Velma Naylor, who has worked with the program for the past two years.
   “I am a fan of the summer program because the children seem to enjoy it,” Naylor continued. “The children call me the den mother. They seem to like it so well.
   “We are determined to make it succeed. We want the students to have fun and we also want them to learn. They just love it and we hope that the parents will keep bringing them back each year. They’re leaving them in good hands because taking care of children, well, that’s what we do.”

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