Summer Bridge

College access

Exposes bridge cohorts to STEM and creative-industry careers before the semester starts, produces recruitment-ready video content, and increases participation and retention.

We support music-industry and STEM career exploration, outreach and recruiting, participant retention, and college and career readiness with the SEL books, keynotes, and the recording and music video program.

FAQs

Straight answers.

Collaborative work with a visible product. Among student engagement strategies examples, the ones that hold a cohort in July are the ones that produce something the group made together.

Increasing student engagement and motivation before the school year starts is the point of a bridge program, and strategies to engage and motivate students work better when participation is chosen rather than assigned. Most directors use our music recording program to create a music video they can use to increase enrollment and retention.
Yes. Recording is STEAM based projects in practice — applied physics and applied math with a deliverable and a deadline.

A three or four week bridge program is enough to take a recording project start to finish, which gives the cohort something they made together before the school year starts.
Bridge programs are among the better-supported retention interventions because they address the transition point where students are most likely to fall away. Institutions asking how to increase retention rate in college often start here for that reason. We help students create connections through our music team building activities which supports increase retention.

Our part is the engagement and social-emotional component inside your program. Increasing student retention depends on your whole structure, not one component.
It is one of the better uses of a bridge program. Recording is collaborative by necessity, which means it does the cohort-bonding work a bridge program needs while producing something the group made together. Coordinators looking for music activities for high school students that hold attention in July generally find studio work does it when little else does.
Bridge programs exist largely for that reason, and they are one of the better-supported retention interventions because they address the transition point where students are most likely to fall away. Our part is the engagement and social-emotional component inside your program. Increasing student enrollment and retention depends on your whole structure, not on one component, and we would rather be clear about that than oversell.
Ninth-grade course performance correlates especially strongly with eventual graduation, which makes the transition into high school the highest-leverage intervention point in secondary education. Bridge programming sits exactly there.
Programs typically use a subset of the teen edition rather than the whole book, focused on self- management and peer relationships — the two areas that determine whether a student's first semester goes well. Coordinators looking for music activities for high school students in a bridge context usually want something students will actually engage with in July.
Yes. They are consumable, so each student keeps their copy going into the school year. Several programs use that deliberately as a continuity object between summer and fall.
Title I, 21st CCLC, ELO-P intersession, GEAR UP, TRIO, and institutional retention funds, depending on the sponsor. Confirm against your program's approved budget.
The material addresses the underlying skills — how to describe what you can do, and the self-assessment that resume building actually requires. It is not a resume workshop. Where the recording programming comes in is career exploration: audio engineering, live sound, and media production are concrete career paths with defined entry points, and a bridge program is often the first place a student learns they exist.
No. We send our own staff to run the programming. We do not train your staff to run it. Recording and production is a skill set, not a procedure. Trying to hand it off in a few hours would be like teaching a doctor to perform surgery in an afternoon — you would get a session that technically happened and a result nobody wants to hear. Bridge staff are in the room with their students. We handle the session.
No. We are supplemental. We do not replace your SEL curriculum, your trauma-informed practice, or any program you already have in place. If you run a core SEL program, keep it — ours adds a music-based component alongside it. If you have trauma-informed protocols, training, and referral pathways, those stay in force exactly as they are. Nothing in our material substitutes for them, and our facilitators are not a substitute for your clinical, counseling, or behavioral staff. It slots into your existing bridge curriculum as a component. Nothing else changes.
Yes. The Psychological Effects of Music interactive Summer Session works as a program kickoff or closing event, and both are common bookings for bridge programs. A kickoff sets the frame for the weeks that follow. A closing session sends students into the school year with something they experienced together.
45 minutes to 2 hours. Most schools book a class period or 90 minutes. The 90-minute format is the one we recommend when you have the room. 45 minutes works for a single class period or a tight bell schedule, and 2 hours suits a half-day event, a grade-level rally, or a Black History Month or Red Ribbon Week program. Tell us your bell schedule and we will fit the session to it rather than asking you to build around us. Federal TRIO and College Access Programs

How this program runs

Same SIWM work. Built for Summer Bridge.

Start with the social emotional learning books. Add a keynote. Bring a recording program when you want participants writing and performing — we produce the song and video.

CASEL 5 SEL competencies; National Core Arts (Music/Media Arts); Common Core ELA writing & public speaking; CTE Arts/A-V & career-readiness pathways; STEM/STEAM.

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The Psychological Effects of Music