Facing a multi-million-dollar shortfall for the 2026-2027 fiscal year, Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) many budget cuts included the end of a long-running summer preparatory program for incoming Science and Technology (S&T) students at Eleanor Roosevelt High School (ERHS). However, ERHS teachers and students volunteered for two days in mid-July to provide incoming S&T students with an attenuated version of the bridge program.
“This year unfortunately, our traditional Summer Bridge program is not taking place due to budget cuts, and so what we have instead is a summer assignment and two in-person days,” ERHS S&T Coordinator Sharla Peters-Smith told families of the incoming students at a virtual informational session hosted June 9 and added that teachers would be volunteering to run the program.
In then-Interim Superintendent Shawn Joseph’s January letter attached to his proposed budget he described the fiscal climate, saying, “We find ourselves in a year of recalibration. Rising costs, declining enrollment and new Blueprint mandates have created unprecedented fiscal pressure. Specifically, PGCPS has absorbed $110 million in compensation increases for our employees and retirees while our reserves are depleted and county funding remains at the minimum level — well below that of our regional peers.”
The summer program was slashed across four Prince George’s County science-focused magnet schools including ERHS S&T program (as well as S&T at Charles Herbert Flowers and Oxon Hill, and aerospace at DuVal). It appears to be part of an overall $12 million reduction in discretionary spending from the Division of Academics.
Summer Bridge Program
Last year there was a three-week-long “summer bridge” program that, according to a PGCPS press release from that time, invited certain incoming ninth graders across the four Prince George’s County science magnet high schools and served almost 700 students that year.
The release stated that students “engage[d] in daily hands-on projects in science, math and engineering and explore[d] high school readiness strategies — from study skills to navigating new social dynamics.”
Parents of previous cohorts of S&T students describe the past Summer Bridge program as mandatory and helpful. This year only summer homework is mandatory for incoming students at the ERHS program. However, ERHS teacher and student volunteers made sure that the students had the option to come in for six hours each day, on July 14 and 15, for a shortened version of the bridge program.
The only publicly published PGCPS evaluation of the summer bridge program was from the 2021 session and the results shown by the district, of surveys given to student attendees, indicated both that students liked the program, and it led to academic improvements.
For example, four out of five students surveyed reported that they would recommend the program to a friend. Further, students’ math test scores improved, on average, by 16 percent from the start to the end of the program, according to PGCPS data.
Incoming ERHS S&T ninth grader and News Review Carrier Henry Turner told us he found the program helpful, especially because it acquainted him with the layout at ERHS.
The first day of the volunteer-run program was designed especially for that purpose, and to acquaint students with each other. On the second day, students were given introductory engineering lessons and completed an engineering challenge.
“We were basically building a catapult,” said Turner. He added that he had heard from ERHS S&T students who attended a past summer bridge program that they also built a catapult, but because the program went on for longer, the challenge was more elaborate.
The bridge program, similarly to the ERHS two-day summer session this year, aimed to prepare students academically and to give them examples of what they could do with their education. For example, in 2023 and 2024, attendees took part in an aerodynamics engineering competition hosted by UMD’s School of Engineering. Guest speakers have included STEM professionals and university researchers.
The ERHS bridge program first began in July 2017, the News Review reported at the time. The program appears to have served students continuously since then, with a virtual format during the height of the pandemic.
According to ERHS students and parents whom the News Review spoke with, incoming ERHS S&T students not signed up for in-person days were turned away.
“Several of us did not see this email or click that particular link. There were no reminders,” one Greenbelt parent, April Crompton, told the News Review.
The News Review could not confirm how many students were turned away, nor how many attendees there were; neither Peters-Smith nor ERHS principal Portia Barnes responded to several requests for comment from the News Review.
“I think we are in for a year, if not all four years, of the same kind of coordination difficulty we experienced at this two-day cohort. Especially if it turns out that the entire program is unfunded, and our teachers are just kindly volunteering for everything outside of the normal school day,” Crompton said.
Cost Savings?
The summer bridge programs appear to have been cut as a result of the Division of Academics budget being reduced by $12.2 million. On August 7, a PGCPS official familiar with the budgeting process — who declined to be named — told the News Review that this was accurate. However, no one from PGCPS has officially provided the News Review with confirmation.
The PGCPS official also attributed the program’s cut to under-enrollment. However, an August 2025 district press release reported that the program that year saw up to 96 percent of invited students attending.
An official statement from the PGCPS media office to the News Review on July 27 merely confirmed that the summer bridge programs were cut as a result of the FY 2027 budgeting process.
A slideshow from April 13 from a PGCPS subcommittee — attributed to PGCPS Division of Academics head Judith White — specifically indicates that the summer bridge programs were cut as a result of reductions to PGCPS Central Academic Support. The slideshow indicates that, as a result of changes made to the discretionary spending of the Division of Academics — including cutting the bridge programs — PGCPS could save $12 million.
PGCPS maintains digital Annual Operating Budget Archives containing approved operating budgets for each fiscal year dating back to FY 2007. But for FY 2027 the Archives only contain the proposed budget. Neither the FY 2027 Board of Education requested budget, nor the approved budget, have been posted there in similar form. Chief Financial Officer Shavonne Smith did not immediately respond to the News Review’s request for a copy of the budget that the board adopted on June 25, 2026.
A board summary from June 25 contains the total expenses as well as a summary of the major revenue and expenditure categories in the approved budget — yet it does not contain line-by-line itemization of expenses, nor the cost savings of each cut program.
The PGCPS official familiar with the budgeting process told the News Review on August 7 that they do not believe PGCPS had published the final budget yet. PGCPS had requested $50 million in funding from the county to make up for the deficit. On June 29, Prince George’s County Council committed $20 million toward the request.
It is unclear what the district’s specific savings were from cutting the program. Based on the district’s own public data as well as commentary from ERHS parents and students, the program was beneficial for the students. the PGCPS media office stated that they do not know if the program would be brought back in the future and that it would be subject to the district’s priorities and available funds.
But for now, ERHS volunteers worked to give the incoming cohort as much of a “bridge” to a special high school program as they could.
