Santa Fe Public Schools does not have a year-round school program, but in a few schools around the city, kids are still learning.

For 25 days this summer, a few hundred students at Sweeney, Larragoite, Agua Fría, Kaune and Salazar elementary schools are participating in Kindergarten-3 Plus, a state-funded summer school program.

Unlike other summer programs, K-3 Plus, as it's called, is modeled after a regular school day. Students spend time in class and have lunch and recess.

"It helps them to keep from losing what they learned the year before," said Jeanette Montaño, a second-grade teacher at Sweeney. And, she said, they get a head start for next year.

The program targets schools that serve large populations of poor students.

The idea is that kids in middle- or upper-class families often continue their learning through family vacations and enrichment camps, while poor students often don't.

Poor students, too, begin school behind and have a hard time catching up, teachers say.

"A lot of these kids don't seem to come with language skills in any language," said Carol Jo Enrietta, a kindergarten teacher at Sweeney.

The summer program allows time to read students several books and, because of smaller classes, work more with individual students, Enrietta said.

At Sweeney, students are placed in classrooms with the same teacher they'll have come fall. Enrietta, for example, is working with students who will be in her kindergarten class.

After teaching in the K-3 Plus program last summer, Enrietta saw the difference during the regular school year.

"The kids were more mature, had more confidence and did really well academically," she said.

Joyce Sanchez, a sixth-grade teacher at Salazar, is teaching kids who will be in third grade this fall. Like teachers at Sweeney, Sanchez likes the program because of the small classes and because students get a chance to catch up.

"By the time they get into sixth grade, hopefully they won't be that far behind," Sanchez said.

The program does provide some challenges come fall. Even though principals try to schedule students with the teachers they'll have during the school year, there is inevitably a need to mix in students who didn't participate during the summer.

That means some repetition for summer kids, which prompts teachers to come up with different ways to teach the same material.

Last summer, the program was held about a month before school, with a one-week break before the start of the fall semester. "I think that made the year seem a little longer," Montaño said. "All of us were a little tired."

This year, district officials scheduled the program to start about a month after the spring semester ended. It will finish about a month before the start of school this fall.

Contact John Sena at 986-3079 or jsena@sfnewmexican.com.