MATTAWA — The Wahluke School District experimented with a new summer learning opportunity, and it looks like a success. 

The district was one of the first group of schools in Washington to be selected for the DiscoverWorks summer program, the work of a Michigan-based foundation, the Ballmer Group. Bethany Martinez, director of WSD’s Department of Migrant and Multilingual Services, said most children who joined the program stayed with it to the end. 

“Summer is hard – it's hard to get kids here, and we averaged 78 percent attendance over the full 22 days," Martinez said. "Which is amazing, especially when you think we averaged that at the elementary and the middle school – they're hard to get – and that speaks to how engaging it was." 

DiscoverWorks was open to Wahluke students from kindergarten to eighth grade, split into two groups. Children worked on their math and reading in the morning and spent the afternoon doing – well, a lot of fun stuff. 

“The kids were doing amazing things,” Martinez said. 

The program’s funding allowed the district to open it up to all K-8 students, and Martinez said teachers were instrumental in encouraging children to sign up. 

“What we noticed is, teachers went out and recruited kids. They were out selling it,” she said. “When we pitched it to students, we (said), "Hey, yeah, you're going to do a little bit of school, but you're going to get to hang out with your friends. You're going to get to try new things.’” 

That was part of the fun, said Autumn Harlow, administrator for the fourth through eighth grade program.  

“It was amazing. The kids had an opportunity to do things they’d never done before,” Autumn said.  

Students worked on reading and math in the morning and spent the afternoon doing activities designed by the teachers.  

“We got really creative," said Wahluke Superintendent Andy Harlow. "There were painting classes, cooking classes, the old Pinewood Derby race cars, engineering. There were enrichment classes that the kids wanted to come to every day.”  

Martinez said teacher creativity and the extra funding ended up giving kids a lot of different opportunities. 

“We tried to give them a wide range of experiences, making sure there were movement things, maybe PE or sports related, art – lots of art, because we just don't get to that enough. STEM (opportunities). I saw rockets being launched. I saw science happening.” 

Children could explore geography, work on wildlife habitat projects, play indoor soccer, learn how to crochet and how to play badminton. They could and did learn how to make slime. 

“That was pretty popular,” Autumn Harlow said.  

The kids built and raced Pinewood Derby cars. A visiting artist, the same one who did the murals at Wahluke Junior High, taught art basics through the medium of spray paint. Children learned the basics of beading.  

“We had a beauty shop,” Autumn Harlow said, where students practiced hairstyling on mannequins. 

In the middle of the rockets launching and the bead stringing and the slime making and all the other fun things to do, lessons were sneaking in, Autumn said. She cited the beading class, where children had to count and follow directions to finish their project.  

“They were still learning even though they were having fun,” she said.  

Teachers led the afternoon classes for elementary students, but the administrators wanted to give intermediate students a wider range, Martinez said. 

The program was structured around exploration, Andy Harlow said, looking at different countries and geography around the world. Some of the afternoon classes took their cue from that theme. The cooking classes focused on a different country each day, with the cooks making fish and chips for England and tiramisu for Italy, among others.  

“When Autumn worked with those teachers, she said, ‘Think like a middle school kid here. What's going to be something that they don't do in a regular school year, or they can't do somewhere in Mattawa?’ I think that's how they got such a wide range,” Martinez said.  

Even though they were working on reading and math, the morning curriculum also appealed to the children, she said. Among other things, each class read a novel. 

“The novels they chose were very engaging, and I was really impressed with how hooked the kids were in those stories,” she said.  

DiscoverWorks 2026 was a pilot project, Martinez said, and as a result was funded for one year. Martinez is optimistic the program will continue in Mattawa. 

“This sounds like it's something we'll be able to do again. I think that all the districts that did it did a really good job of it," Martinez said, "and I think we were good stewards of the funds, and we really captured the vision that the founders wanted." 

If so, Autumn Harlow said there are plenty of teachers ready to return. 

“I’ve already got people emailing me for next year,” she said. 

    A DiscoverWorks teacher cuts out a Pinewood Deby car.
  

    Wahluke DiscoverWorks students learned the basics of art composition with spray paint as the medium.
  

    Students got tickets for daily drawings and special drawings as part of Wahluke’s DiscoverWorks program.