ADAMS TWP -- The Mars Comet Club and Reading Rockets after-school programs, intended to combat learning loss from the COVID-19 pandemic and help catch up students who may have fallen behind, will return for another year at Mars Area School District.

Comet Club, which provides reading and math assistance to fifth- and sixth-graders, and Reading Rockets, which gives reading help to students in kindergarten through fourth grade, were previously funded by state American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP-ESSER) funds.

The funds will continue to fund both programs into the 2022-2023 school year, said assistant superintendent Elizabeth McMahon at a school board meeting Tuesday night.

The Reading Rockets program previously garnered attention from parents earlier in 2022 when waning staff availability resulted in a pause in the program at the elementary level.

“(Reading Rockets) we didn’t have enough staff in, but we are hoping that we have more staff this year, so we are looking forward to putting it out there again,” McMahon said. “We are feeling confident — we are going to try.”

This week, the state-funded learning loss prevention programs are already active in the district, she explained. The free “Lift Off to Success” program, which runs at the district from Monday through Thursday this week, provides basic reading and math refreshers to students in grades K-5 before the start of the upcoming school year.

“It’s all literacy and numeracy,” she said. “It’s a skill reinforcement and enrichment.”

She described the “liftoff” nature of the program as preparing students for the grade they are about to enter in the 2022-23 school year.

227 students attended the program on its first day Monday, and 248 attended Tuesday, she added.

“If you’ve completed kindergarten, you’re lifting off to first grade. If you completed first grade, you’re lifting off to second grade,” she said. “It’s just giving them a boost to get ready for the next school year.”