As he wrapped up work on a writing assignment last week, 8-year-old Christian Torres insisted he didn’t mind being at school on a June morning when some friends were out enjoying their summer.

“I’m kind of happy actually,” the soon-to-be fourth-grader at Kenton Elementary School said after writing about the things he likes and people he’d like to meet. The writing work was fun, Torres said, but he was looking forward to the math lesson that afternoon.

For the past eight summers, about 2,300 Aurora Public Schools students like Torres have opted for some extra help through the district’s Fifth Block program. The program aims to help students who fall toward the middle of the pack but could be struggling in some areas.

But when summer 2016 rolls around, far fewer students could be sitting in APS classrooms for that five-week summer stretch.

District officials have opted to take the $1.5 million spent each year on Fifth Block and give it directly to schools so they can decide whether to offer extra help in the summer or more help during the school year.

“Schools will now have the choice to decide what is the best for their students,” said Jim Hogan, APS’ director of professional learning.

The idea with Fifth Block, Hogan said, was to tailor the summer program as specifically as possible. Where a typical summer school covered a variety of topics in a similar way as the regular school year, Hogan said this program takes a small group of students with similar struggles and lets a teacher spend five weeks in a small setting tackling those struggles, hopefully bringing them back up to grade level.

“The point of Fifth Block was to be more strategic,” he said.

The program has been most effective when the summer help was complemented with help during the school year for struggling students, Hogan said. And it has been particularly useful when the district could program the classwork to the struggles of a specific group of students.

The trouble, Hogan said, is that during the summer, students and their families are busy, so many students who could benefit from a specific summer intervention don’t always sign up for the voluntary program.

“We couldn’t always guarantee that we were going to get those kids,” he said.

The district budgets about $1.5 million for Fifth Block each year. For the district’s K-8, middle and high schools, that covers four teachers and two para-professional educators. For regular elementary schools, it covers two teachers, a para-educator and an office clerk.

Now, Hogan said, the money designated for each school will go straight to that school and they can decide if they want to use it to pay teachers’ stipends for the summer, or to cover after-school programs and other resources during the school year.

Hogan said he expects some school leaders will opt to keep Fifth Block programs in the summer next year, but the bulk of the effort will shift to “on-the-spot” help for students during the school year.

APS Board of Education member Mary Lewis said the program was useful but it had run its course, adding that principals have clamored for flexibility when it comes to intervention for struggling students.

“I think flexibility is the key,” she said. “Through the years I’ve talked with so many principals who said I would really like to have that money throughout the year.”

The money is still earmarked for the same Fifth Block-style intervention, but Lewis said she hopes the added flexibility will help.

At Kenton, Principal Heather Woodward said the roughly $85,000 her school gets for Fifth Block will likely be focused on helping students get caught up during the school year.

That way, Woodward said, teachers are helping students stay at grade level instead of waiting until the summer after they have already slipped behind.

Still, Woodward said, she hopes to pursue some sort of summer option next year, even if the funds have to come from somewhere other than the existing $1.5 million.

Extra help after school can be beneficial, she said, but it isn’t for everyone. That’s especially true for her students, many of whom she said help their family at home right when the school day ends.

“For some kids the end of the day hits, it’s 2:30, they’re tired, they’re exhausted and they have to do things at home, too,” she said.