The United Way of South Hampton Roads plans to help Suffolk Public Schools revamp elementary summer school to ensure fewer students are held back.

United for Children — as the initiative is dubbed — was successfully piloted at P.B. Young Sr. Elementary School in Norfolk’s Young Terrace neighborhood, where the average family income is $12,000 or less and only half of adults have a high school diploma.

The idea, said United Way’s director of education initiatives, Sarah Bishop, is to increase participation in elementary summer school — which in Suffolk is offered free of charge to students academically in the lowest 25 percent — and its effectiveness.

The school day is extended, with fun activities after lunch rewarding students for good attendance and behavior as well as coursework progress.

Elementary summer school in Suffolk currently costs the district about $130,000, funded with state and federal grants, for about 510 children, according to Bishop. It runs for four hours a day, four days a week for four weeks.

The revamped summer school — which the district has signed on to — runs an extra two weeks, and the school day is extended to six hours, Bishop said.

“After lunch time becomes earned enrichment time, which teachers, students and parents have input into,” she said.

Bishop cited Zumba, dancing and flag football at the types of fun activities students enjoy during the two extra hours.

“What we have heard from teachers is that they need something in the back pocket,” Bishop said. “The only thing they have is, ‘If you don’t behave, you go to the principal’s office.’ What they have asked for is the carrot.”

The new format requires more staff resources, Bishop said, included twice as many teachers during the morning to create smaller learning groups.

The program will cost an extra $167,000, she said, adding that United Way has applied for an Obici Healthcare Foundation grant toward covering that cost, and will also appeal to Suffolk businesses, other foundations and individual donors.

Citing statistics reported by district officials to the Virginia Department of Education, Bishop said 562 public school students in Suffolk were held back after the 2011-2012 school year. Considering the $10,000 average cost of educating a child, that cost the district $5.62 million, she said.

“If we save 17 children from being retained, we will have paid for the program,” Bishop said. “If we get 18 kids, we have made money.”

Win Winslow, United Way’s relationship manager for Western Tidewater, said that when the program was implemented in Norfolk, not only were all the summer school students prevented from backsliding, “they were actually outperforming other kids.”

Children coming into kindergarten with no pre-kindergarten experience will also be eligible for the summer school, to be held at Mack Benn Jr. Elementary School. Students will also receive vision and hearing tests, and Winslow said any needing a hearing aid or glasses will get them.

“Education is the key factor in breaking the cycle of poverty,” Winslow said.

The initiative was presented to city and school district officials at the Suffolk Center for the Cultural Arts last Friday.