Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
As if school weren’t fun enough, some Foster School students are getting even more of it, and they seem to like it.
Of course, you can’t beat making volcanoes, especially when you get to make them erupt.
“It’s good to do this,” said David Stock, 10. “It’s good to learn. It’s fun you can learn after school.”
“I would say fooling around,” said Sun Sierra Ackley, 11, describing the program. “Yeah, I like that part.”
She was busy putting the finishing touches on her volcano last Thursday, “doing what I do best – painting,” she said giggling. “Well that’s not actually what I do best. (That’s really) jumping rope, hopscotch and hula hooping.”
Fun isn’t the goal though. It’s just a tool to deliver some extra-curricular education.
Foster School is offering several programs as part of its 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant project.
Three programs comprise the grant project, including a morning program, an after-school program and a parent support program.The five-year grant is just short of $1 million, provided by the federal government through the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
District 55 had previously operated a three-year Community Learning Centers project districtwide.
Rich Little, a product of Sweet Home schools himself, is the project director and grant coordinator.
Little taught multi-age groups in the Aleutian Islands, where he worked in schools with just one or two teachers, he said. “That’s what got me so excited about (this). I could see how powerful that peer tutoring is.”
A cornerstone of the program is peer tutoring and different age groups working together. All of the participants work together on projects after school.
In this project, the district is supposed to create a sustainable program. By the third year of the grant, Little’s position will be scaled back and will be eliminated by the fifth year, when grant funding runs out. The grant employs 10 assistants and three teachers.
The partners, including the School District, Linn County Mental Health, the Boys and Girls Club of Sweet Home and Linn-Benton Community College are supposed to maintain the program afterward.
Before school, students can show up to school early to meet with two Community Learning Center staff members and peer mentors for help with homework.
After school, four days a week, students stick around for two hours for a hands-on, fun approach to science and social studies, along with physical education and dinner.
Although the program focuses on science and social studies, it also emphasizes other subjects, especially language arts, Little said. It includes journal writing, one of the areas on which the district is focusing this year.
Among the activities in the after-school portion of the program is the construction of volcanoes.
Students spent time learning about volcanoes, and then went to work on a craft project to create them with plans to make them erupt.
“We want to make as many connections in the after-school program as we can,” Little said. Projects are designed to connect different subject areas. The volcano subject matter, for example, also connects into the PE portion where the children play games such as “Magma Toss.”
The Boys and Girls Club is involved mainly with the PE portion of the program.
“The life-changing experience is kids working with other kids,” Little said. “They learn to work and communicate with each other.”
At the school’s open house last week, he met perhaps six parents. Mostly, the students excitedly showed their work off to parents and grandparents.
The theme will change after each six -week session throughout the year. Upcoming themes include the Lewis and Clark expedition, “river communities” and winter holidays, dealing especially with holiday cultural themes.
Research shows that after-school programs increase student performance by 30 percent on average, Little said.
“We’re looking for attendance improvement” he said, along with improvements in meeting writing benchmarks in state testing and academics.
“The kids are having such a great time,” said Dianna Huenergardt, a program assistant. “We’ve seen some dramatic changes in their behavior, the classroom, their school work.”
The students talk excitedly about what’s coming up next, she said. “It’s just been a super neat blessing to put in our school. It’s just been fun, really, really fun.”
The program is open to all Foster School students, Little said. The only restriction on involvement is behavior. Students must be properly respectful and follow school rules.
LBCC is helping by putting on parenting classes and providing childcare during the classes. A 10-week LBCC class begins Oct. 3 at Foster; and Little is putting together a parent resource library and sending home a monthly newsletter with students from the after-school program. The parenting classes are open to anyone.
For information, contact Little at 409-0404.