Foster to offer after-school and parenting programs

Sean C. Morgan

Of The New Era

Thanks to an $818,000 grant, Foster Elementary School will begin offering an after-school program for students, along with a parenting program, in April.

The federal funding, part of the 21st Century Community Learning Center program, is administered through a state grant.

A similar three-year program operated on a direct federal grant ended a couple of years ago.

“It’s an after-school program that has the capability of including a parent component,” said Foster Principal Vic Zgorzelski, who said the school applied for the grant in an attempt to enhance children’s learning outside the classroom. “Part of the grant calls for us to partner up with some other community agencies.”

Foster School will partner with the Boys and Girls Club of Sweet Home and Linn-Benton Community College.

“They wanted to make it a community kind of thing for the school,” Zgorzelski said.

“I see the need is, our kids need a place where they can feel supported. I think a lot of our kids go home and really don’t have a lot of constructive things to do. I think what’s planned here is to enhance children’s learning. Exposure to different kinds of learning will help our kids down the road. We’re doing pretty good in the school room, but this is our chance to build on that.”

LBCC stafff will offer parenting classes at Foster School, covering a variety of areas, from raising children to educating them. The Boys and Girls Club will send staff to Foster to conduct its physical activities.

“Everything related to the Foster School community is happening right here,” Zgorzelski said. Foster School will offer after-school enrichment programs, Zgorzelski said. They will be educational in nature, but pure academics will not be the focus. They will take more of a hands-on approach.

Key areas of study will be science and social studies, both areas that lend themselves to hands-on activities, Zgorzelski said. They will incorporate reading, writing and math.

The after-school classes will run for two hours four days a week, Zgorzelski said. The “Early Bird Club,” a 45-minute period just before school starts four days a week, will offer students the opportunity to get extra help with their homework.

Children “will be allowed to come in and get support in their reading homework,” Zgorzelski said. “We know that some of our kids don’t live in an environment” conducive to getting their homework done.

The community learning center program will offer four-week “thematic units,” such as “rocks and minerals,” Zgorzelski said. Total, it will offer six to seven units per year.

Exactly what will be available is still undetermined, Zgorzelski said. “Part of the final planning will happen as we hire people.”

“For the kids, when school ends, the first 20 minutes or so, students will have a little down time to transition,” Zgorzelski said, and then they will break into groups and rotate through two thematic units and the Boys and Girls Club’s physical activity. Each period will be a half hour long.

The activities could be something that might happen in a regular classroom, but generally speaking it won’t follow traditional classroom models, Zgorzelski said.

The program is voluntary for first- through sixth-grade students at Foster School. The parenting classes will initially be offered only to Foster School parents, but the program provides opportunities for other parents to enroll depending on how much space is available.

“Our expectations are we’re going to create enough positive advertisement that word will spread about how much fun kids are having and learning after school,” Zgorzelski said.

The grant provides $184,000 per year for three years and drops to 75 percent of that in the fourth year and 50 percent in the fifth year, Zgorzelski said. The school can carry unused grant money over from one year to the next, and Zgorzelski believes the program can operate all five years on the total grant.

After the grant program ends, Foster School is required to make an effort to continue operating the community learning center, Zgorzelski said. “That’s a challenge out there.”

“If there’s enough money, what we’d like to do is offer a four- to five-week summer program,” Zgorzelski said.

The program is supposed to be up and running by April 3, Zgorzelski said. “We still have to hire a project director, which I hope to have somebody identified by (this) week.”

The school also needs to hire teachers and assistants, Zgorzelski said. Those teachers and assistants can be district employees who are seeking additional hours, retired employees or some combination of those.

School officials predict 90 to 100 children will take advantage of the program the first year, Zgorzelski said. “I believe it will actually get bigger than that before it’s done.”

Zgorzelski said District 55 Curriculum Director Jan Sharp was instrumental in winning the grant.. He also acknowledged the Foster Site Council, which developed the idea for the community learning center. The site council includes Barb Tackett, Zgorzelski, Katie Adams, Joanna Reisbick, Rachel Markell and Mary Marshall.

“They’re really the people that hashed this over and came up with the (concept),” Zgorzelski said.

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