Promising Start for After School Program

DAYTON-You have heard it said that it takes a village to raise a child, and this is true for 48 students in the Dayton School District who were enrolled in the after school pilot program during March.

Blue Mountain Station, the Dayton School District, Columbia County Health Department, the Dayton Memorial Library, and the Coalition for Youth and Families, are just a few of the partnering agencies donating time, money, and talent to make the program a success.

Since the program started on March 8, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders have been offered a variety of learning opportunities in art, dance, sports, gardening, and cooking.

Last week, students gathered in the high school art classroom to create a contemporary art project with teachers Anne Strode and Roz Edwards.

Crafting with pencils, oil pastels, and pens, they were hard at work for a mural they plan to make.

"You can recall how you used to draw, at age three," said Edwards about the concept of abstract art.

Mistakes? There are none, Strode told one student. "Sometimes the best things come from mistakes," she said.

Across town, students in the gardening program were hard at work in master gardener Susie Rogers' home garden.

Rogers and her helpers Brad McMasters and Donna Helsius showed the students how to plant a square foot garden, taught them about overwintering crops, gave demonstrations of three different ways of composting, and showed them how to use tools in the garden.

"All of us are farmers, now," said one aspiring young gardener.

In the elementary school gymnasium, soccer coach Jorge Zuniga's students were involved in a fast and furious game of soccer.

On the elementary school playground, coach Gerald Pulliam's flag football students were learning the game, played properly.

Valerie Kerr, the After School Program coordinator and a para-educator with the Dayton School District, said that understanding the rules of the game will help address some behavior problems the students are having during school recesses.

For coach Pulliam the idea that kids are involved in something worthwhile instead of just sitting around at home is the important thing.

This is the sentiment echoed by members of the partnering agencies, who developed the program with an academic focus, but also with the intention of keeping kids safe, drug free, and out of trouble in the hours after school.

In January, the After School Task Force decided to move forward with the test program, and they are looking ahead to the 2016-17 school year, when they hope to offer a year-long after-school program, said Peggy Gutierrez, director of the Coalition for Youth and Families.

Gutierrez said she will send surveys home with the students this week. The results will help determine the direction the task force takes in the future, she said.