YES program goes the extra mile
After school program challenges and entertains
Many working parents in the Porterville area face a common dilemma: how to keep their children safe and engaged in the hours after school before they return home from work. Porterville Unified School District provides a solution for this dilemma with a unique and engaging program.
The Youth Experiencing Success (YES), PUSD’S expanded learning program, begins immediately after school at ten elementary schools and all three middle schools around the district. Between 200 and 400 students participate at each of these sites, bringing total district enrollment for the program to nearly 4,000 students.
The program was created by PUSD in response to the needs of students and their families.
“We are trying to support the needs of working families by providing somewhere safe for kids to go after school,” said Krystal Miller, personnel liaison for the YES program.
The program consists of three components designed to continue the regular school day with a meaningful experience for students. During the academic portion, students work on concepts and exercises from their daily schoolwork. Regular classroom teachers coordinate with YES teachers daily to ensure that academic time is productive and relevant to common core concepts being studied during the school day.
The recreation component is not just regular recess. It has its own curriculum of structured playtime activities that encourage students to exercise and develop social skills. YES teachers closely monitor playground activities to ensure that even recreation time is a learning experience.
The enrichment component focuses on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) activities for elementary students, while middle school students focus on career skills and concepts that are further developed in high school as part PUSD’S Pathway program. The enrichment portion often uses project-based learning that presents concepts to students in fun and engaging tasks, such as using toy cash registers and play money to
practice counting skills.
Participation in the YES program is on a first-come-first-serve basis at the beginning of each school year. The program has become so popular, however, that some sites have waiting lists of up to 50 students. The program recently expanded to include kindergarten students in response to growing demand, and PUSD has made a commitment to admit all district kindergarten students who want to participate.
In the YES program, students don’t just pass the time until they are picked up by parents. Because it is funded largely by an ASES (After School Education and Safety) grant from the California Department
of Education, the program must meet and maintain certain criteria. Attendance guidelines, a supper program, and instruction until 6 p.m. every school day are some of the operational requirements. Students are expected to attend regularly and be active participants in each component of the program.
The end result is a state-sanctioned expanded learning program that parents can rely upon to be a safe and productive after-school environment for their children.
One of the unique challenges that face the YES program staff is how to keep students engaged in learning after they’ve already completed a full day of school.
“We know that students get tired. We ask ourselves, ‘What can we
do to excite learning?’ All of our activities feature hands-on engagement,” said Miller. “If students have a buy-in and feel like they are part of a family that helps run [activities], then that’s how we get them to focus and love coming to our program.”
By giving students ownership over a portion of the activities and making the time after school more than just idle time, the YES program staff feel they have created a learning environment in which both students and working parents are eager to participate.
“I like how I get help with my homework and all the activities we do,” said Pablo Ruiz, fifth grader at Belleview Elementary. “But if I get tired, I just put my hands behind my head and close my eyes for a while.”