San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
After-school programs offer a fun, safe place for students to try new experiences
“We know our youth will need increased academic and socio-emotional support in order to emerge from the pandemic strong, resilient and optimistic.”
Harold Love, vice president of club services at Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco
Vanessa Barrios was tied in knots. The San Mateo single mom of three was just starting a new, full-time job in South San Francisco and she needed after-school care for her oldest daughter Alejandra, 9, a student at Baywood Elementary School.
“Alejandra really needed something. Dealing with her brothers, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry for all of us, I knew I didn’t have time to help her with her homework — she struggles in math — and it would do her good to make new friends,” said Barrios, whose two younger sons are in a special education program, as they suffer from autism.
A friend recommended Newton Center, an after-school program at Baywood. When Barrios balked because she thought she couldn’t afford the fees, she found out the San Mateo program, which serves 600 students at many school locations on the Peninsula, offers a robust financial aid program. It is always wildly popular, but through a lottery system wait list, Alejandra’s number came up.
It doesn’t take a lot of math knowledge to know that afterschool programs make a lot of sense as they help students with homework, enrichment and socializing. At the beginning of the 2022 school year, parents and guardians of 24.7 million U.S. children not enrolled in an after-school program would enroll them if a program was available, according to a survey released last August by the Afterschool Alliance. That’s even an uptick from pre-pandemic levels, despite the fact that many parents are still working from home. It’s the highest rate the Alliance has seen since they began recording aftercare needs back in the early 2000s.
Cost is a major factor as well as a sheer lack of programs. Many programs rely on city and state funding, while others have aggressive outreach and funding arms, like
Oakland’s Town After School program. It is run through the city’s Parks, Recreation & Youth Development department, but also relies on corporations and nonprofits such as the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation.
“Our philosophy is ‘No child turned away,’ ” said Recreation Supervisor Marcelina Sanchez.
The Marin YMCA offers programs that range from free to $644 a month, depending on location, the communities served and membership status. Other programs, like Newton Center, accept CalWorks and other state subsidies from parents, which adds a lot of paperwork for the organization but also offers a lot of relief for working parents.
Pre- and after-school care is usually geared for kids in TK (Transitional Kindergarten, the year before traditional kindergarten) through fifth or sixth grades, depending on a school district’s model. Newton Center offers care up through eighth grade. Programs usually begin at 7 a.m. and end at 6 p.m., although some stay open until 6:30 p.m.
“Our goal is to provide a safe, productive place for children, before and after school,” said Tal Tamir, Newton Center’s director of operations and programs.
The “family business” was started by his own family and other parents back in 2001 and has grown along with the need. Nestled in the heart of Silicon Valley, the program serves the children of everyone from tech workers to doctors and lawyers to service employees sometimes holding down two jobs just to make ends meet, he said.
“We focus on a child’s social, emotional and educational growth,” he said, offering snacks, homework assistance in districts that have homework and perhaps most importantly, enrichment.
After settling down and relaxing after a day in school, kids can choose an activity to jump into, including sports, cooking, robotics and even mindfulness. It’s a little bit like Montessori meets summer camp, Tamir said.
“The program is really studentdriven, he said. “We grow with the students’ interest. Lately, since the pandemic, there has been an interest in doing things in nature, as well as problem-solving like escape room activities.”
The Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco use “wraparound services and programming that focus on
supporting the whole child,” said Harold Love, vice president of club services. “Although we focus on academic success and socio-emotional wellness, we are also passionate about youth leadership, job readiness, sports, fitness and play and the arts.”
The post-pandemic “new normal” is extending to after-school programs.
“We know our youth will need increased academic and socioemotional support in order to emerge from the pandemic strong, resilient and optimistic,” Love said.
The clubs are adjusting their programs to include critical areas of support, such as adding behavioral health specialists to the program to provide wellness activities, individual therapy and staff training in order to support children’s socio-emotional needs. The programs are also adding professional academic support for one-on-one tutoring and homework help, “providing a critical bridge between the classroom and home,” he said.
As the world has opened up, so have after school programs. At Oakland’s Town After School, Sanchez said many of their programs are trying to take kids “out of their comfort zone” via outings in the city to places like the Oakland Zoo and Oakland Ice Center, the popular ice hockey playground.
“This is especially important for kids in what we call our ‘high-impact’ areas, those who are of lower socio-economic backgrounds who might otherwise not get the opportunity to see what else is out there in their world,” Sanchez said.
Town After School also tries to hire bilingual and diverse staff members, so “kids feel more comfortable seeing someone who looks like them,” she said. They are especially interested in hiring Spanishand Cantonese-speaking staff members.
That’s something that is vital to Marin’s YMCA program, said Site Coordinator Anahi Sanchez at the Albert J. Boro Community Center. Her sites include many Spanishspeaking children, ages TK through fifth grade, and they come from a lower socio-economic background than “what most people think of when they hear Marin County,” Sanchez said. The county is quite diverse, and the YMCA has responded to that, she said. The program serves 14 different schools and sites and responds to the needs — and desires — of the parents and children.
“We divide the afternoon into snack, play, then homework for those who have it,” Sanchez said.
The program also offers activities that range from sports to reading time. There are special “clubs” kids can join, including cooking, art and one of the favorites, telling spooky stories.
“We’ve also been able to offer tennis lessons,” she said.
The Oakland’s Town After School program offers lessons in swimming and water safety, as long as funding is provided, during warmer months and through their summer camps.
All of the programs mentioned here also offer summer camps, so parents don’t have to worry about who will care for their children throughout the long summer break.
The other area that has ramped up in after-school care, as Vanessa Barrios has seen, is helping special needs children. She is concerned Alejandra may have ADHD, and Newton Center not only helps Alejandra with what her mom calls “her terror of math,” but has aided her in finding a tutor for even more support.
“Inclusivity is essential to all children’s well-being,” said Newton Center’s Tamir.
Still, at the end of the day, the biggest reward, according to Town After School’s Sanchez, is seeing the smiles on the faces of the children — and the parents.