TYLER, Texas — Deciding whether to send children back to school during the pandemic wasn't the only tough choice for parents this school year — many working parents were also faced with where to send their kids after school.
One of the largest after school programs in East Texas is balancing student health and safety with the need for mentoring students.
For a bit of perspective about how important after school programs are in Texas, more than 880,000 students depend on those programs and another 1.5 million are waiting for access, according to the Afterschool Alliance.
But last March, that supervision parents counted on came to a halt when COVID-19 shutdown schools and day cares.
"So much of our programming does require face to face relationships and so the language we like to use during that time, same mission different methodology," Preston Reece, Director of Mentoring Alliance After School, said.
Close to a thousand elementary school students across 19 campuses in Tyler, Whitehouse and Bullard Independent School Districts depend on the program offered through Mentoring Alliance After School in affiliation with the Boys & Girls Club of East Texas. With the help of their medical director, Dr. Scott Lawrence, they've crafted new protocols and procedures to operate their programs with coronavirus' impact in mind.
"What we want families in the community to know, is we are first and foremost going to adopt and model whatever each individual district's policies are. On top of that, we will have our own policies and procedures in place, one of which will be wearing a mask like this or a face covering will be required by all of our staff at all times during the program," Reece explained.
Mentoring Alliance After School is also increasing sanitization, social distancing and implementing temperature checks for staff and students daily.
"Lastly, we will be mitigating any access to the schools, which is the school district's policy as well, which means parents won't be coming in and out of the school picking up their kids. We will actually meet them at their cars during dismissal. So really, not changing a ton, but setting in place added safety precautions, added measures to make sure we're doing our best to further mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
Students groups will operate like a cohort of sorts. Staff will be doing their best not co-mingle groups.
Preston Reece, Director of Mentoring Alliance After School, knows this will be a challenging year ahead with children more anxious than ever before and concerned about all the lost school time from last year.
"We believe the best thing that we do is build relationships with our students. Although, academically the schools are the experts in the education realm, but we want to do everything we can to come along side provide support, provide role models, who can assist with homework, step in and fill in those gaps.. You have parents working and schools and teachers doing everything they possibly can. Our role is just to come along side and support and serve to help build back and reduce that gap as much as possible," Reece said.
The data on After School programs is pretty compelling according to the Afterschool Alliance:
- 63% of Texas parents agree after school programs help kids gain teamwork, leadership and critical thinking skills.
- 74% of Texas parents say after school programs give them peace of mind.
"I really think those students who are registered this year will be those students who are in school because their parents have to go to work, so you're kind of seeing the kids who are going back to school are the ones who really need our program. A lot of the children who are in our programs right now, this gives their parents the opportunity not to have to turn that job down," Suzette Farr, Vice President of Community Engagement, Mentoring Alliance, said.
Six full-time Mentoring Alliance After School employees work with more than 100 part-time staff to give these students a safe environment that's supposed to foster friendships, growth, faith, character and confidence, and at times, bring the fun the children need, especially now.
"We are going to do everything we can to still have as much fun in the program as we possibly can, but we still need to all know the seriousness of COVID and make sure we are doing what we can to not take it lightly. The fun can't compromise that and so, we will still do things like Fun Fridays where we have fun activities at the end of each week, try to bring out partners like, Kona Ice, when we can," Reece said.
Suzette Farr says 8 weeks of fun at their summer camps provided some valuable lessons learned for the school year.
"Having summer camp was truly a blessing. Kind of true to our nature in East Texas, people care about each other so they care enough to call and say, 'I think I've been exposed and can I get tested,'" Farr said. "And we were providing that to all of our families. We just didn't have what other camps experienced this year."
More importantly, Farr doesn't want families to feel like they have to walk this COVID crisis alone.
"When we say we are going to walk alongside with these families, not even COVID can change that. We are there," Farr said.
So, as parents return to work after furloughs, being laid off or working remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic, after school programs like the Mentoring Alliance and Boys and Girls Club want to offer help and hope in the days ahead.