Lack of elementary school extracurriculars

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid’s private school has afterschool programs run by third party providers. Teachers don’t have to run them.

So does my kids public school in DC, which like your comment, is irrelevant here.

[Anonymous]

Ex-PTA person here. Yes, you can bring EC to the school. You need to understand what resources are available to the school. There are mainly several kinds of activities…

MCPS funded-

For some activities, MCPS will provide a small stipend to teachers to run it. It is up to the teacher to step up to take that responsibility. To find out what those activities are at ES, MS and HS level…

https://www2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteassets/district/departments/ersc/employees/timekeepers/eca_handbook_current.pdf

PTA run -
Requires parent donations and labor. A good example is scholastic book fairs. But a well funded PTA can co-sponsor many events.

Third Party Run-
You invite a third party vendor to have a menu of fee based programs for the students. Pyle middle school (W school) in Bethesda engages a company (formed by a Bethesda parent ) to run its program. I think it is called Flex Academy.

Our school was a poor school so we did not hire the third part vendor, instead we went to the providers directly to ask them to run their classes at our school. Since we wanted to encourage equity and diversity, we decided to give scholarships to FARMS and ESOL students if they were interested in joining the program. We did not have any takers but we did not face any opposition for having these fees based programs.

MoCo funded-
I think MoCo runs programs in poor schools. It is worth a look. The program in our school was called ‘Excel Beyond the Bell’ . MoCo rec dept ran the program. Worth a look to see if your school qualifies. It was an extremely popular program.

Education Foundation funded-
If you can start an education foundation at your school through donations, you can bypass all the stringent MCPS, PTA and MoCo rules and directly give grants to teachers to run educational programs after school. Creative writing, poetry, math and science bowls etc. all the W schools have such foundations. Google it. All of this work has been done by interested parents. If you care about your kids then you have to find ways to make these things happen in your school.

[Anonymous]

Our ES has a school friends program, reading friends, counseling assistants, art assistants, chorus, band, sga, patrol, a student broadcasting program, yearbook, off the top of my head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our ES has a school friends program, reading friends, counseling assistants, art assistants, chorus, band, sga, patrol, a student broadcasting program, yearbook, off the top of my head.

Only patrol and band/chorus at my school. And band/chorus is during the school day.

[Anonymous]

DD did early ES years in MCPS. Band is for upper grades sounds like; chorus was too I think.

We were a focus school and had no after school clubs. I started them by contacting outside vendors to come offer them. A lot offered one scholarship slot if you hit the minimum needed for a club to run. The school was happy to have these to offer but it required a PTA volunteer to make it happen.

Maybe look into offering to organize?

[Anonymous]

If this is something you want, work with the PTA to get activities set up. This is not something that schools do, other than student council, which at our school is a joke. Chorus, school play, other activities are run by our enrichment provider and cost money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our ES has a school friends program, reading friends, counseling assistants, art assistants, chorus, band, sga, patrol, a student broadcasting program, yearbook, off the top of my head.

Wow! What school is this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They try to guilt teachers into running clubs with no compensation. No thanks!

Our school offers compensation but I’m exhausted and am not interested. Many parents don’t pick up kids on time so teachers are stuck babysitting them. No thanks.

To avoid this issue, the run clubs at our school are in the morning before school. Also makes it easier for parents to volunteer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our ES has a school friends program, reading friends, counseling assistants, art assistants, chorus, band, sga, patrol, a student broadcasting program, yearbook, off the top of my head.

Wow! What school is this?

Chorus and Band should be offered at every MCPS elementary in 4/5th grade. Is reading friend/school friendscouselig assistant and art assistants actually clubs or just a partnership by the counselors or lower/upper grades teachers. I find it’s less a club and more a way of ensure kids feel supported during the year.

[Anonymous]

What extracurriculars does your kid's school have that your kid enjoys?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At Arcola Elementary School, I was very surprised to hear that they didn't have programs like Student Council, Peer Mediation, Chorus, etc. This seems abnormal, but I wanted to see if other elementary schools in the county tend to have these programs and whether this is truly abnormal.

Also, if you do have programs at your school, which ones do you have?

Not really something that’s common in MCPS.

Private schools have plenty of them at the ES level.

So do most public schools across the country.

[Anonymous]

Yoga is a hit

[Anonymous]

PP. And chess.

[Anonymous]

Garrett Park PTA runs our extracurriculars through outside vendors. We have 8-10 options each season that include sports, music, languages, art, and coding. Seems like it varies greatly by the school PTA across the county.

[Anonymous]

We have a 4k precorded morning show every Friday, done by rotating teams in and out every week. There are of course stage musicals, concerts, and more.