Reply to Feel so sad hearing this today!

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Feel so sad hearing this today!"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Former Afterschool (we don't like the term aftercare-denotes babysitting and we were leaning towards more of an extended-day program) Coordinator here:

Often times the afterschool program was treated like an after thought by many DCPS principals. There was always an undercurrent of tension between the principals and the coordinators because, up until this school year, the coordinators could not be fired or rif'ed by principals. Only central office had the power to remove a coordinator. This did not go over well. Often coordinators and, by extension, the program was viewed as a necessary nuisance by school administration.

Resources: Save for the first year under Hartsock, the Out of School Time budget for DCPS afterschool was ALWAYS a problem. Often I had to recruit parent/high school student volunteers because I was not able to get enough hired staff to accommodate the number of students who signed up. It seemed like the mantra was "do the most with the least". Also, some principals would "reserve" afterschool positions for their favorite staff whether they were a good teacher/aide or not.

Age Range: This situation may vary from school to school, but my honest opinion (having supervised programs and monitored others) is that I would not recommend afterschool for any student under the age of 7. The day is tooooo long. Trust me. It is. These children are burned out. It's too many children for such little staff. It may be different for schools that offer non-profit/private afterschool services. At my school, we came up with creative, fun ways to keep the students engaged but sometimes it was an uphill battle. No one in Pre-K/Pre-S should be in afterschool IMHO. I can remember being in a classroom with my aide and we would spend half the afterschool session rocking frustrated, crying pre-schoolers. This happened ALOT. It became draining because I had 100+ other students to supervise in addition to other administrative duties.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics