GILROY
– Gilroy Unified School District learned this week it will
receive a $300,000-a-year grant over the next five years to expand
and improve its delivery of after-school programs at the elementary
and middle school level.
GILROY – Gilroy Unified School District learned this week it will receive a $300,000-a-year grant over the next five years to expand and improve its delivery of after-school programs at the elementary and middle school level.
“We’ve been trying to coordinate something like this for a long time. This really helps us focus on improving after-school programs in the district,” Superintendent Edwin Diaz said.
The new funding comes from a highly competitive federal grant that only one other school district in the county received. The grant will directly help five GUSD schools train new tutors, supply materials and hire supervisors for what will be a three-hour-a-day, five-day-per-week academic and enrichment program.
“For us to get this is a blessing, especially in this climate of cuts,” said Olivia Schaad, the GUSD’s director of curriculum and instruction.
Schaad’s most optimistic plan would be to implement the new programs by the end of March. She now begins the process of advertising for the new positions funded by the grant and spreading the word about the program itself. In addition to tutors, each site will have a supervisor and a director will be named to oversee the entire program.
Both teachers and parents will be targeted by Schaad’s public relations efforts since they will often be the parties who refer students to the program.
Participating school sites include Eliot Elementary School, El Roble Elementary School, Glen View Elementary School, Las Animas Elementary School and South Valley Middle School.
At least 80 children per school site can enroll. Acceptance into the program is based on a student’s need for tutoring and after-school day care. Socio-economic status of Gilroy students played a role in landing the grant money, but will not factor into how the district places students into the program, Schaad said.
Even so, the district plans to market the program to migrant farmworking families living at the Ochoa Migrant Center. The center houses roughly 100 migrant families from May through October and 100 homeless families from December through February each year.
Schaad plans to meet with Ochoa directors and leaders from other community programs, such as the Mexican-American Community Services Agency and the Community Alliance for Upgrading Student Access, to potentially form cooperative agreements and avoid duplication of services. Eliot Principal Diane Elia says the funding is crucial for English Language Learners at GUSD school sites as the district tries to close the gap between test scores of its English-speaking and English-learning students.
The only way to level the playing field, Elia says, is to give English Language Learners more class time.
“If you’re a kindergartner and you have no English coming into school, the only way you’ll be at grade level by the end of the year is to spend more time of the day learning English,” Elia said.
Last year’s test scores indicate that English speakers are at grade level in reading and math across nearly all grades. Students still learning how to speak English do not perform at grade level in reading and math for all grades.
The district’s goal is to have 90 percent of its students at grade level in reading and math by June 2004 and to have the performance gap between all subgroups no greater than 5 percent.
The 21st Century grants are a key component of President Bush’s education reform package known as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Congress supported the initiative the last two years by appropriating $1.85 billion for after-school programs over the last two years. The focus of this program is to help children attending low performing schools meet local and state academic standards in subjects such as reading and math.
In addition, 21st Century programs provide youth development activities, drug and violence prevention programs, technology education programs, art, music and recreation programs, counseling and character education to enhance the academic component of the program.
Very little streamlined instruction and enrichment is being done after school hours in the GUSD now.
“Right now, it’s very difficult to get teachers to do intervention after school. They’ve got too much on their plate,” Elia said.
Many teachers have open door policies so kids can get help with their homework after school. This grant will expand tutoring services, however, by providing additional staff and freeing up teachers to do lesson planning after their regular work day, Elia said.
For more information on the 21st Century Grant Program, visit www.ed.gov/21stcclc/index.html.
