Candidate for
Board Member; Cardiff Elementary School District

A SCHOOL IS A COMMUNITY OF LEARNERS.

We can make the best use of our resources by opening school facilities to a range of educational, cultural, and community activities throughout the day.

We now have a wonderful new campus for Ada Harris School. And next year Cardiff School will be fully remodeled and in great shape as well. To get the best use out of these facilities, let's think of the school as a community center for children and families.

Say the school day ends at 2:50. Then from 3-5 you can have Homework Club, and Reading Lab, and Drama Club, and band, and basketball practice, and so on. Only those students who have a doctor's appointment or a private piano lesson somewhere would actually be picked up at three. The rest would go home at 4, or 5, or perhaps when day care ends at 6. Then at 7 you would have community meetings, special events, intermural basketball games, and educational programs for adults.

Systematically utilizing after-school hours has a number of very specific benefits. Children who would otherwise miss out on regular classroom instruction because of remedial "pull-out" programs can have these lessons after school instead, and not miss class time. Those whose home environment is too distracting or otherwise unsupportive of learning, get a chance to catch up on their homework and even get some help when they get stuck. Those who want to spend more time learning Spanish or how to use computers, or play chess, get to do so, perhaps in a loosely-structured, yet supportive, environment. Parents would also benefit, especially those who would otherwise have to cut short a work day or make difficult arrangements for their children to be picked up in mid-afternoon.

These arrangements may involve some extra costs, but they are minor, and the payoff is huge. Actually, some of these programs are self-supporting. For example, day care can be provided by an outside contractor who collects feess fees from parents, and actually pays rent to the school for use of facilities. The same type of arrangement could also work for drama, for martial arts, and for Spanish lessons. Some of these fees could even be used to fund scholarships for children whose parents cannot afford to pay. And then, some programs are otherwise funded: scheduling remedial instruction after hours need not cost any more than doing it on a "pull-out" basis. Finally, some activities, perhaps chess club and soccer, could be directed by parent volunteers.

Making the school the heart of the community has benefits far beyond the specific activities and programs provided. Children have a place where they can spend the whole day in safe and wholesome surroundings -- instead of zonking in front of the TV at home, or congregating in unsupervised gangs at the mall.