Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Grant ensures after-class activities for middle schools

This coming school year, Spokane middle school students will have more after-school options because of a new Department of Education grant.

Referred to as the After School Activity Program or ASAP, it’s for all students but seeks to attract low-income students, diverse groups, gay and lesbian students, kids with disabilities and those with mental health issues, said Wendy Bleecker, director of student support services in Spokane Public Schools.

The program replaces the six-year-old, after-school Hubs program that targeted just low-income populations by opening up school gyms and giving students a place to do homework. That program limped along as the grant money ran out, and Spokane Public Schools was forced to cut staff.

Through a three-year $8.3 million grant, Spokane Public Schools has hired seven youth and community specialists, each placed in a middle school. The grant also covers other districts, which will develop their own programs – Deer Park, Riverside, Nine Mile Falls, Medical Lake and Cheney.

Nicole Devon, one of the newly hired youth and community workers, has worked at Eastern Washington University and at the American Indian Community Center. She has good friends at the Martin Luther King Family Outreach Center.

It’s her job to reach out to community centers and develop partnerships and programs for students. For example, one of the proposed activities for the school year will be a hip-hop dance.

“With the impact of all community partners, this can be phenomenal,” Devon said.

Now they just need to spread the word to community groups and parents.

As an active parent, John Bongard had kept up on the after-school program that was phased out, but he hadn’t heard about the new one. His son, Thor Bongard, who turns 12 today, will enter Sacajawea Middle School for the first time in the fall.

Bongard stood in the shade Tuesday afternoon chatting with other parents at Sacajawea Middle School while waiting for the school bus to return his son from a camp north of Spokane.

It’s one of the first programs sponsored by the new grant – a summer camp designed to ease grade school students into middle school. The after-school coordinators used the camp to meet many of the students they will be developing programs for during the school year.

Bongard discovered the program only after going through his son’s backpack.

“They don’t hand you the newsletter anymore (when they get older),” Bongard said.

Bongard thought it would be a good idea to enroll his son so he could meet future Sacajawea classmates.

On Tuesday, about 22 students attended the camp, including eighth-graders who are expected to help their younger classmates adjust to a new school. Each day until the end of next week, a group from another middle school is bused to the camp for games and group activities.

Thor walked up to his dad in the Sacajawea parking lot and told him about how he had joined a game at camp where students played roles of carnivores, omnivores and herbivores and hunters. All activities are designed to get students to work together in one way or another to build relationships.

Studies show that incidents of teasing and bullying increase sharply as students move from grade school to middle school. Programs like the summer camp try to ease that transition.

Bongard’s not too concerned about his son, who has five years of martial arts training.

“I don’t think he’ll be bullied,” said Bongard, who works in a warehouse driving a fork-lift.