Oak Park Unified School District welcomes students to The Club

New after school program to start in fall



 

 

For parents who work, the hours between school letting out and dinnertime can present a problem. Finding good child care can be a challenge, and having to help with homework after getting home from a long day on the job can be stressful.

Oak Park Unified School District wants to take the pressure off parents whose children need a place to go after school. The district is starting its own child care program, The Club, for students in elementary and middle school.

Sara Ahl, the program’s direc- tor, said that for years parents have relied on an after-school program overseen by the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District.

“We’ve heard that not all families get space in the current program. Sometimes they would be on a waitlist, and we wanted to create something where that wouldn’t be the case, where we could accommodate every family that needs child care,” Ahl said, adding that starting the club wasn’t about the district “making a better program, it’s about making sure that every family who needs care has access to it.”

The program, which starts in August, will offer on-campus child care at Brookside, Oak Hills and Red Oak elementary schools, as well as at Medea Creek Middle School.

Morning and afternoon options will be available. Parents can drop their kids off at school as early as 6:45 a.m. and have until 6:30 p.m. to pick them up.

Ahl said The Club will offer a variety of activities to keep kids engaged after school. She said the intention is to help kids develop social skills and self-confidence.

“It will be structured enough so that kids are safe and they know a routine, but we also want to provide some unstructured play time, or socialization time for older students, because those are the times they’re really developing some executive functioning skill and some social skills,” Ahl said.

“There’s kind of a theory out there these days that we’re oversupervising children. We’re not allowing them to figure things out, which will ultimately help them to develop those things that they need to be successful in the workplace, to be successful adults, to function independently.”

The program will have indoor and outdoor activities such as science, art and gardening, as well as help with homework.

The Club offers multiple levels of care at various prices, payable on a monthly basis. Registration is open through March 30. Ahl said the program has no size limit. Families that register will be guaranteed a spot.

Parents can sign up at the OPUSD website, oakparkusd.org.