Columbus (OH) Dispatch

Monday, November 18, 2002

TEACHERS' EDUCATION TO BE GRADED


Data to show whether grads are ready to teach students

By Ruth E. Sternberg

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

The cries for better teachers have resounded nationwide in recent years, but no one truly knows how well teachers are being prepared in the halls of academia.

That soon will change in Ohio.

Several education organizations and colleges are planning a $10 million, five-year study to find out how well education colleges in the state are preparing teachers.

"It's long past due,'' said Donna Evans, dean of the Ohio State University College of Education. "In education, the national agenda is focused on teacher preparation.''

The Ohio Partnership for Accountability -- consisting of 51 education schools, the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Board of Regents -- will study the techniques of early-career teachers and those who have been in the classroom for a while and compare them to what future teachers are learning in college.

The group expects to look at the practices of 25,000 teachers in all grades in a number of Ohio schools. It wants data it can present to federal education officials in response to demands for improved teacher-education programs.

U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige declared in the summer that teachers are not well-schooled in basic subjects. Paige said teachers spend too much time learning how to manage classrooms and tailor teaching to the different ways children take in information and not enough time learning about the content of the courses they teach.

The national education bill -- No Child Left Behind -- that Congress approved this year calls for highly qualified teachers in all classrooms and demands that teachers use education methods that are backed by research.

States are now also required to submit information about their education colleges. But the data, describing programs and sharing the results of state teacher tests, has been criticized nationally as shallow and disorganized.

"We really don't have good data on what the effects of teachers' educations are in our classrooms,'' said Bill Loadman, OSU's associate dean for education research, who is helping to design the study.

"The state (education) department puts rules in place that say, 'You need this many credit hours.' We can raise, 'Do you need more or less of that?' ''

"Few colleges across the country have been willing to subject themselves to a study of this type,'' said Marci Kanstoroom, research director for the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in Washington. The private foundation has provided technical assistance for Ohio's plan.

"The ed schools are really opening themselves up to scrutiny, and they're willing to do research that might tell them some of their programs might not be very effective,'' Kanstoroom said. "They're brave to do it.''

The Ohio Partnership has $250,000 so far -- with $100,000 from the regents, $100,000 from the state and $50,000 from Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati. The partnership will work with the KnowledgeWorks Foundation of Cincinnati and the Jennings Foundation in Cleveland to find the rest of the funding, Loadman said. It hopes to begin work in the spring.

Loadman said the study will cover three areas: interviewing new teachers before they leave college and then tracking them for five years; visiting experienced teachers to see how they do their jobs; and studying the methods and knowledge of teachers in math and reading -- two subjects that are getting heavy national attention.

"It will help us determine what in an education program makes a difference to student achievement,'' said Janet Schilk, associate director of education initiatives for the regents.

The group is seeking advice from William Sanders, a North Carolina researcher who used teacher-experience data to evaluate student achievement in Tennessee.

Sanders is also working with Battelle for Kids, a Battelle-funded effort to evaluate the academic progress of 275,000 students in 42 Ohio school districts, including Columbus, Dublin, Reynoldsburg, Westerville and Whitehall. The group has asked Battelle for Kids if it can use the same schools, Loadman said.


11/29/2002

Providence (RI) Journal

Middle school on upswing in state test performance


By KATHERINE BOAS
Journal Staff Writer

GLOCESTER -- In many ways, it's like a game of Follow the Leader. When test performance at middle schools statewide improves, so does Ponaganset Middle School's.

Except in this game, Ponaganset is always one step ahead of the state.

When the percentage of Rhode Island students who meet or exceed standards on a statewide test increases, the percentage of Ponaganset students who meet or exceed those standards generally increases more. And when the percentage decreases or remains constant statewide, the drop at Ponaganset is usually not as steep -- if there is a slip at all.

On the math skills subtest of the New Standards Reference Examination, for example, the percentage of students who achieved the standard statewide increased to 51 percent this year from 42 percent last year. At Ponaganset, that number increased to 70 percent from 51 percent. In 2000, 61 percent of students achieved the standard statewide, compared with 66 percent at Ponaganset.

"We're definitely on an upswing," said Richard Fallon, the middle school's instructional coordinator for math.

About four years ago the school began emphasizing a standards-based curriculum, which is probably starting to show its effects now that students and teachers have grown more accustomed to it, Fallon said.

Around the same time, though, the state began collecting data to report achievement based on rolling averages of two or three years at a time instead of individual years. Using three-year data sets -- collection began in 1998, so the first set of two three-year sets will be complete next year -- produces more stable and reliable data than simply comparing results from individual years, said Elliot Krieger, a spokesman for the state Department of Education.

Test scores fluctuate from year to year, Krieger said, and rolling averages smooth out the irregularities. So while Ponaganset's scores seem to be improving from year to year, the rolling data paints a slightly dimmer picture.

On the math skills subtest, which showed improvement at the state and local levels from 2001 to 2002, the rolling averages show a decrease in students achieving the standard in 2001-2002 from 1998-2000. Scores on that test increased from 1998 to 1999 and stayed within one percentage point from 1999 to 2000, but a decrease -- 6 points at the local level and 19 at the state level -- from 2000 to 2001 seems to make the rolling average data somewhat misleading at first.

At the Foster-Glocester Regional School Committee meeting last month, Ponaganset High School Principal Joseph P. Maruszczak presented the test scores from the middle and high schools.

The acting principal of the middle school, Mary Ann Carroll, had been on the job only three weeks at the time.

Maruszczak noted that although the middle school's numbers have improved over the last three years, the 2001-2002 rolling averages indicate decreases from 1998-2000 on several subtests.

But as each successive eighth grade class takes the test, the rolling data will even itself out to show trends, Krieger said.

"If they continue that upswing, then that will certainly show up in the next year," he said. "That's exactly what rolling averages do -- they smooth out the peaks and the valleys."

In the English/language arts section of the New Standards Reference Exam, also given to eighth graders, the percent of Ponaganset students achieving the standard increased and was above the statewide figure on every subtest.

Numbers at the state and local levels reflect the percent of students meeting or exceeding the state standard. If a student does not take the test, his score becomes a zero and he is counted among the students who did not attain proficiency, Krieger said.

In the end, it's the percentage of students who are proficient that counts, Krieger said.

"I'm pleased that we are improving, but we have a ways to go," Fallon said. "Everyone has a ways to go."


LaCrosse (WI) Tribune

December 3, 2003

Board to consider middle school policy


By ANASTASIA MERCER / Of the Tribune staff

The La Crosse School Board will continue a discussion on middle school teacher certification during its January workshop despite opposition by some administrators and board members who felt the board should stay out of the hiring process. Board member Judith Blank opened the Monday night workshop with a motion to remove the subject from the agenda because under the board's governing style, the board looks at student results, not "how they get there," she said.

"I don't think we really care what teachers are as long as the results are there," Blank said.

But board member Susan Bottner said there is an "undercurrent of co ncern" among teachers, administrators and parents because some middle school teachers are not specialists in the area they teach. Instead of being certified to teach math, language arts or science, they are broadly certified to teach grades K-8, she said.

Bottner said teachers with these broad certifications can teach middle school language arts after taking only two, three-credit English classes during college.

"I don't think that's adequate preparation," she said. "I don't think it's in the best interest of kids."

Bottner said she has received more feedback on the middle school certification issue than any other after bringing it up at a board meeting earlier this year. She said if all seventh- and eighth-grade teachers were certified in the subject areas they taught, test scores likely would go up.

"It just doesn't make sense to me," she added. Doug Happel, associate superintendent of human resources, said La Crosse School District teachers "are excellently qualified," and the vast majority of middle school teachers hold dual licenses.

Happel said certification should not be "the focus" - staff evaluations and curriculum should be. He said new licensing laws require all teachers graduating after July 1, 2004, to meet 10 state standards, which hopefully will lead to even better teachers.

Happel said anonymous staff complaints should not drive hiring issues that are decided by consensus bargaining and administrators. The committee that dealt with the bargaining process in 2000 agreed to keep the broad license requirement but advised administrators to attempt to hire teachers with dual certification. The district has done that, Happel said.

Several board members were upset by Happel's comments.

"We have faces and we have the right to represent our constituencies any way we choose to," said board president Michael McArdle. "I'm not asking you to deal with unnamed people, I'm asking you to deal with the nine of us."

"We as a board need to talk about these things," said vice president Christine Clair.

Happel said one of the district's best middle school teachers, Kathy Giese, who was selected in 2001 as the Wisconsin Council for the Social Studies Distinguished Middle School Teacher of the Year, has a broad certification.

Happel said the change in certification could cause the entire middle school concept to collapse.

Bottner agreed that La Crosse has quality teachers and a quality school system, but said it might improve with a change in district policy. She asked if all the middle school teachers who are dual certified teach in the areas of their certification.

Superintendent Tom Downs asked the board to wait to hear from middle school principals before voting on the issue at a regular board meeting. The board agreed to have a workshop discussion of Bottner's proposed policy that would require the superintendent to employ middle school teachers who are state certified in the subject areas they are employed to teach.

Voting in favor of the policy discussion were McArdle, Clair, clerk Albert Lambeth and Bottner. Voting against it were Blank, Neil Duresky and Marc Ranger. Deb Suchla and Connie Troyanek were absent.


Bangor (ME) Daily News

November 13, 2002

Stephen King backs laptop initiative


Author proposes program of online writing instruction for students

FREEPORT - If best-selling author Stephen King has his way, the Maine laptop initiative could have one more benefit next year: His writing instruction.King told a group of Freeport Middle School seventh-graders Tuesday that he would like to set up an interactive, Internet-based system through which he could teach writing to students.

The idea is conceptual for now, King said, but it illustrates the learning possibilities laptop computers bring to Maine classrooms.

"I would like to teach writing via this technology," King told the students. "I would like to get in touch with you and have you get in touch with me. Because that can happen, and together we can make that happen."

King was at the school with Gov. Angus King to visit classrooms and talk to students and teachers to see how they are using the 115 Apple iBook laptops that are in use at the school. The laptop initiative calls for putting a computer in the hands of every middle-school student in Maine.

About 18,000 of the iBooks were delivered in September to students and teachers in 239 schools. Another 18,000 are scheduled to be delivered next year.

The governor and the author, who are not related, also spoke to the students as a group.

The governor said delegations from Scotland, France and Canada have visited Maine in recent weeks to learn more about the laptop program. The world, he said, is watching.

"You are going to be in the history books," he said.

Stephen King, who grew up in nearby Durham and now lives in Bangor, said all students in time will have computers as part of their learning arsenal.

"There's never been a class that has had what you have before you," he said. "When I was in the seventh grade, I was given a pen."

King is the author of more than 30 best-selling books, and is no stranger to teaching or to the Internet.

He taught English at Hampden Academy in the early 1970s, and two years ago wrote "On Writing," a book about his life and his craft.

King a couple of years ago distributed a 66-page short story, "Riding the Bullet," over the Internet by allowing users to download it for $2.50. He also distributed a book, "The Plant," over the Internet using an honor system in which readers were supposed to pay a dollar for each installment of the book.

He is now proposing to combine his writing knowledge and the Internet to help Maine students.

The author told reporters that he can envision establishing a dialogue with students, giving them assignments and posting good writing examples online for others to see - just like in a classroom.

He said there will be "stumbles and falls" in the teaching project, but that the opportunities are plentiful.

"That's what's so exciting about this," he said. "We're like surfers riding in the curl."

King also weighed in on the debate over whether the laptop program should be cut to help the state deal with its $240 million budget shortfall.

The Legislature is scheduled to convene Wednesday to begin addressing the shortfall, and cutting the laptop plan is one area that has been discussed. Under Gov. King's emergency budget plan, the laptop initiative account faces a cut of $9.6 million.

Stephen King said he doesn't see any viable reason for legislators to stop the program.

"It comes down to the question of what's fat and what's muscle," he said. "If you consider teaching Maine schoolchildren to be 'fat,' I suggest you have to go back and rethink your situation."


12/5/02

Boston Globe

Student's MCAS answer means 449 others pass


By Michele Kurtz and Anand Vaishnav, Globe Staff

Thanks to the keen eye of a Whitman senior who spotted another way to answer an MCAS math question, 449 students suddenly became eligible to graduate this week when their scores were propelled over the passing mark.

Jennifer Mueller, 18, a senior at Whitman-Hanson Regional High School, persuaded state education officials to accept an alternative answer to a math question in the patterns, relations, and algebra section on last spring's test. Instead of selecting an answer by applying a numerical sequence, she picked one based on a visual pattern that she saw. In other words, it looked right.

Despite making the discovery in an MCAS tutorial for students who had failed the test, Mueller was chagrined to find that her own score of 218 still fell short of the 220 required to pass. ''I want to graduate. I want to be able to walk down the stadium with my class,'' Mueller said yesterday. Still, she said, ''I'm pretty excited about it, because 500 other students passed.''

The one-point change in their raw scores boosted the marks of 557 juniors and seniors enough so that they passed the exam required to graduate. Of those, 449 had already passed the English exam, so the extra bump in their math score means they have met the entire MCAS graduation requirement. Ninety-five of them were seniors. Beginning with the class of 2003, students must pass both the 10th-grade MCAS English and math.

The State Department of Education sent letters out yesterday to schools alerting them that certain students had passed the math and no longer needed to take a retest scheduled for next week. In a statement issued yesterday, State Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll called Mueller's way of solving the problem ''terrific'' and praised her ingenuity.

''The commissioner was actually very pleased with this whole story and finds it very nice to know that there are students out there who took the time and came out with a very unique way to solve the problem,'' said department spokeswoman Heidi B. Perlman.

But MCAS critics were far less enthused. Walt Haney, a Boston College education professor who opposes the use of high-stakes tests and has studied the reliability of testing systems, said the mistake shows the danger in basing monumental decisions such as graduation on a single exam.

''These kinds of errors on the MCAS tests - and they've been found repeatedly - are dramatic examples of how capricious the DOE is being in making high-stakes decisions based on test results in isolation,'' said Haney, a researcher at BC's Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation, and Educational Policy. ''The professional standards are absolutely clear on this point: Test results, even good test results with no defective questions, should not be used in isolation to make important decisions about kids.''

Perlman yesterday defended the integrity of the MCAS and the decision to accept Mueller's answer. ''This girl truly came up with a very creative way to reach her solution to this problem.''

The case is believed to be the first time an adjustment on an MCAS answer has resulted in students qualifying for diplomas. However, it's not the first time questions have arisen about MCAS answers. This year, a Clinton Middle School teacher spotted a question on the Grade 8 history test with two correct answers, and when the scores were adjusted, 666 more students passed. Last year, the Grade 8 history test had a question labeling President James Madison as ''John Madison.'' And on a Grade 10 math test, a geometry question was thrown out when more than one correct answer was found. (Scores didn't change because the question was simply disqualified.)

As in those previous cases, state officials said they would review any similar occurrences.

''If there are other cases like this, we certainly would look at them and consider them. It's not the norm,'' said Perlman.

Mueller, who described herself as an average ''C'' student, said she wants to go to college to become an American Sign Language interpreter. ''Different people have different learning skills and see things in different ways,'' she said. ''When I see things in picture forms I understand it much better than if I hear it.''

Mueller said she'll take the retest next week but is frustrated she won't benefit from her own creativity. ''I think that if they could mess up on one question that could be two different ways, maybe they could mess up on more questions like that,'' she said.


11-18-02

Stamford Advocate

Girls and ADD


Attention Deficit Disorder is often undiagnosed in females

By Mary Beth Faller
Staff Writer

Slowly, parents and professionals are starting to realize that just as many girls as boys have Attention Deficit Disorder, but because their symptoms are so different, girls often are not diagnosed and continue to struggle without the help they need.

ADD, sometimes called Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, is a brain condition that exists from birth. It has many symptoms, including a short attention span, easy distractibility, a low frustration tolerance, impulsive behavior, hyperactivity, disorganization and immaturity, says Simon Epstein, a Stamford psychiatrist who specializes in treating ADD. Many people with ADD also have a learning disability, but not all.

"In my experience, it's pretty even between boys and girls," he says. Epstein and other experts say that girls with ADD are much less likely to be hyperactive and aggressive. And that's the problem.

"If you're hyperactive, the kindergarten teacher knows and you're off to the social worker for help right away," Epstein says. "But if you're inattentive and nice and looking out the window, you're not a problem child. You drift along, never doing well, never reaching your potential. You never make the waves that bring you to someone's attention."

But early diagnosis is important because another difference is that boys with ADD tend to do better once they hit puberty, but girls tend to get worse.

Kathleen G. Nadeau, co-author of "Understanding Girls with AD/HD" (Advantage Books, 1999, $19.95), says her book is still one of the few to address the specific differences and needs of girls with the disorder.

"AD/HD is the most highly researched childhood psychiatric condition, there are literally thousands of published academic articles," says Nadeau, a Maryland psychologist who is a founder of the Center for Gender Issues and ADHD. "Yet less than one-half of 1 percent have anything to do with girls."

Decades ago, AD/HD was called "hyperactivity," and was thought to afflict only boys, and that they were defiant, aggressive and difficult.

Twenty years ago, when schools were told to provide accommodations for kids with learning problems, psychologists were flooded with calls from pediatricians and parents. "If you got this magic diagnosis, you could get special help for your kid," she says. "We were doing evaluations morning, noon and night."

She noticed that often, the boys' parents also showed signs of ADD -- mothers as well as fathers.

But the American Psychiatric Association based the diagnostic criteria on those hyperactive boys. For a diagnosis, a child must have six or more hyperactive or inattentive symptoms in early childhood for more than six months, and they must cause significant dysfunction in two or more settings.

"Girls are much more likely to have the inattentive type of ADD," says Epstein. They will exert extra effort in the classroom, getting decent grades.

"If a girl has all the symptoms, but is doing reasonably well, she won't get the diagnosis," Nadeau says. "Studies show elementary school girls are more motivated to do well, and they're being punished for that by not meeting the criteria.

"But they have school anxiety, thinking, 'The teacher will call on me and I won't know what page we're on.' "

In fact, Nadeau says that studies show that girls with ADD are often diagnosed as being depressed or anxious, which they might be, as a result of the brain disorder. These girls can be shy and have difficulty in social situations.

Nadeau's daughter had AD/HD, but was one of the rare girls who was also hyperactive. "She was an easy one to diagnose," she says of the daughter now in her 30s.

"In those days, there were no school accommodations. The only way to 'treat' her was to hand-pick her teacher. That's all I had at my disposal."

Eventually, her daughter was helped with medication, but that treatment is a complicated issue, she says, because hormonal cycles can exacerbate ADD symptoms in girls, and stimulants used to treat the disorder, such as Ritalin, can worsen anxiety.

Middle school is especially difficult academically, Epstein says.

"When they get to seventh and eighth grade, things get much worse for them, with the requirements of attention, focus and homework and changing from class to class. Their grades may plunge," he says.

Epstein stops short of blaming teachers for overlooking girls with ADD. "Teachers get blamed for everything, and they're already overburdened," he says.

Nadeau agrees, citing studies that show pediatricians are reluctant to diagnose girls with ADD.

"But when a child is not doing what they seem capable of doing and seem to be drifting and not quite focused -- things that ring a bell -- it should be considered a possible attention problem," he says.

Parents won't see their daughter daydreaming in the classroom, but they will notice difficulties when it's time for homework.

"They'll see a child who is otherwise motivated but doesn't do well with sitting down and finishing a task such as homework or is up and around doing a dozen other things other than the homework," he says.

Most kids dislike homework, so how does a parent know if there's truly a problem? Nadeau's book has several pages of specific questions to distinguish girls' ADD symptoms from normal childhood behavior. For example, two of the 37 questions for pre-school girls are: "Does she not show appropriate fear?" and "Does she talk very little in public?" For middle schoolers: "Does she tend to interrupt conversations?" and "Does she seem to overreact?"

Once diagnosed, treatment for boys and girls is the same, Epstein says: family understanding, counseling for the child, and, if needed, medication.

"ADD is not just an individual patient," he says. "It's important that the family understand what ADD is and what the symptoms are in that particular child. There could be problems with homework, trouble sitting still or problems with getting frustrated easily. Some have a temper, some are more aggressive, some love to punch their siblings."

Counseling helps the child with organizational skills, peer relationships and difficulty in dealing with frustration.

Beryl Kaufman, executive director of the Connecticut Association for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities, based in Norwalk, says she has seen an increase in requests for information not only for girls, but also for women with ADD.

"We're having more and more women call," she says, and the organization is working on getting a support group together.

Nadeau says women with ADD face many of the same issues as girls: lack of diagnosis and misdiagnosis as depression. "They get on the anti-depressants and they feel better but they're still unable to function," she says.

Nadeau says recent studies of brain scans show distinct differences in activity in the brains of people with ADD, which could eventually lead to more concrete criteria.

"I'm really almost holding my breath waiting for the day when there's a medical diagnosis for AD/HD," she says.

*

For more information: Call CACLD at 838-5010, or visit www.cacld.org, www.simonepstein.org or www.addvance.com, the Web site for the Center for Gender Issues and ADHD.


11-25-02

The Tennessean

Traveling trunks transport classrooms back to Civil War


LARRY MCCORMACK / STAFF

Peace is declared between the Union and Confederacy when fifth-graders Brittany Rose and T.K. Washington wear the uniforms of Civil War soldiers to get a feel for what it was like to be one. The clothes are from an educational trunk available from the Fort Donelson National Battlefield.

By NICOLE GARTON
Staff Writer

When the Civil War ended, its soldiers left some pretty big shoes to fill.

Big coats and pants, too.

That's a discovery 10-year-old T.K. Washington made when he donned a wool Confederate uniform and clomped down the hall of Burt Elementary in Clarksville, Tenn.

''It's hot,'' he said as classmate Cody Kjelvik helped hold his pants up.

T.K. and the rest of his fifth-grade social studies class got to touch, smell, taste and hear the Civil War last week when their teacher borrowed two traveling trunks filled with reproductions of artifacts and other educational materials intended to bring the war to the classroom.

Compiled by the Fort Donelson National Battlefield using about $1,500 in private donations and grants, the trunks are available for free to teachers for up to a week at a time.

Using a $25,000 grant from the National Park Service, the park also is working on an instructional video about the 1862 battle and lesson plans for classes that book tours at Fort Donelson. Both will be free for teachers when they're finished.

It's all part of an effort to reach more schools across the region, said Susan Hawkins a park ranger at Fort Donelson. More than 4,000 students visit the battlefield each year, but many more can't make the trip because of cost or distance.

With the trunks, which have visited 11 schools since they began circulating last month, ''we're talking about reaching 5,000 additional students just this school year,'' Hawkins said.

One of the trunks contains a Confederate uniform and a teacher's guide that focuses on the 1862 battle at Fort Donelson in Dover, Tenn. The other features a Union get-up and looks at Fort Donelson's relationship with the Underground Railroad, through which slaves escaped.

Videotapes, CDs, notebooks full of historical information and even copies of real letters and journal entries written by soldiers are also included.

''This helps, for them to be able to put their hands on it,'' said Brenda Stacey, a fifth-grade teacher at Burt Elementary. ''Just actually feeling the wool and feeling the cotton and feeling the coffee beans. It just helps them understand it was not easy.''

Confederate music played in the background as the students rooted around in the trunks like treasure hunters and made little discoveries, such as the smell of a twist of tobacco and the scratchiness of the wool uniforms.

Cody lifted a haversack bulging with coffee and other rations.

''They kept all their personal stuff in it like salt, sugar, coffee beans, tobacco and pipes,'' Cody said.

Stacey found a recipe for hardtack, a biscuit-like food soldiers ate, and made a batch for the class to sample.

''This stuff is like concrete,'' Zach Pingrey said.

The trunks were compiled with the help of volunteer teachers from Tennessee and Kentucky.

''I think the biggest thing is it really helps them remember history,'' said Susan Cantrell, a former teacher and living historian from Stewart, Tenn. ''They'll probably always remember handling the stuff in the trunks, whereas they might not remember what they read in books.''

More details

To borrow the Civil War trunks for classroom use, call Fort Donelson at (931) 232-5706.


12-02-02

Springfield (MA) Union-News

Program enlivens after-school day


By PATRICK JOHNSON
Staff writer

NORTHAMPTON - Katherine Heston and Emily Marteness think they're making a recipe with chocolate pudding, but the two eighth-grade students at the John F. Kennedy Middle School do not realize they're learning math.

The two girls, both 13 and from Northampton, are taking part in cooking class in the "JFK" after-school program.

They think they are learning how to make a trifle, a dessert made of cake soaked in custard, but as they follow the recipe's directions, they're using addition, subtraction, division and even fractions.

"All of our programs are linked to school," said Nancy L. Adamanoyurka of the JFK program, although the students may not be aware of it.

"Everything is linked to the academic plan, but they don't know it," she said.

The JFK program name plays on the name of the school, but what the letters stand for is not the late president but "Just for Kids."

The program is offered three days a week and children at the school may attend any or all of the sessions. It operates from the end of school at 2:30 p.m. until about 4:30 p.m., and is offered through the Hampshire Education Collaborative 21st Century Community Learning Centers program.

"Last year, at one point or another, 600 of the 800 kids in this school attended for one day," she said. "Three-quarters of the kids came here."

Founded four years ago by Peggy Clapp and Roger Clapp, the program gives children a place to go after school that is positive, healthy and beneficial for teens.

Peggy Clapp remains the co-director of the program, although Roger Clapp stepped down this year.

Adamanoyurka said the pair deserves all the credit for making the JFK program a success.

We're here, we're successful thanks to them," she said. "Peggy Clapp is the heart and soul for this program."

The program will be expanding by another day per week and an added hour per day, Adamanoyurka said. It will now be offered 2:30-5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

The expansion is part of a new partnership involving the program, the Northampton Recreation Department and the YMCA.

With more households having two working parents, many middle- and high-school age children come home to empty houses.

"Many of the kids here are what you'd call latchkey kids," Adamanoyurka said.

The JFK program provides an alternative to sitting on the sofa, eating junk food and watching MTV, she said.

"I think it's great to be with other kids, getting to do fun stuff," said Heston, taking a break from her recipe.

She has attended one to two days a week for three years.

Without it, after-school hours would be spent doing homework, baby-sitting or vegetating in front of the television, she said.

Even though it takes place in the same building as school, it is not school, she said. "It's much less stressful, much more fun."

Marteness said without the program, she'd be home alone with her cat. "I like it. I get to hang out with my friends aside from school."

Adamanoyurka said the program seeks to help children academically, to give them positive adult role models and to foster their socio-emotional competency, which is fancy talk for being able to play well with others.

"The reality is most of them have the opportunity to be elsewhere. If they're with us, it's because they're having fun," she said. Patrick Johnson can be reached at pjohnson@union-news.com


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