Back in 2018, Bremen Public Schools and the local chapter of the Boys and Girls Club were awarded a 4-year grant through the Indiana Department of Education’s 21st Century Community Learning Centers program.
Superintendent Dr. Jim White stated that Curriculum Director Jill Hassel provided school board members with some data related to the program during their most recent meeting.
He shared, “Mrs. Hassel presented on our first year of our 21st Century Grant and the data was pretty positive that we met almost all our goals for our young learners so that’s good. It ups the potential for us to renew that.”
The program just barely fell short of their attendance goal by a few percentages.
On a related note, officials mentioned that the program only had about 43 students total. It was noted that recruitment efforts will have to improve going forward and retaining students for multiple should be a priority.
Something that was highlighted in the annual evaluation for 2018-2019 was that many of the Center’s Hispanic participants are the children of undocumented workers.
The report notes that this population can oftentimes be wary of certain institutions that are frequently unfamiliar with the function of the American education system.
Center officials established that building institutional trust within that population was a priority for the program, as was helping these parents learn how to assist their children in navigating an unfamiliar institution.
To close the gap, workshops for parents were held and were reportedly well attended. The program nearly doubled its goal for parent participation.
According to the report, on the end of the year parent survey, nearly all respondents expressed some degree of confidence in their ability to help their children in school and expressed a degree of institutional trust that the school and the afterschool program would look after the best interests of their children.
