Improve Aftercare Program at St. Gregory

PETITION FOR IMPROVED AFTERCARE PROGRAM AT ST. GREGORY THE GREAT

As working parents of students at St. Gregory we want to ensure that the afterschool activities our children attend and/or participate in share in the mission of the school both in Christ and academically. We view the afterschool program as an extension of school and therefore expect that they receive the same quality care and education while there. As working parents our resources are limited for our children after school, especially for those below the 5th grade level since clubs and activities do not begin until then. Over the last couple of years we have seen a decline in the aftercare program with (i) the number of staff/counselors available to help the children; (ii) the range of activities available during such time and (iii) the behavior of the students. We are proposing the below and respectfully request that the administration for St. Gregory carefully review and consider our concerns.
Additional Staff/Activities: While we understand that resources for staff may be limited, we propose the below suggestions:

offering volunteer opportunities to high school students to assist with the students. They can divide the students into groups and work with them to assist with homework, conduct art activities, story time for the younger children, etc.
As we have seen with other schools, work with local business owners such as sports groups, Karate, Tae Kwon Do, etc. to come out to the school 1 hour every other day (or more) to work with the students and provide much needed time to decompress their energy. There are many companies that offer this service for afterschool activities and many parents may be willing to pay the extra cost to allow their children to participate in this. Many times this is a nominal cost to the parents.
Irrespective of whether additional volunteers can be found, all students should be allocated appropriate time to complete homework.

Behavior: Ms. Melinda has been great with the students though it is clear that her resources are limited and she does the best she can with what is available to her. Some of us have encountered issues with bullying, inappropriate conversations, and complete disregard for authority by some of the children. This is directly contradictory to the reason we send our children to a Catholic institution and correlated to the lack of proper staff and activities in aftercare. Additionally, children in aftercare need to be held accountable for their behavior just as if they were in school during a regular school day.
We hope you will take our concerns into consideration and look forward to the administration’s response to our concerns.