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Youngstown students parade for after-school programs
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Hundreds of Youngstown City Schools students marched along Wood Street in Youngstown on Thursday in a parade that was part of Lights On Afterschool, an event hosted by the Youngstown Afterschool Alliance to promote the after-school programs attended by about 300 Youngstown students.
By JORDYN GRZELEWSKI
jgrzelewski@vindy.com
YOUNGSTOWN
For many kids, going to school seems like a chore.
Many Youngstown City Schools students, however, look forward to staying at school even after the final bell has rung.
Or so it appeared during a parade Thursday afternoon in which hundreds of students marched along Wood Street, enthusiastically shouting and waving banners the whole way, to promote the after-school programs they attend.
The parade was part of Lights On Afterschool, an event sponsored by the Youngstown Afterschool
Alliance as part of a national campaign in which more than 7,500 sites will participate this month.
The parade started in front of the Youngstown Board of Education office on Wood Street and ended at Choffin Career and Technical Center, where students heard from schools Superintendent Connie Hathorn, Youngstown State University President Jim Tressel and Dorothy Collins of Eastern Gateway Community College.
“We have these after-school programs for you,” Hathorn told students. “We’re going to take care of you and do anything we can to make you successful.”
Students also got to participate in math and reading activities, and had healthful foods to snack on. Partners
such as OH WOW! The Roger & Gloria Jones Children’s Center for Science & Technology, and the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County had tables at the event.
Learning paired with fun-filled activities is what the after-school programs — in which about 300 students participate — are all about, according to April Alexander, project director for the programs at Williamson Elementary, Rayen Early College and Chaney.
“Afterschool provides academic enrichment and youth development in very key ways for kids,” she said, adding that while students get help on homework, they also do things such as STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) activities, robotics demonstrations and poetry readings.
It also helps kids who are behind in school, Alexander said.
“We target students who are below grade level in reading or math, and we work with them throughout the year to build those skills,” she said.
Tiaunnah El’amin, a seventh-grader at Chaney, goes to after-school programs to get help in “math, science — everything,” she said, and not because her parents are making her.
“I wanted to go. To help me get better in math,” she said.
And, “It helps with children that have parents who are working,” said Councilwoman Annie Gillam, D-1st, a member of the after-school alliance advisory board.
The programs, which are offered at Williamson, Chaney, Rayen Early College, East Middle School and East High School, and Martin Luther King, William Holmes McGuffey and Harding elementary schools, are funded mostly through a U.S. Department of Education grant. Alexander said each program costs about $100,000 per year.
She said the key to the success of the programs is the strong community partnerships with local businesses, nonprofits, government and the school district.