After School Programs

Gov. Pete Wilson just signed several key pieces of legislation that greatly increase the investment in our city's children. The After-School Learning and Safe Neighborhood Partnership Program calls for investing in safe, quality after-school programs that provide some of our most vulnerable children an alternative to unsupervised activities including the negative temptations of gangs and drugs. Here in Los Angeles we have witnessed the wonders of what after-school programs can do. Los Angeles' award-winning after-school program, LA's BEST (Better Educated Students for Tomorrow)

I was just trying to help L.A. City Atty. Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich keep a campaign promise recently when I went looking for an airplane that would fly around downtown with a sign reading: "Nuch is a liar. " And now it occurs to me that there's another promise I should help him keep: His pledge to also donate $100,000 to a program that helps kids. That would be LA's Best After School Enrichment Program, which serves 28,000 students at 186 schools. It turns out Trutanich's check has not yet arrived.

Ballet and English tutoring could be among new after-school programs for local students under a proposal being considered tonight by the school board. The "joint use" proposal would be a collaboration between the Santa Ana Unified School District and the city for after-school programs aimed at keeping children off the streets and improving academic and other skills.

For more than five years, Hilda Hernandez has guided students around a variety of potential hazards — speeding drivers, shady looking characters hanging out on street corners — while working as a school crossing guard at 209th Street and Western Avenue. This is the heart of Harbor Gateway, a tough southern Los Angeles community where many young students attend 186th Street Elementary School , more than a mile and a half away in Gardena. It is one of seven schools — only three elementary — in the Los Angeles Unified School District for which transportation is provided during regular school hours solely because of safety concerns.

Four years after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger entered the arena of California politics by persuading voters to support an initiative that expands after-school programs, schools will finally receive the funds to launch those programs. Schwarzenegger signed a bill Thursday that will send $550 million to schools for that purpose. The state's budget problems had delayed implementation of the measure, Proposition 49, until now.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's face is blotched with rubber-like makeup, depicting wounds and blood and bits of metal skull. But I could be wrong. This is a very strange place. The former Mr. Universe is wearing a tight T-shirt that emphasizes his barrel chest and bulging biceps, along with Terminator garb: black leather pants and jackboots. We're at L.A. Center Studios, where pre-production has begun on "Terminator 3." Schwarzenegger has just stepped off the set--a top-secret place where no reporter is allowed--and into his trailer to briefly reenter the world of politics.

City leaders have revived a youth recreation program at a local elementary school, giving dozens of children activities to do after school. The program, based at Evergreen Elementary School, offers children 7 to 14 sports, storytelling, arts and crafts, field trips, and classes in photography, cooking and first aid. Participants also will be able to check out books from a mobile library provided by the city. There is a $10 enrollment fee.

The Hueneme and Oxnard school districts have received multimillion-dollar grants to run a range of after-school programs over the next three years aimed at keeping students out of trouble and tuned in to their studies. The districts are among 18 in California and 176 nationwide to receive the federal money, offered as part of a U.S. Department of Education campaign to provide safe and supervised places for students to spend time when their parents aren't home.

Seeking to cut drug use and crime by youths, San Diego mayoral candidate Maureen F. O'Connor proposed Friday that the city pay to restore after-school recreation programs eliminated by Proposition 13. "Many children have no place to go after school and so they take to the streets," O'Connor said at a news conference outside Sherman Elementary School in Southeast San Diego. "We need to give our children positive outlets for their creativity and energy."

At the Baldwin Hills branch library, children regularly come by after school to visit Yertle the Turtle, watch the children of Ballet Xochitlaztlan perform, meet an author or talk to an aerospace engineer. Children's librarian Brenda Hicks mounted 61 such events last year--six times as many as most Los Angeles children's librarians--with young audiences totaling 1,533 for these special events.

The After-School All-Stars — a tax-exempt group founded by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the early 1990s to provide tutoring, recreation and other programs for poor children — has now grown to provide after-school programs for 81,000 middle and high school students at 450 campuses around the country. And Schwarzenegger continues to support the organization. Speaking at the Feb. 18 "Reaching for the Stars" gala at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, he said, "I will always be part of raising the money … organizing and helping the committee and promoting it nationwide."

The bell signaling the end of the school day at De Anza Elementary in Baldwin Park rang more than an hour ago. But hundreds of students are still at school, studying vocabulary, practicing math and completing homework under the supervision of teachers. With the help of state grants, federal funds and teacher volunteers, nearly half of De Anza's students spend extra hours every week learning at school -- hours well beyond the traditional school day. "Until six o'clock at night, you would think we're still in session," said Principal Christine Simmons.

The city of Los Angeles ended 2006 with the high-profile killings of two children: a 9-year-old girl in Angeleno Heights and a 14-year-old girl in Harbor Gateway who, police say, was targeted in part because of her race. In the wake of those tragedies, the city's elected officials began work on a tax measure that would raise $30 million for anti-gang initiatives, including after-school programs and city-run recreation activities.

Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton and L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca said Tuesday that they supported a city ballot measure that would raise taxes to pay for anti-gang programs. The campaign for Proposition A, a $30-million tax hike on the Nov. 4 ballot, said that it also has secured the support of Los Angeles Fire Chief Douglas Barry and businessman and former basketball star Earvin "Magic" Johnson. Proposition A would charge property owners an additional $36 per year, with the proceeds paying for after-school programs.

City prosecutors will become campus-safety specialists in at least nine low-performing middle schools in crime-prone areas, according to an announcement Thursday by L.A. City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo. The program, which Delgadillo announced at school district headquarters, is an outgrowth of a well-regarded two-year effort at Markham Middle School in Watts. This year, Markham has registered gains on the state's Academic Performance Index that were higher than the state and school district average.

Re "Eyes open," editorial, March 31 Neighborhoods have always tried to combat gangs because the mayor won't. Some paint over tagging even though they risk being killed; others volunteer at underfunded after-school programs so that children have somewhere to be other than the streets. When the mayor made his statement, those of us who live in gang-infested neighborhoods were not surprised. However, we were surprised that the mayor was finally addressing a problem that has always been an issue for us. The Times said, "That statement also could have been made 15 years ago."

For over 25 years, I have been involved with education and children's programs, first as an elementary school teacher and later as a supervisor and director of after-school programs. In 1988, I was appointed by then-Mayor Tom Bradley to the Education Council that developed L.A.'s BEST. As with so many councils, I sat there fat and dumb and happy, until I was asked to visit some of the school sites. When I did, I was overcome with disappointment.

Re "California's schools brace for steep cuts," Feb. 21 Has Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gone mad with school budget cuts? Has he not been to a public school lately? When will we have a governor who sends his own kids to public schools? Maybe then he would see what we parents see every day -- bloated class sizes; few counselors (one counselor to every 500 students at my kid's high school); hardworking teachers who deserve more, not less; and deteriorating buildings and landscaping that make schools resemble penal institutions.

Developer and philanthropist Donald Bren on Tuesday reached beyond the Orange County communities he helped build and define, announcing an $8.5-million donation to benefit after-school programs in Santa Ana and east Los Angeles County. The gift will bolster Santa Ana-based THINK Together, an after-school program that extends the school day for children who need extra coaching with classwork or homework help, often because their parents are working or lack English skills.