Personnel responsible for evaluation: Selina O'Connor.
Strengths of Program/Data:
1. Student achievement is the heart of the program. 137 students are enrolled.
2. Students are involved in active activities to improve their health.
Concerns Regarding Program/Data:
1. Need to look at ways to get this program funded without grant money.
2. Take a hard look at transportation and costs associated with program.
3. Look at different approach.
Recommendations Regarding Program/Data:
1. Seek ways to involve junior high students in programming.
2. Get more community involvement.
Grant Goals:
1. Increase student learning and success in school.
The SOAR Program currently has 137 children enrolled, which serves 52 families by SOAR alone and we are unsure of the number of families served by the STAR program, although there are 55 middle school students that are eligible for the program. Our average daily attendance is 47 students for the year through the month of January. All students in the K-6 are provided a snack directly after school; the STAR students are not given one due to funding cuts. The SOAR staff requires the students to bring a free reading book and/or homework to work on during homework hour. We have one retired teacher as well as several of the elementary staff that stay until 4:30 to tutor. Our main concentration is in reading and math, but if students have homework in other subjects, they will receive homework with those as well. Contracted staff is paid through Career Ladder while the retired teacher is paid through SOAR. Each group has 20 minutes of Health You, which is exercise, dance, and game playing. The enrichment activities are the rest of the time period. Enrichment activities are anything from arts and crafts like beading, making bracelets, painting, to playing cards, board games, or computers. Our enrichment activities provide learning experiences a student may not receive during the normal school day.
2. Foster the development of the whole child through improved technology skills and community involvement.
Technology: Computers are not available except in the library and we are in the activity center. We have not used the computers much in the past two years, but my staff of the 3rd-6th graders have been discussing that they should start taking them to computers at least once a month. Most of the sites that the older students like have now been blocked, so they are not as excited about using the computers. We are using the Smart Boards in a couple of the classrooms and the K-2 students seem to enjoy those activities a lot.
Community Involvement: We have not had a lot of community involvement this year. I continually ask for people to volunteer to show the students how to do anything, but I have not had any luck this year. I would like to see more involvement with community and student interactions. It would be nice to have some real friendships that could carry over into students helping the elderly with flowerbeds or with gardening. The students would be learning lifelong skills while the older citizens would have the help they need. The positive on that is that the groups have made ornaments and door decorations for the residents at the nursing home, delivered them, and visited with many of the people who have made that their home. The 5th and 6th grade students went to Orilla's Way to have a game day. They played chess, checkers, and dominos. Plans are to visit them again this spring to play Bingo.
3. Strengthen students' ability to avoid involvement in at-risk behavior such as tobacco, drugs, and alcohol use and sexual activity.
This year, we have focused on having character traits being studied. We start the month with a film about the character trait on the first Wednesday, continuing with a different day per week the rest of the month trying to catch each student at least once, since not all students are here every day. That is the same day the elementary staff have their monthly staff meeting, so we are really short on tutors. This spring, we are in hopes that our community partners from Tri-County Health will be able to help by providing programming against drugs, alcohol, and sex. We too have had lessons this year on the idea of saying, "no." With the students staying for SOAR, they are less likely to have the extra time on their hands to allow them access to experimentation.
Program Goals:
We have not had our site visit from Dianne Covell of DESE due to cancellation with the snow. She compiles our assessment booklets and the new goals are created from that.
Methods of Evaluation:
1. Comparison of yearly expenses and revenues.
2. Parent surveys.
3. Comparison of families served yearly.
4. Academic Achievement.
5. Lesson plan review and time usage review.
Challenges of Program:
1. Funding/sustainability.
2. Family support/involvement.
3. Homework vs. SOAR work.
4. Health of staff and tutors.
5. Sustainability.
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