Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mark Sweetland on July 28, 2012 at 9:21pm

Question:  What is a Quad-A program? 

Comments:  The building should be open early for parents to drop off their children.  There should also be after-school supervised activities.  I don't know what provisions should be made for summer; maybe it should be open year-round.  Obviously parents have to work all summer. 

Don't know about grade range.  Schools I went to were through 8 and it was not a problem.  I am not decided about the bus issue.

Permalink Reply by Joan Roby-Davison on July 29, 2012 at 11:11am

Mark:

Quad A provides funding for a host of youth-related activities, supporting Flower City Soccer, after-school programming and much more.

I've attached a link to their site (follows this reply.  Adam McFadden is the Executive Director, and the program is housed at Rochester Area Community Foundation:  http://www.racf.org/sp/spCommunityImpact/YouthFamilies/tabid/244/De...

Permalink Reply by Ang on August 9, 2012 at 10:53pm

Though we no longer live in Rochester, both my boys attended 16, K-6. The younger one also participated in Quad A during 6th grade which was awesome for him. We still have ties to the community, so I'd like to see 16 succeed and be a place of positivity in the neighborhood for children and their parents.

Due to the size of the building, I see two options.

1: K-8 and limit classroom population to prevent overcrowding.

2: K-5 with slightly higher classroom population.

3: Either way it should be a community school. No busing kids in from other neighborhoods.

The reasoning behind both suggestions is that elementary kids do better when they're separated from older kids. Similarly, middle school aged students do better when they're separated from high school students. That is why most districts do K-5, 6-8, 9-12. RCSD keeps shuffling the grade ranges around and it doesn't seem to help anything.

Rather than address the issue of whether the school should open early so parents can drop their kids off, I will say that when my boys went there, school didn't start until 9:30 or something ridiculous like that. The reason for this was that students would get breakfast but weren't allowed to eat it in the cafeteria. They had to bring their breakfast to the classroom and eat there.

I propose that the school day begin around 8 and offer breakfast, which would be eaten in the cafeteria, so students can report to the classroom ready to learn. The doors should open a half hour before the school day begins. If the day started sooner, there'd be less of a need for the school to be open early so parents can drop their children off. It's an issue now because up to the 2010-2011 school year students were not allowed to show up to school before 9:10 or 9:15 (I forget which).

Quad A should remain. It keeps kids off the street, empowers them to be confident role models, forms friendships among students, and feeds them dinner. It receives its own funding, correct? As for other after school activities and funding for them, I have no clue.

It would be great if 16 could be open during the summer. Extended school year, summer sports camps, skill builders (reading and math), etc. are all possibilities. But again, something like that needs funding. The positive of that is, not only does it keep children engaged in positive activities during the summer, but it also deters crime. For whatever reason, 16 school and Aberdeen Square seem to be vandalism magnets during the summer.

That's all I got.

Permalink Reply by Eleanor Coleman on August 10, 2012 at 1:53pm

I'd like to make sure that the Children's Defense Fund Freedom Schools are on the agenda for neighborhood school possibilities.  SWAN staff have been attending the NEAD Freedom School on No. Goodman and have been in conversation with George Moses about starting one in the SouthWest.  These schools provide summer and after school enrichment through a model curriculum that supports children and families around 5 essential components:   high quality academic enrichment,  parent and family involvement, social action and civic engagement, intergenerational servant leadership development, and nutrition, health and mental health.  The schools are community-based and link with area churches, agencies, universities, etc., to boost student motivation to read, generate more positive attitudes toward learning, and connect the needs of children and families to the resources of their communities.