The Play’s the Key : Children Turn to Acting to Save After-School Program

A puff of artificial smoke billowed across the West Los Angeles school stage as the beast turned magically into a prince and the fairy tale came to an end.

Applause filled the Rosewood Elementary School auditorium, where parents, children and neighborhood shopkeepers were hoping for a magical conversion of their own.

They were trying to pump up Rosewood’s after-school child-care program. They want to keep it from shutting down and adding to the army of latchkey children that wanders Los Angeles’ streets each afternoon.

The PTA-sponsored program is designed for children whose working parents aren’t home when school day ends. That’s 11:30 a.m. for Rosewood’s kindergartners; upper-level classes let out three hours later.

But the recession has left some families unable to afford the program’s $40-a-week fee. In recent months, Rosewood’s afternoon enrollment has dropped by a third--dipping dangerously beneath its financial break-even point.

Organizers say after-school programs face closure if enrollment slips below 30. Rosewood’s has 26 children, down from more than 36 a little over a year ago.

Groups such as the PTA and YMCA run afternoon programs at about 150 Los Angeles Unified School District campuses. Although tax money pays for programs in some poor neighborhoods, officials say most are self-sustaining. That makes them vulnerable during a recession.

“Parents have to cut back somewhere, so they send their kids home alone after school” with the family house key tied around their necks, said Katya Bozzi, who heads the PTA’s after-school program in the Los Angeles Basin.

Linda Burwell, a single parent who works as a dental office manager, is one of those who has been forced to withdraw her son from the Rosewood program.

“My salary isn’t going up. That’s one of the things I had to cut out,” said Burwell, whose 9-year-old son, Greggory, was enrolled for three years. These days, she asks him to stay on the school playground until she gets off work.

“It’s not the greatest situation. But I had no choice. I know a lot of parents here who have taken their children out for the same reason.”

Harold Kuhn, executive director of the PTA’s 16-school latchkey program in the San Fernando Valley, said officials have been able to pump extra cash into suburban programs hurt by the recession.

“We’ve seen a larger number of parents asking for a subsidy,” he said, noting that about one-third of his children now receive subsidies that cut the weekly $40 fee down to $18.

Bozzi said similar grants are spread among the 1,400 children enrolled afternoons in the metropolitan area. Seven Rosewood students have them; no other scholarships are currently available there.

“We don’t want kids to leave the program because their parents don’t have the money,” she said. “But we just don’t really have the funding to come to everyone’s aid.”

That’s why parents and neighborhood shopkeepers came to the kids’ aid that evening when children took to the Rosewood stage to produce their own version of “Beauty and the Beast.”

A furniture store donated cardboard sofa boxes that the youngsters turned into a castle backdrop. A pair of hardware stores kicked in paint and brushes. A fabric shop contributed cloth for costumes. A camera store loaned the movie studio-style fog machine. A nearby video production company donated a sound system and spotlights.

Rosewood program worker Jocelyn Cenestrelli organized the show. She assigned each of the 26 children acting parts or backstage jobs such as pulling the curtain and selling popcorn and brownies during intermission.

About $600 was raised from admission tickets and snack sales. The money will be spent on materials to keep the program’s children busy and entertained during the remainder of the school year.

The entertainment factor is important, said Trina Tinti, director of the Rosewood program. That’s because children are allowed to play on the Rosewood playground without cost each afternoon and many parents are tempted to save money sending their children there.

“If we had more kids, we’d have more funds” to spend on activities likely to entice more children to want to sign up, she said.

Happily, the children’s “Beauty and the Beast” production seemed to catch the playground crowd’s attention.

Curious youngsters slipped into the school auditorium to watch the other children put the finishing touches on their painted backdrops and rehearse beneath the donated spotlights and smoke machine.

“It looks fun,” said onlooker Alexis Bonya, 11-year-old fifth-grader. “But $40 a week is kind of expensive. My mom wouldn’t give me that much money. Her business isn’t doing that well. We’ve cut back.”

Parents of the program’s 26 youngsters are trying to help recruit newcomers.

“Whoever I can tell about the program, I do,” said West Hollywood resident Malka Miodovsky, whose 6 1/2-year-old daughter, Sharon, was one of several girls who portrayed Beauty in the show. “The economy has an effect. Everybody’s scrimping now.”

Said parent Fred Coleman, whose son, Drew, 8, helped operate the special effects smoke machine: “It would be the biggest mistake ever to lose a program like this.”

Rosewood Principal Louvenia Jenkins agreed. “It’s crucial,” she said.