$4 Million in Grants to Aid After-School Programs

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.

The 15,500-student Oxnard district will receive about $2 million over the next three years to run programs at four south side schools: Hueneme High, Haydock Intermediate and Kamala and McKinna elementary schools.

Hueneme, a district of 8,000 students south of Oxnard, will receive $2.25 million over the same period. That money will go to tutoring centers, sports leagues and other activities at Hathaway, Haycox, Hueneme, Larsen, Parkview, and Bard elementary schools.

Hueneme officials, who were ecstatic after learning earlier this week that they had been awarded the money, said they will spend the summer gearing up to launch the programs this fall.

“We’re finding that the hours between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. are the most important hours of the day,” said Robert Fraisse, superintendent of the largely poor, mostly minority Hueneme district.

“Those are very vulnerable hours for kids, a time when many parents aren’t home and kids need things to do,” he added. “We as a country need to have safe places for our kids to go, and schools are logical places.”

The federal grants--offered through the 21st Century Community Learning Center program--are designed to meet that need.

The program makes it possible for campuses to stay open beyond regular school hours, providing a place where students can catch up on their studies and participate in activities that used to be offered more regularly such as music and art.

More than 2,000 school districts nationwide applied for this year’s grant. Officials announced the winners on Wednesday, reporting that $93 million in federal money would be funneled to 777 schools in 41 states.

“The need and demand for these after-school programs is tremendous,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley in a prepared statement. “Our communities need places where children can go before and after school to get extra educational support and participate in enriching activities.”

In the Oxnard district, those activities will be boosted by a collection of community partners that will dedicate time and money to the effort. Partners include UC Santa Barbara, El Concilio del Condado de Ventura and the Topanga Canyon-based City Hearts theater arts project.

The program--which will be offered on weekends, during the summer and from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. after school--will feature one-on-one tutoring and enrichment programs such as music, art and theater. Students will receive counseling on anger management and drug and violence prevention, and will have the opportunity to participate in community service projects.

However, the bottom line will be to boost the academic performance of the students and the schools they attend.

“I’m hoping to demonstrate that we can make a difference,” said Katherine Larson, a UC Santa Barbara researcher who put together the grant application and will head the program for the Oxnard district. “I believe we can do it.”

For the tiny Hueneme district, the grant was the result of years of research and work. The idea to apply for the money grew out of the Port Hueneme Youth Task Force, established two and a half years agowith the help of Ventura County Supervisor Frank Schillo.

Task force members long ago identified a need for after school programs and have been trying to scrape together money to make that happen.

Now, with a sudden surge of $750,000 a year, school officials and community leaders say they will be able to piece together programs that not only help students perform better in the classroom but also keeps them busy and out of trouble.

“I think it’s fantastic,” said Schillo, whose district includes Port Hueneme and who helped raise half the money to hire a grant writer to put together the application. “These kinds of programs are important. There are a lot of kids out there who don’t have anything to do after school, and this will help them tremendously.”