Photo by Kelly Tagalan
OASES QUEST Elementary Afterschool Program
90+ youth in grades K-5, 3 hours/day, Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday. Wednesday, 4.5 hours/day. Students are enrolled for the entire school year.
In 2007, OASES was invited to implement its cost–efficient after school model to Cleveland Elementary School in the Cleveland Heights District of Oakland. In 2005-06, only 18% of Cleveland students attended the on-campus after school program. OASES now serves 28% of all Cleveland students.
OASES QUEST meets the need for Cleveland to have a comprehensive academic support, recreation, enrichment and arts afterschool program. As with the LEAP program at Lincoln Elementary, OASES QUEST provides academic assistance in a variety of subjects with a low tutor to student ratio. At least two hours per day are devoted to tutorial.
Enrichment Workshops provide daily enrichment and recreation classes in areas such as dance, theater, sports, martial arts, visual arts, and science. Some workshops offer girls-only and boys-only options. Workshop opportunities for the 2007-2008 school year include:
4R’s (Environmental Education)
Serving Kindergarten through 5th grades, 4R’s has been working to introduce the ideas of reduce, reuse, recycle and rot/composting through fun activities. Themes that have been covered include: alternatives to throwing garbage into landfills; harmful environmental impact by people—and brainstorming ideas on how to combat this impact; and identifying what materials in their community are biodegradable.
Dollars and $ense (Financial Literacy)
The Dollars and $ense workshop, serving 3rd through 5th grades, support participants in developing their general financial knowledge and sound, money management skills. Youth learn to be SMART consumers by: stopping, making a plan, asking questions, reviewing information and taking action. While expanding their own skill sets, participants are also giving back to the Cleveland community through an Adopt-a-Family service learning project chosen by the youth. Workshop participants work with QUEST program staff to raise money through raffles and after school sales to fund the project and donated proceeds to a needy family in the school.
KidzLit (Literacy)
KidzLit workshops, serving Kindergarten through 5th grades, provide youth opportunities to explore books while developing their critical thinking abilities and a sense of empathy. Simultaneously anchored in language arts, ethical and social development, workshop sessions include activities such as small and large-group reading and discussion, art, creative writing, and performance, encouraging youth to enjoy reading while building their literacy skills. Activities also serve to develop core values of fairness, helpfulness, respect for others and personal responsibility, facilitating the process of connecting skill with students’ lives.
Around the World (Cultural Education)
Two Around the World workshops, serving Kindergarten through 5th grades, work to increase participants’ knowledge and appreciation of other cultures through literacy, arts activities, and research. Recently, Around the World and KidzLit workshops collaborated for a month and combined their activities around the picture book If I Lived 100 Years Ago. The youth conducted research, written interviews, and art about how they see themselves.