SAUGUS — The town will be able to meet demand for all students currently on the waitlist for the Kids Come First after-school program at Belmonte Steam Academy by the end of the week, Superintendent Erin McMahon told the Childcare & Enrichment Subcommittee Thursday evening.
At a School Committee meeting earlier this month, McMahon said the program was having difficulty meeting demand do to a staffing shortage. But, in the ensuing weeks the district, thanks to the efforts of Program Manager Katrina McNichol, has been able to remedy the prior staffing issues.
“We have plenty of staff, many that would like to have more hours. So that’s good in terms of just having plenty of staff for the BSA right now. So children are being well taken care of. They’re getting a lot of enrichment with academics. One of the things that I’m most excited about is that I think that there’s a really big social aspect that we’re meeting right now that is so needed at this time,” McNichol told the committee. Things have been really successful, and going really smoothly.”
McMahon credited McNichol with “essentially [rebuilding] the program from the ground up.”
Kids Come First has almost doubled its enrollment since the beginning of the school year, McMahon said, rising from 60 students to more than 110.
Due to the success of the Kids Come First program at Belmonte, the district is in the process of preparing to launch a similar program at the Veterans Early Learning Center after a survey sent out by the district found at least 48 families representing 58 children would enroll.
McNichol said the district currently has enough staff to get the program up and running.
“Right now we have enough staff as far as lead teachers go for every day of the week at the Veterans which is great and we do have a few parents for each day. So if I have a ratio of eight students per staff member, I’m looking at about 32 to 40 students a day, which I think is really positive,” McNichol said.
Kids Come First could be up and running at the VELC quickly, McNichol said, though she declined to offer a specific time frame or date.
“That’s really kind of in the infancy stages now where we just got the interest numbers and it really could begin as soon as staff members are available and most of them are and just kind of getting some procedural little details in place, like where it’s happening, hours, how families pay just little things like that. So that does take at least a few days,” she said. “I’m positive that we could get it started pretty quickly.”
But, McMahon said, the district, at least at first, won’t be able to meet demand for the program. In order to do so, she proposed allowing Saugus High School students do community service or work at the program to help fill some of the staffing needs. She said the district was hopeful it could meet all demand by Halloween.
McNichol backed the idea, noting that in years past high school students have drawn rave reviews from students.
“I advocate for the high school involvement as well,” she said. “But again, vetting them, really talking to these students and making sure that they’re serious, and this is something that they’re really interested in going forward.”
School Committee member Leigh Gerow praised McMahon and McNichol for the work they have put in to ensure the after-school programs get the attention and resources they need.
“It’s really nice that the students of Saugus have a safe place to spend their time with a trusted adult, which is something that we really have been striving for,” Gerow said.
Charlie McKenna can be reached at [email protected].