MISD Adventure Program

Posted by Carl Gerhardt on Aug 30, 2016
 
On 8/30/2016, MISD Directorr of "After School Programs" Stephanie Saker spoke to the members of the Magnolia Rotary Club about what she sees for the "After School Programs" during the 2016-2017 school year. Pictured is Stephanie Saker.
 
Stephanie Saker told everyone that after 14 years working for the YMCA, that she has now joined MISD (on May 15, 2016) as the Director of After School Programs. For the 2016-2017 school year, she has created the "Adventures Program" for MISD. The new program had to be created from ground zero so Stephanie explained that looked at what other school districts (Ft. Bend and Cypress Fairbanks) in the area were doing for their after school programs. Since everything for MISD had to be created from scratch, she took on the effort to design a logo for the "Adventures Program". The logo she created can be seen below:
 
 
 
Once the logo was completed, she worked with MISD professionals to define the budget, job descriptions, website, program guide (or Parents' Handbook), curriculum and program schedule. To do this, Stephanie broke the program into 4 parts (After School, After School Enrichment, Camp, & Professional Development. She also needed to define the mission and goals for the program. The mission statement is: "Magnolia ISD is dedicated to be the best district in the State of Texas. The Adventures Program provides a fun and educational environment where children are engaged and have a sense of belonging through adventurous and meaningful activities outside of school". The goals were defined as: 
 
•Provide a safe and supportive environment for MISD students.
•Expand students’ interest through a wide variety of recreational and academic activities.
•Ignite a passion for learning that students can carry back to their regular day classes and use for future aspirations.
•Strengthen relationships and connections between students, families and the community through special activities and open communication.
 
Stephanie also stated that like MISD, she wanted this program to be the "best in Texas".
 
Next, Stephanie and her team defined the staff structure for the program. Basically they decided on a "Site Manager" who must be a certified teacher with multiple "Group Leaders" under the "Site Manager" who would be responsible for 1-15 students and lead their students through their after school activities.
 
Next, Stephanie and her team defined what the after school tuition would be. MISD seeded the program with an initial $30K to get it started. The table below shows this breakout:
 
 
Sept – Nov /
Jan – May
August & December
After School Care - 1st Child
$275
$125
   Each Additional Child
$225
$115
MISD Employees - 1st Child
$225
$100
   Each Additional Child
$175
$90
Free & Reduced Lunch - 1st Child
$175
$90
   Each Additional Child
$150
$75
 
Next, Stephanie and her team designed the monthly curriculum "dosage". The table below shows this breakout:
 
 
Stephanie told everyone that the registration to date is 189 students. 15% of that number are "Free and Reduced Lunch Students" and 6% are MISD employee students.
 
When asked about what "Camp" consisted of, Stephanie indicated that camp is for summer school activities. However, she expects these activities to be more "Enhancement Courses".
 
Stephanie pointed out that her future goals are:
 
  1.  More Enrichment Courses (not currently available to "Free and Reduced Lunch Students").
  2.  Support for Pre-K.
  3.  Gather data from this year and analyze the results.
  4.  Hire more bilingual teachers (currently only one is bilingual).
When asked what facilities will be used for MISD Adventures, Stephanie indicated that any and all current school facilities will be used as needed. This includes MISD school computer labs and libraries as well as classrooms.
 
A photo of Stephanie Saker using her laptop computer during her presentation can be seen below:
 
 
 
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