Bowling, pizza and a day at the movies are a few of the treats students in this year’s K-3 Plus Program received.
The program extends the school year by 25 days for Española School District students in kindergarten through third grade. Typically, the extra five weeks of school are tacked on to the front of the school year.
“The kids who are behind in reading and math proficiencies, you want to target them at a young age,” Superintendent Danny Trujillo said during a Nov. 15 interview.
The K-3 Plus Program is a grant program offered by the state Public Education Department developed to “demonstrate that increased time in kindergarten and the early grades narrows the achievement gap between disadvantaged students and other students, increases cognitive skills and leads to high test scores for all participates,” the website states.
No student is required to attend the program however, schools that received “D” and “F” grades on their school report cards are required to apply for the program, Trujillo said. During the summer of 2013, Española Elementary School, Fairview Elementary School, Hernandez Elementary School and Los Niños Kindergarten Center all applied and were approved for the program.
The state distributed money to each school’s program based on how many students actually sign up and attend the program, not how many are listed on the application.
Trujillo said the grant covers teacher salaries and benefits, supplies, material and technology. The intent of the grant is to have school begin five weeks early, he said. Ideally, the students would have the same teacher during the summer program as they will for the regular school year, but that’s not always the case.
“This is not able to happen,” Trujillo said.
However, hiring teachers for the program is not a problem, Trujillo said. They are normally excited to apply for the position both because of the opportunity to make some extra money and because they believe in the program’s value, he said.
“If you look at the research, it does work,” Trujillo said.
Next year, Trujillo hopes to make it mandatory for every elementary school in the District to apply for the program.
The K-3 Plus Program was first offered in 2007, but the first Española schools, Fairview and Hernandez Elementary Schools, signed up for the program for the summer of 2008. Hernandez Elementary has reapplied every year and been accepted. In spite of being involved in the program for six years, Hernandez Elementary School received an “F” on their state school report card for the 2012-2013 school year.
Last year, when Trujillo was principal of Española Elementary School, he said he applied for the grant and received it. He used some of the grant money to purchase 60 iPads, which could be used for kindergarten through third grade students throughout the year.
“This year, we did have leftover money, so we asked the state what we could spend that money on,” Trujillo said.
The school sites requested and received permission to use the extra money on all-day field trips for pizza, movies, bowling and for food and transportation during these field trips. Trujillo said the field trips were used as attendance incentives for the students.
“In the regular course of the year, if a student misses 10 consecutive days of school, they are dropped,” Trujillo said.
This is regularly enforced and works well to ensure students attend. However during summer school, students do not have repercussions for being absent, but because there was extra money in the grant, the program could offer the students incentives.
Below are a list of some of the incentives received by the students with good attendance to the K-3 Plus Program:
• $1,115.50 to Dreamcatcher Cinema 10 for Fairview Elementary School and Española Elementary School students as a reward for attendance through the K-3 Plus Program
$699 to Big Rock Casino Bowling Alley for 143 students in the K-3 plus program to go bowling as a reward for good attendance
$692.60 to Little Caesar’s Pizza for an attendance incentive through the K-3 Plus Program at Fairview and Española Elementary School
$640 to Strike Gold Bowling Center for K3 Plus attendance incentive program for Fairview Elementary School students on July 8
$271 to Taco Bell for K-3 Plus attendance incentive program on Aug. 7 for Española Elementary School students.