Carly Hamilton

FND 511 Summer 2013

Dr. Craig Cunningham

For my fieldwork project, I wanted to see what types of after school programs
were offered to the students. I looked at my school (Howe School of Excellence),
Catalyst Circle Rock Elementary School and Plato Learning Academy. All of these
schools are near each other in the Austin neighborhood on the west side of Chicago. I
started by looking at the schools websites to see what types of programs the schools
advertised. From there I tried to talk to someone from the school to find out more
information.
My goals for this project are to see if a specific type of school (i.e. neighborhood,
AUSL or charter) provided better/more programs for their students after school. I am
looking to see if the children in inner city are provided with alternative options of things
to do instead of going home after school.
Fieldwork Hour Log
8/7: 1 hour researching topics for Fieldwork Project and Proposal
8/8: 1 hours researching and calling schools.
8:13: 1 hour researching schools
8/19: 30 min. Introduction to Howe School of Excellence
8/20: 1 hours speaking with school employee and researching student test results.
8/22: 5 hours and 15 minutes learning about the curriculum, common core
implementation, and preparing students for success inside and outside of school.
Boystown PD.
8/23: 1 hour community walk
8/26: 2 hours speaking with teachers about the quality of after school programs
9/4: 2 hours researching
9/5: 1 speaking with Mrs. Anthony about after school programs that prepare students
with life skills.
From this project, I learned that the students at Howe (the AUSL school) were
provided with the most options for after school programs. Catalyst Circle Rock (the city
wide charter) didnt advertise anything about after school programs or resources for the
school families. The school is run by Catalyst and they have three charter schools in
Chicago. Their website had a lot of resources for the schools families. The resources
ranged from energy assistance, low income housing, workforce center to abused
women in children and several others. I called the school and never heard back about
after school programs. Plato Learning Academy (contract school) provides the
students with after school programs such as flag football, basketball, track and field, Girl
Scouts (all age levels) and Academic Olympics. Plato is connected with a high school.
When I called the school on August 8, the phone continued to ring and ring. I never did
find out if they offered more after school programs or not. On Howes website they
advertise all of their sports (football, wrestling, basketball, softball, volleyball, track and
field and double dutch). Once the school year started and I was at Howe, I found out
that Ms. Anthony is the person incharge of the non athletic after school programs. Ms.
Anthony applied for the Community School 21 Century Grant. With this grant, she is
able to provide after school programs such as business club, robotics, culinary arts,
build-a-bike, girl scouts, cheerleading, varsity cheerleading, reading club and Mad
Science. The grant is to be things that will provide the children with life skills in a variety
of subjects. The grant focuses on students grades 3-8 and must serve 175 students
minimally a year. Ms. Anthony looks for people or organizations to come in and teach
the students. Students must apply to be apart of the clubs but there is no fee to join and
students may be in as many clubs as they want to be in. The clubs at Howe are held on
Monday- Thursday for an hour after school. There are also programs offered during
winter, spring and summer break.
If I was to do this assignment again differently I would have been more
aggressive with my phones calls trying to get a hold of the right people. I was worried
that I was going to come off as annoying so I didnt want to continue to call them. I also
would have looked at the what the difference is from Howe to a school in Lincoln Park. If
I had more time and resources, I would have liked to look into more options for the K-2
grade since they are not focused on for programs in the grant. I think its important that
those students are able to do things after school. I have noticed that a lot of my students
get picked up by their older siblings/ cousins. If the sibling or cousin decided to
participate in a club then my students would have to walk home by themselves at the
age of 5 or wait the hour in the office for the program to end.