Crichton and crew working hard to expand after school programming

As one of just 15 newly chosen Afterschool Ambassadors for the Afterschool Alliance for 2016-17, Cranston’s director of Expanded Learning Programs, Ayana Crichton, is not slowing down in her daily quest to expand and grow the after school programming available in Cranston and statewide.

Having just returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., in her role as ambassador, Crichton is more driven than ever about her mission and is eager to spread the word about after school programming and its benefits, as well as the need that exists both city and statewide for increased funding and programming.

Coming back from the trip, Crichton reflected on what she learned while she was there.

“While I was in Washington, I realized that there are a lot more state representatives invested in after school programs than I originally thought, and it was comforting to have people knowing about and supporting us,” she said. “And on the other side of the table, I was in a room full of people from across the country that are running after school programs that are so different from ours here, but yet also very much the same. We’re all on the same mission, we all have the same vision.”

Crichton believes in the impact that after school programs have on children, but she feels that not enough people know about it, and that’s something she’s hoping to change. She wants to address the perception of after school programs as being strictly for daycare, and she continues to spread the word about what her programs have done in the past as well as what is on the horizon.

“After school plays such a role in the social-emotional development of our students, and the students can have such an impact on their communities through after school programming as well,” she said. “Here in Cranston we went to the students to see what types of things they wanted to do after school, and they all said they wanted to impact change. They wanted to beautify their neighborhoods, so we had a real focus on that. They wanted to have a positive influence on their local community, they wanted to create positive changes. When I was in Washington, I met an ambassador from Maine whose students in the after school program were from Botswana and they didn’t have regular access to electricity every day, so they engineered and designed solar ovens and sent them home with the students to help them cook.”

The programming that Crichton and her colleagues in Cranston offer to students is under the umbrella of Kidventure and Bain during the school year, and through CampXL in the summertime. Each of the programs center around science, technology, engineering, art, math, and computing, utilizing the acronym “STEAM.”

“We had a focus group at Camp XL in 2014 and all of the students said they wanted to focus more on STEAM in our activities, too, and we listened to what they said. They felt that they didn’t get a lot of support in the area of science and they wanted more help, so we worked on that,” she said. “Our kids participated in the NASA Challenge and they participate in Fuel Up to Play 60. Across the country, kids are coding, they’re creating apps, they’re exploring careers. I have a high school student who first came to me stating that she wanted to be a teacher and to work at her parents’ restaurant. She is a straight A student, and through our programs she is involved in the Fuel Up to Play 60 program as an ambassador, and she’s involved in sports and other extracurriculars at school. Now, with all of the things we’ve been able to expose her to, she wants to be an engineer and go to MIT.”

She continued: “That sort of shift is in line with the mission of the NASA Challenge program. They saw a disparity between young men and young women in the area of the sciences. They saw that more often, young women tend to be the ones holding the clipboards, whereas they want them to be the ones holding the test tubes. Our programming is helping to get them there. We have students who come to us saying they’re not sure they’ll be able to go to high school because they need to work and help support their families.”

Crichton cites the lack of funding for such programming as a major stumbling block in the success of the programs as well as in the ability to reach all of the students who need the programs.

“For every student we have enrolled in our programs, we have two or three waiting to get in,” she said.

Crichton spends much of her spare time researching and applying for grants, spending what funding is allotted in the most creative, bare-bones ways possible, and knowing that there are so many more students in need than enrolled.

“Our biggest battle is that funding is spread so thin,” she said. “We try to bring in different educators after school to share their talents and to find creative ways to do what it is that we do, but we really need more support in the way of funding. When we first started, we didn’t charge fees. Now we have to charge a reasonable fee, and it’s still not enough. It’s still so bare bones.”

Despite that, Crichton and her colleagues are able to do so much with so little and their ultimate goal is to support their students’ academics with what is being done after school.

“Everything we do is learning-based. We strive to support our students and the teachers, and to have what we do after school link back and connect to what the students do during the day so that they can make that connection,” Crichton said. “We do a lot of hands-on, outdoor curriculum-based programs. We do Project Wild, which is a K-12 nationwide curriculum and it’s all outdoors. It is connected to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) as well as the new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and it covers so many areas that the teachers cover during the school day. In one activity called ‘Oh Deer,’ the students make a live graph which shows deer populations increasing or decreasing depending on scenarios such as drought or lack of food and shelter. An activity like this is a fun game for them, but it helps them see the relevance to what they’re doing in school, gives them a point of reference and helps to make what they do in school make more sense to them. That’s our goal.”

In Cranston, the programs have benefited from partnerships with groups such as the Taco Foundation and with the Mystic Sea Research Foundation and have utilized programs such as “Return to the Titanic,” which incorporated concepts such as density, disintegration under water and allowed the students to view live footage from Dr. Robert Ballard and the Nautilus.

“Rhode Island has 12,000 students in after school programs across the state,” she said. “To think of all the students we have waiting to get in, is overwhelming. We haven’t figured out a way to get them all in, a way to get our programs offered at every school in the district rather than just two … In Rhode Island, we are tiny, but no matter where I go, I am told that we have some of the best after school programming in the country. How can we turn our 12,000 into 40,000? It definitely puts your brain into perspective as to where we are and where we need to be.”

The after school programs also incorporate sports, hosting intramural teams which for the first time this year will be playing against at least one other team from the Highlander Charter School.

“For the longest time our students could only play against themselves because there was no funding for transportation,” Crichton said. “However, at Highlander, their after school person was able to get transportation so their students can come here and our students can play against them. It just shows you, though, how we can barely sustain our programs because of the minimal funding allotted. There are so many studies that show how much involvement in after school sports impacts students, right down to impacting attendance. Studies show that kids will come to school if only to be able to participate in their after school sporting events. Our kids need this.”

In addition to helping students with their current educational pursuits, sports, and social-emotional wellness, Crichton and her crew are also focused on helping them to look ahead to their future, and helping the students’ families through it all.

“We are constantly thinking about how we can get our students into colleges and universities, how do we get them into jobs, how do we get them thinking about their future,” she said. “We also know that for our families, parents struggle with language barriers and doing the simplest things like helping with homework, reading to kids, and filling out important forms is often hindered by language barriers. Yet, we also know we have a skilled, talented group of parents out there, people who were engineers, sociologists, and trained employees in their countries. If they could overcome the language barriers, that would help them to help their students. So many are so willing to help out, we need to help bridge that gap.”

To that end, there are several upcoming programs in line for parents through the Parent Academy, including a “Decoding Your Teen” series being held on Oct. 11, 18, and 25 and Nov. 1, as well as English Language classes for which registration is being held on Oct. 4-5 at Gladstone School. They also hope to repeat a successful “Raising Readers” series of classes in the spring.

Crichton has worked hard to establish partnerships with other schools in Cranston, reaching out to the NEL/CPS charter high school and with Cranston High School West, each helping with projects at Gladstone, including a new greenhouse and a peaceful playground. She noted too, that Cranston has recently been accepted in the first part of the process for a grant from the Working Cities Challenge, which is a collaborative effort from many Cranston agencies and an effort in which Crichton is also part of, which will provide some additional funding as well.

In October, the annual Lights on Afterschool event will showcase the after school programming in Cranston. A nationwide Afterschool Alliance event, Cranston will be participating, hosting the event at Gladstone on Oct. 20 from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.

“We will be showcasing our programming, our student leaders, and the students will be creating the event as well,” Crichton said. “Guests will be able to see some of our STEAM activities when they visit and get a sense of what it is we do.”

As Crichton looks at the year ahead and beyond, she is hopeful for increased support for the expansion of this necessary programming for her current students and for those across the state waiting for the same opportunities.

“I want to keep advocating for after school programs. I don’t want anyone to take us off the table,” she said. “Don’t forget us when you’re having those all-important conversations about education, about policy, about funding, whether it’s at the state level, the district level, or in PTO meetings and School Committee meetings. We need to get more kids in more schools into more programs.”