Brooke Kelly ’18, Abby Baggini ’18, Tess McMullin ’18: The ESF organization will be running the Lower School after-care program this year. ESF, which stands for Education, Sports, and Fun, has run summer camps at Episcopal for the past eighteen years, fostering creativity, athleticism, and individuality in its campers. According to ESF’s website, they “provide carefully designed programs and activities, a dedicated, experienced and well-trained staff, along with a caring, safe environment with premier facilities.”
In past years, Episcopal has run its own after-care program in the Lower School, which provided supervision for younger students after the academic hours. Children are taken care of from three o’clock to six o’clock in the afternoon. “The younger kids are the ones who need supervision after school if their parents work. For example, I’m coaching so I can’t always get my kids,” said Whitaker Powell, Tennis Director for the ESF program and Lower School program. “The hope is that kids can do their activities here, on our campus, with our facilities, [instead of] having to leave to do the exact same activities somewhere else.” Although this previous arrangement proved helpful to many parents, ESF offers the existing program a curriculum of new and unique types of recreation. Students are engaged in scientific, artistic, and athletic activities, ranging from cooking classes to karate. These are taking place primarily in the Lower School building, although the Tennis Pavilion and Athletic Center are in use as well.
The children who participate in the program are separated into three age-based groups: Pre-K and Kindergarten, First through Third grade, and Fourth and Fifth grade. As the homework load grows, older students are offered time to work on assignments, and to receive help from the ESF staff. “The younger kids do arts and crafts, they come to the playground, and they don’t really have homework, so we do science and sports activities with them. As they get older they still go to the playground, but they have homework time as well. We play sports in the gym and if some of them are still here, we do arts and crafts at the end of the day,” explained ESF employee, Emily Hicks.
However, not all members of the Episcopal Academy community are in favor of this change. These concerns are primarily related to the price of the camp, as there is now an additional cost to have a child stay after school in ESF’s care. An EA mother said, “I think it is too expensive. It’s cheaper for me to get a babysitter at this point.” Josie Konopka ‘18, an after-care alum, added, “I don’t think it’s worth it. People should not have to pay for after-care.”
The program is now charging a “Drop-in” rate of $30 a day per child through the fall season for supervision from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM. There are also varying prices for those who wish to attend multiple days, all of which can be found on Episcopal’s website. For others, the ESF experience guarantees a structured place where students can try new things. Lawrence Henderson, Middle School History teacher and father of a Lower School EA student, stated, “If it enriches my child’s life and is a valuable experience, then it is definitely worth [the cost].”
Photo Courtesy of Julia Thompson ’16