John G. Carlisle after-school program helps students stay sharp

BY NATHAN GRANGER | LINK nky REPORTER

Sharon Scott, who works in the after-school program at John G. Carlisle Elementary in Covington, always knew that she had a gift for working with children.

“I have patience with children,” Scott said. “I have nine children.”

When Scott isn’t helping the regular teaching staff as an instructional assistant, she’s contributing to the school’s Community Learning Center, Cubs Zone, which offers academic enrichment and other learning activities after school dismisses in the afternoon.

The program has been around for years –one of Scott’s daughters, who’s currently enrolled in college, was part of the program as an elementary student – and recently added a pilot program from Horizon Community Funds of Northern Kentucky and Covington Community Partners to address learning loss due to school closures during the pandemic. Newport Independent Schools and Ludlow Independent Schools will also run similar pilot programs over the next three years, and Nancy Grayson, Horizon Fund’s CEO, said she hopes to take the data collected from the pilot programs and replicate them in other schools down the line.

Scott has some formal training in early childhood education, having completed two years of study at Central State University, but said most of her training came from raising and educating her own kids.

Only one of her children went to preschool, she said. In spite of this, “when they went to school, they were prepared,” she said. “They knew their names. They knew their numbers, you know? They knew sounds. They knew sight words because it was just something I love to do.

“So I wanted to spread myself a little bit more and just share what I love with other children.”

Both the pilot program and the academic component of the conventional program focus on the essentials: reading and math. But after the first hour, which is called What I Need, or WIN time, the fun stuff starts.

“We work with Baker Hunt (Art Center). We work with the library. We have a guy that comes in and we do chess club, teaching kids how to play chess. And then we have what we call fun-tology – not cosmetology,” Scott said.”

In fun-tology, students learn the basics of the cosmetic arts.

“They’re doing hair with mannequin dolls. Right now, they’re doing nails,” Scott said. “The girls love it. We actually had some guys say, ‘Hey, we’d like to do that too.’ ”

Other activities include music and dance instruction.

The program provides dinner and snacks for students, which Scott said helps with the kids’ moods and energy levels.

Scott estimated there are 90 kids attending the program. The students enjoy it so much, they’ve begun recruiting their friends.

She shared the kind of queries she gets from students who hear about the program from their friends. “I’m in second grade. … I just heard about it, and they seem like they have so much fun and they come back and tell me all these things. How can I join?”

“That’s our goal,”Scott said.

In the end, Scott said, it’s about making sure that all of the students’ needs, emotional and academic, are being met.

“I’m a big advocate for children,” Scott said. “I think children’s voices aren’t heard because they’re little people, but they are people … just like you and me, and they have a voice and a lot of them have been muted because they’re children. And so it’s our job to give them a voice.”

To learn more about the program or find out if your child is eligible, contact the program’s director at 859-816-6447.