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This past February, Sudbury’s School Committee decided after-school care is not within their purview (1:01:51-1:23:29). The Select Board is waiting for a memo from the Town Manager (50:10-1:44:04) on the subject, and the Parks and Recreation Commission is still advocating for a Town Manager Working Group (35:40-1:27:04) to address the town-wide need for more after-school care….five months after the initial ask.
This begs the question – how hard is it to form a working group?
To see what’s possible, we need to look no farther than the neighboring town of Wayland. This past spring, Wayland created a district-wide After School Working Group, composed of caretakers, staff from their district-run after-school program (BASE), school administrators, Wayland’s Parks and Recreation Director, elected officials, and others. This group was formed due to community feedback given just ONE MONTH beforehand about the long waitlists for after-school care going into the 2024-2025 school year.
In a May 20, 2024 email to parents, Brian Jones, Principal of Loker Elementary School and Chair of the After School Working Group wrote:
“We understand the urgent need to find more after school care for elementary families as there is a long wait list for BASE and alternative after school options are mostly full as well. As a result, the mission of this Working Group is to review Wayland’s current after school programming and analyze ways to expand upon after school programming in our community to best meet the needs of our families.”
The email communication continues,
“We have had two formal meetings in the last few weeks and a lot of work is underway. Our current team has spoken to nearly a dozen local colleges and multiple programming vendors, visited Reading’s after school program which has several high quality vendors, and collaborated with other community organizations. [Brian Jones] also spoke with Dr. Georgia Hall, who is the Director and Senior Research Scientist for the National Institute on Out-of-School Time, for suggestions for advice on steps forward.”
Less than one month later, on June 12, 2024, the Wayland After School Working Group presented to Wayland’s School Committee to provide updates. (Presentation and meeting both available online (WayCam, School Committee June 12, 4:03-36:38.) Highlights of the presentation were shared in a June 21, 2024 parent communication sent by email. Two impactful solutions were already in the works. The email read,
“We have created a partnership with Regis College to help staff our BASE program. There has been tremendous interest by well-qualified Regis students and the process is underway to hire as many high quality candidates as possible for the fall.”
In addition, they reported that:
“A RFP (Request for Proposal) to secure vendors has been officially posted by the town and school department. Over the next few weeks, potential vendors will submit proposals to provide enriching programming for BASE which would provide more qualified staff for our program.”
In terms of impact, the following was communicated:
“The implementation of these two ideas would likely move 60 students off the BASE waitlist and potentially more when you factor in part-time BASE schedules.”
We elect our town officials to listen to members of the community and advocate for these needs. We elect our town officials to work productively with each other to find solutions to problems that impact a significant portion of the community. We elect our officials to do real work to make our community better and in this case, more family-friendly.
Wayland residents are expected to receive another Working Group update in the next week or so regarding progress. Their progress in just three months is commendable, and will certainly benefit families as soon as this September. When will Sudbury get to work?
As Sudbury Parks and Recreation Commission member, Mara Huston, said on Monday: “There is a solution. It just needs to be worked on.”