“Messy Play” encouraged in Certified Outdoor Classrooms at two different facilities and a Community College program that boasts a nearly 100% transfer rate were just a couple of highlights at Leadership Santa Maria Valley’s most recent session as we gathered to learn more about Education and Youth Services.
The day began with breakfast sponsored by Celeste Coelho-Hudson, and food provided by Panera Bread at the YMCA.
Following breakfast, we enjoyed an in-depth tour of the YMCA Preschool where we learned about their Certifed Outdoor Classroom, an outdoor learning facility that’s far more than just a playground, and other programs specially tailored for the children of economically disadvantaged children.
The newly enlarged facility can serve up to 44 students aged 2.5-5 years, though they currently have only 29. The program uses child-centered learning techniques where the children are not forced to work on certain things. Instead, they are encouraged to do things in their own interests. The basic concept is that children learn best when they foster their own learning and creativity.
As we observed, we could see that the children were thriving in this environment.
We learned that as each child masters the milestones of the younger classroom (referred to as the caterpillars) they go through a ceremony, individually and evolve into a ‘butterfly.’ These milestones are mainly social-emotional in nature. The preschool program is open to members and non-members alike.
We then moved on to a tour of the rest of the (adult) facility of the YMCA and the ‘Kid’s Zone;’ where members can drop off their kids while they work out.
Following this was the Leadership Education portion of the program. Jim Bray, highlighted his years in both volunteer leadership and paid positions, beginning with his service in the Army to challenge us to remember that those serving positions below yours have detailed knowledge of their positions and that it’s important to let them do their job; that is, avoid micro-managing. He also spoke about the importance of having multiple layers of plans for any project using the P.A.C.E. (Primary Plan, Alternate plan, Contingency Plan, and Emergency Plan) acronym and that as a leader, your job is to train, delegate & follow up and always keep your eye on the mission of the project.
Next, it was into the vans, courtesy of the City of Santa Maria and the YMCA, and off to our next tour, the Boys & Girls Club.
The Boys & Girls Club on Railroad Ave. is just one of over 25 sites serving over 900 students per day; 90% of whom qualify financially for free or reduced lunch. The Boys & Girls Clubs of the Mid-Central Coast serves children in both SLO and Northern Santa Barbara Counties.
Roberto Rodrigues, who led the tour, talked about the important work of social learning that happens in the games room. It’s a place where kids learn how to navigate the relationships of life; taking turns, problem-solving, constructively navigating conflicts, learning cooperative play, and more.
We also saw the new STEM room donated by the Mexican Ladies Social Club.
Maria Fabula, newly elected CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs also took the opportunity to make sure we were well-informed of the depth and breadth of non-profit organizations in the community and in the state as a whole. We learned that the non-profit sector makes up 14% of the workforce in California; making it one of the largest sectors, and that non-profit fundraising generates over $40Billion dollars in revenue from out-of-state funds. She also reminded us that non-profits must generate a profit and that profit must be reinvested in the organization.
We completed our tour with a tour of the amphitheater which was completed in 2022 with pandemic funding from various sources.
From there, it was back into the vans and off to Alan Hancock College.
At Alan Hancock College, we were provided an incredible lunch sponsored by Driscoll’s and provided by Cool Hand Luke’s.
After lunch, it was time for a quick walk to the Orfalea Children’s Center. The Children’s Center and its outdoor learning facility serve multiple roles at Hancock. Most importantly, adult learners enrolled in school have a safe learning environment for their children. It is also a place where Early Childhood Education Majors can observe and where Nursing and Psychology Students can participate. Among other things, the outdoor learning facility has water play and a garden with both ornamental plants and vegetables. The children help in the garden and the vegetables they grow are used to prepare some of their meals. When this tour was complete, we moved on to the STEM Center.
The Mesa STEM Center is the place where STEM Majors can get tutoring help, have access to a lounge to get a little downtime, study, use printers provided by the school, get counseling and work in small group study. It serves about 225 students. Most of the students using this facility will later transfer to Cal Poly.
Following that tour, we re-convened in a classroom for a panel discussion. Members of the panel included Kevin Walthers, President & Superintendent of Alan Hancock College, Gina Branum, Assistant Superintendent of Guadalupe Union School District, Mark Palmertson, Director of Student and Family Services at Sant Maria Bonita School District, and Matt Fraijo, Executive Director of Teaching and Learning at Santa Maria Joint Union High School District.
We learn about advances within the districts, places where problems exist, plans for the future and more.
The consensus is that both children and adult learners continue to struggle with the aftereffects of the pandemic but that the older the students are, the easier they’ve adapted back into the routines of school and life.
The elementary and middle school levels represented by Ms. Branum and Mr. Palmerston continue to have problems with chronic absenteeism, and lack of social development that they are working hard to resolve.
Matt Fraijo spoke about the problem of ‘siloing’ in the high schools. That is, each school doing things their own way and problems that arise when school administrations and teachers are overly independent. They are working to overcome that and allow autonomy within a system that has cohesion so problems can be solved better.
We also found out that 97% of kids want to be taught about social media, specifically how to evaluate and distinguish fake news and separate news from opinion.
Kevin Walthers, from Alan Hancock spoke of advocating for the students at Hancock and working to overcome the state-wide systemic racism. He also touted a little-know fact that Alan Hancock college is the 4th largest provider in the state of programs that work between the high school and college level.
The day concluded with a continuing discussion about our legacy project.
All in all it was a dynamic and highly informative day.