With the new school year upon us, parents can now take comfort in knowing where their children are during the day. Unfortunately for some Jaffrey parents, the question of where their children will be after school remains unanswered.
Jaffrey parents have scrambled throughout the summer to find a viable after-school option for their children after learning that the district’s extended day program – which offered before and after school care to elementary and middle school students in the district – would no longer be offered in 2016-17.
“Parents were struggling before this resource was available, and the program made daily work and family life so much more valuable,” said Mary Drew, welfare director for Jaffrey and Rindge. “Now parents are quitting work and quitting college to stay home to be with kids so they stay supervised and out of trouble.”
Drew is one of the parents left without an alternative. Drew said she will have to leave work early to pick up her son, even on days with sports because of the gap between the two, until she finds a better option.
For the past five years, the extended day program had been a school district initiative, funded through a five-year state grant, offering homework and social support to students, among other things.
The Jaffrey-Rindge School District voted not to continue the program in June after a second grant application was denied. In July, district representatives approached the town of Jaffrey about taking over the program, but the request was denied.
Melissa Seppala, who has a daughter in the third grade, said she will have to scale back her cleaning business in order to be with her daughter after school.
“I’m going to have to cut out of work early,” said Seppala. It cuts my ability to work, especially because I work in other towns.”
While many parents are being forced to cut their work responsibilities to be with their children, not all parents can afford to do so. Melissa Wackenberg and her third grade daughter were forced to move to back to Virginia in June, due to not having an affordable childcare option in town.
“Jaffrey is a great small town, but there aren’t enough good paying jobs unless you want to travel some distance,” said Wackenberg, in an email. “Being a single parent, it is hard to make long distance traveling to and from work with very limited childcare options and never for the hours I needed it for. I liked the EDP program, as it gave my child a safe environment and the convenience of the location as I knew where she was constantly and well taken care of.”
Without the extended day program, local child care centers are experiencing a boom in business. While she still has a few open slots, Renee Poirot, owner of Kids Club LLC, said that her business has increased this school year.
Poirot said business took a dive when the extended day program began, and she dropped from 45 to nine school-aged children. This year, Poirot is up to 27 school-aged students.
“I feel bad that the service isn’t available for the community, but it’s been great for business because we doubled our enrollment,” said Poirot.
James Marson said he pulled his third grade son from St. Joseph Regional School in Keene a couple years ago because of the extended day program. Without the program in place, Marson said he and his wife are seeing if they can transfer their son to Rindge Memorial School.
“We depended heavily on the program,” said Marson. “Without it, it has put a hampering on our ability to work.”
Because of how the extended day program was set up, Rindge Memorial School’s program is able to continue on despite the lack of funding, because the program has always been run through the town’s recreation department.
The Jaffrey Recreation Department is working to put together a potential program for the 2017-18 school year. Selectmen recently said the program will only be supported if it can be self sustaining.
In the coming weeks, the school district and Monadnock Bible Conference are going to meet and see if a collaborative program can be worked out in the near future.
“We would love to have a partnership for the long term,” said JGS Principal Susan Shaw-Sarles. “The more we can collaborate, the better.”
Nicholas Handy can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 235 or nhandy@ledgertranscript.com. He is also on Twitter @nhandyMLT.