Public and private grant partners collaborate to keep schools open longer and provide safe homework centers. They mentor intensively in basic skills. They offer enrichment in the core academic subjects and counsel parents. They add technology education programs and drug and violence prevention instruction. They support recreational activities, chorus, band and the arts along with other services tailored to community needs.
Districts get three-year grants.
Then they are supposed to find their own financing to keep programs operating. At No. 25, Klamath County School District was the highest-ranked applicant in the state. At No. 173, Jefferson School District just managed to squeeze through the gate. Getting kids started on the right foot preoccupies the Crook County district, says curriculum coordinator Dennis Kostelecky. Areas of Lane County as large as Connecticut are so service-poor, says Kathryn Henderson of the Lane ESD, that enrichment efforts will be brought in to 12 rural centers targeting 1,400 students from 26 schools.