Program Boosts Both Learning, Confidence

Overwhelmed, intimidated or simply uninterested in school, they are the children who fall through the cracks, many dropping out long before they complete high school.

But now an innovative summer school program at the Valley Family Center’s Learning Center is giving many of these young people a chance to catch up with their classmates and gain the skills and confidence they need to turn things around.

“Not all of these children will be brilliant students, but it is my belief that the vast majority of them can have productive lives if we teach them the basics and help them build on the talents they do have,” said Sister Carmel Somers, director of the Learning Center.

Founded in 1987, the Valley Family Center is known for its low-cost counseling programs for drug and alcohol abusers and for both victims and perpetrators of domestic violence. The Learning Center was established two years ago and currently operates afternoon tutoring programs during the school year and two four-week summer-school sessions for students in the first through eighth grades.

Parents of children enrolled in the programs, many of whom speak little or no English, pay on a sliding scale based on what the family can afford, Somers said.

This week, inside the center’s newly remodeled Brand Boulevard offices, about 25 students moved from station to station, receiving individual attention from instructors as they worked to grasp the essentials of math and reading.

Somers said children in the program are given more freedom to move around and choose the things they want to study. The idea, she said, is to make it fun and also to give them a sense of responsibility about their role in the learning process.

The curriculum is designed to boost the students’ self-confidence and help put them on more equal footing with their classmates when they return to school in the fall, Somers said.

“They don’t really give you the answers, but they make it fun to find out,” said 9-year-old Amanda Cuadra, momentarily turning her attention away from a computer reading game. “It’s not boring because you don’t just sit there and listen. You do stuff.”