On July 25, School Superintendent Linda Dwight announced that before- and after-school care at Hildreth Elementary will move from the Bridges program to the national company AlphaBEST, at no increase in cost to Harvard families.
Dwight attributed the change to administrative burden. “They would take over some of the things that are time consuming, which included billing … tracking, printing out, or emailing reports for families for tax purposes … managing the schedule, the training.”
Monthly rates for after-school care range from $70 to $300, depending on how many days of the week a child is to attend. Further pricing information can be found at www.alphabest.org/harvardma. The program is licensed for children who are 5 to 14 years old.
On Aug. 19, Dwight said the company curriculum differs from the Bridges curriculum in some substantial ways.
The after-school program is divided into four blocks and begins with a snack and time for recreation. Homework assistance will be provided in the new curriculum as the program’s second block, much as it was offered in the previous after-school program, Bridges. Students who don’t have homework for the day are given what are called “brain games” they can choose from, according to the AlphaBEST website.
For the third block, the company website features what it claims are “cutting-edge learning themes” called zones. These zones include STEM, world languages and culture, fitness and wellness, arts and entertainment, and “maker,” in which children create something using basic materials and glue to solve a problem posed to them.
The fourth block makes time for special interest clubs. AlphaBEST’s chief development officer, Dawn Hosni, said, “If they just want to sit with a friend, and play chess, they get to pick what they do at that piece of the day.”
In November 2016, criticism of the company’s programming was published in The Washington Post Magazine. Lia Kvatum wrote about her experiences with the company, criticizing its curriculum for not having enough free playtime.
Six years later, the AlphaBEST website offers unstructured play alongside homework assistance and their zones. Dwight said, “The [after-school] programming goes from about 3:30 p.m. until 6 p.m.,” adding, “The enrichment part of it is just a segment of that time.”
Hosni said, “They have downtime … they do an hour of enrichment, and then they have free choice club time at the end of the day.” She also said the company would take a parent consensus against the curriculum “very seriously.”
Hosni doesn’t believe there will be much opposition to the curriculum. She said, “In all my years with AlphaBEST, when parents have had that concern about ‘this sounds too structured, this sounds like my child is going to be dreading going to AlphaBest’ … within a few weeks of AlphaBEST, all of those issues dissipate.” She said kids “have a blast” with the curriculum.
How will families be able to provide feedback? Kim Jennings is the company’s director of regional operations in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and said there is information in the front office of Hildreth Elementary School, where parents can share questions, concerns, and feedback.
AlphaBEST’s website page for Harvard, alphabest.org/harvardma, advertises that questions about the program can be directed to Adriana DiPasquale at adipasquale@alphabest.org. She is the company’s area manager who will be overseeing operations in Harvard Public Schools.
Hosni also mentions a parent survey that is run in March, once the program has been experienced by the families. “The parents have the opportunity to give us free text, and they can add any comments they want,” she said.
