Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 11, 1991 TAG: 9102110053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DEBORAH EVANS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Not only has the Northwest Elementary pupil improved her grades, but she knows what she wants to do when she grows up. Walker wants to play basketball.
Walker is one of 47 students participating in Northwest Elementary's after-school Homework Club for youngsters who are considered at risk or who ordinarily get home before their parents.
Walker said she once was a C-minus student, but since joining the club has started taking home some B's on her report card. And often, she said, she finishes her assignments before she gets home and that frees her evenings for outdoor play.
"Plus you get an activity too," Walker said.
The Homework Club, which is in its second year, provides after-school tutoring and other extracurricular activities. Participation has nearly tripled from the 16 who joined the club last year, said Harold Cannaday II, one of the club's coordinators. Students in the second- through fifth-grade levels are rotated every nine weeks in the Homework Club.
Another first for the Homework Club is the participation of the volunteers from Roanoke College's basketball teams. Team members act as homework tutors and share their athletic skills with the youngsters.
Principal Margaret Thompson said the participation of the basketball teams provides the students with much-needed role models.
The one-on-one contact with the players reinforces the skills the students learn during the day and gives them a chance to participate in something they enjoy, she said. "That teaches them sportsmanship and discipline. Very important. Very important."
About 35 members of Roanoke College's men's and women's basketball teams are Homework Club volunteers.
Roanoke College coach Page Moir said his players' participation "will be an asset to the program they're trying to run here, and secondly, it is an asset for our people to get a chance to work with some young people in the valley, to put something back into the community."
The Northwest students also will get to attend some of Roanoke College's basketball games, he said.
Northwest teacher Valerie Garrett said that while the program focuses on homework assistance and involves some activities that appear to be strictly for fun, "we also provide enrichment and experiences that they would not normally get outside the classroom."
Equal time is set aside during the daily, hour-and-a-half program for homework, creativity and recreation - with an afternoon snack thrown in. The children are taught social skills and language development, Garrett said.
But they also have made frog puppets, written stories based on the puppets and bound the stories into books.
One offshoot of the Homework Club is that the students who participate have improved their attendance, she said.
Ten-year-old Carl Tabor also has decided on some lofty career goals since joining the Homework Club.
Tabor is either going to be basketball player Michael Jordan or a football player when he grows up, he said. Meanwhile, he has improved his grades to B's as well.
What does Tabor like most about the club?
"I like it when we get 'freshments and do our work," he said. "Then I like it when we play basketball."
Memo: CORRECTION