AFTER SCHOOL PROFESSIONALS APPRECIATION
APRIL 2021
For Afterschool Professionals Appreciation Week . . .
. . . We are especially grateful to highlight and show appreciation to our Program Coordinators, tutors, and instructors who are dedicated to providing quality programming to our students and positively influence their development during out-of-school hours.
I feel like I have many favorite memories – even now, little conversations with students about their days, what shows they’re watching, or how school is going are valuable to me. One of the more recent favorites is getting to discuss and watch anime virtually with middle school students during our Spring Break programming.
Not only is it fun to hear what students are passionate about and hear their opinions about characters and plot points, but it was also a nice time of community building among students.
Often it can feel like staff are the main people facilitating conversation, but it was awesome to see students who haven’t met in real life asking each other who their favorite characters and listening to each other’s perspectives.
What I enjoy about working with youth is how they can inspire me, teach me something new, and genuinely make me laugh all in one sentence. This has been one of the hardest years for students as they are the first to experience what virtual school is like. I see how patient, self aware and resilient our youth have become as a result of the past year and through this all they continue to inspire me to learn more about what we can do to better support them.
TUTOR SPOTLIGHTs
