Lion’s Pride program puts Linn-Mar teachers in the community

MARION - Around 3 p.m. on any given Tuesday during the school year, unit 9 in the 690 block of the Azure Apartments is filled with Linn-Mar school district elementary students.

Out of the dozen children who came out last Tuesday, some read quietly, some made tiny statues out of clay, while others got help on their homework from one of the teachers supervising the apartment.

Fourth-grader Delonna Black, 9, came to work on her math assignment with teacher Brittany Harris. The two drilled through several problems using a whiteboard until Black finished all her assigned homework and joined the other kids.

The apartment is one of four sites where Linn-Mar operates its Lion's Pride after school program, which provides homework help for neighborhood kids once a week after school for an hour. The other sites are Mount Zion Church and the community centers at Marion Village and Squaw Creek mobile home parks.

Since its inception three years ago, the program has helped students complete around 636 homework assignments, according to the district.

“There are some teachers where Tuesday night is the only night they get (completed) homework done out of the whole week,” Harris said.

By putting the homework help right in the neighborhood, students can take their normal bus home and walk to the program. It's especially helpful for children whose parents work and don't always have opportunities to leave home after school.

“Most of them come home after school and there's probably not anyone home for them, so it's just a place where they can go where there's an adult that they can interact with and have someone to talk to,” teacher Mary Ellen Oglesby said.

While the stated goal of the program is to help students get their homework done, an added benefit is allowing the kids a chance to grow socially, according to Stacia Dautremont, who coordinates the program.

“Equally as important is building student-adult relationships,” Dautremont said. “You can really see we're making a positive impact on their lives in all aspects, not just education.”

The funding for Lion's Pride pays the teachers who participate, while the space they use is donated by the community. The location at the Azure Apartments has its rent split between the owners and Marion Cares, a local charity group.

Both Harris and Oglesby said that they would like to see the program expand to more than once a week at each site, but it's unlikely to happen in the immediate future due to district budget constraints, said Julie Jensen, director of student services at Linn-Mar.

“It all depends on funding availability, and right now school budgets are being reviewed,” said Jensen. “But the interest is definitely there to maintain the program.”