More Hispanic involvement in extra activities being sought

COLUMBUS - Increasing Hispanic student involvement in extracurricular activities was the primary focus of the Columbus Public Schools Hispanic advisory committee during their meeting Thursday.

Columbus Public Schools Superintendent Paul Hillyer said there is some correlation between a student's involvement in school activities outside of normal classes and a student's academic success.

“Kids involved and showing interest in extracurricular activities tend to graduate,” Hillyer said.

He said the schools may not be reaching out to the Hispanic students as well as they could be and discussions have been held considering requiring some students to participate in at least one outside activity.

“There have been discussions about requiring all 9th graders to go out for an activity,” Hillyer said, but “if worse comes to worse and (as an example) 50 kids don't go out we can't kick them all out of school.”

“The plan doesn't have teeth to it,” he said.

Jolene Hake, director of the Platte Valley Literacy Association, said this is an important issue because “they don't realize how important these extracurricular activities are,” especially for college admission and scholarship opportunities.

Doug Kluth, Columbus Middle School principal, said he has been attempting to gather ideas from students and it is just a matter of finding a way to implement programs that Hispanic students find interest in.

“When I talk to students they would like to have soccer,” Kluth said. “The main problem is practice facilities (and) I don't want it killing off track” because that may be unsettling for some students and families. I would like to explore the idea of having another sport.”

Hillyer proposed the idea of using a bus to shuttle students from the middle school to either Lost Creek Elementary or Wilderness Park for intramural soccer practices.

Dee Condon, ESL and migrant reading coordinator for CPS, suggested translating all materials to Spanish so students could take them home to inform parents of activities available for students.

“The process starts at or before middle school,” Condon said, regarding formation of athletic teams and development of musical talents.

Hillyer said in addition to athletics the school should try to get Hispanic students more involved in arts and academic based activities.

“Destination Imagination and Quiz Bowl have been activities that are primarily Anglo oriented,” he said.

Kluth said alternative activities have been offered at the middle school, but with little success.

“The cultural dance club was not as popular with the Latino girls as we thought,” he said. “That was disappointing to us.”

Also, the band program at the middle school is currently reaching maximum capacity, Kluth said, so introducing additional participants may prove difficult.

“We have a unique problem. The band program is about maxed out with just under 230 students,” he said.

The consensus of the committee was to attempt to introduce new programs into the school system that may attract students and that would be acceptable and interesting to the parents as well.