Strengths

The Fair Oaks Elementary School CARES is a well established program with strong support from our community partners as well as from our school site and administration. This support stems from a history of excellent programming, coordination, and strong program leadership. Financially we are supported by grants from both state and city initiatives.

Challenges

In order to maintain high quality services being offered to our students and families, additional funding sources are continually being pursued. There is an ongoing need to maintain high quality training and mentorship for CARES staff to ensure qualified staff are serving our students. Opportunities for culturally diverse and enriching opportunities prepare students with the life experiences.

Programs for Students and Families

Homework Help, Academic Intervention Program, Academic Intervention Program, Nutrition Education and Cooking, Dance, Arts and Crafts, Gardening, and Student Interest Clubs, Youth Development, Student Council, and Youth Service Club/Community Service projects.

Daily nutritional snack provided in partnership with Food Services Department and the USDA. Snack includes one milk, a healthy snack, and fresh fruit once a week.

• School day teachers instruct the Intervention portion of CARES.
• Representative of CARES in Student Care Team (SCT) and attends faculty, Leadership, and grade level meetings.
• Informal and formal means of communication in place to facilitate discussion between CARES staff and school day teachers.
• CARES staff complete and share Bi-monthly Student Progress reports with classroom teachers.

• Homework Zone: 1 hour of Homework assistance facilitated by one Recreation Specialist, and with the assistance of both Site Directors rotating between the six groups. Students also participate in Graffiti Wall on a daily basis. Graffiti Wall is a time for students to improve their writing skills while discussing various topics amongst their class mates.
• Silent Listening & Individually Monitored Engaged Reading (S.L.I.M.E.R.): Each group starts the homework hour with 10-20 minutes of required reading in two forms, silent reading and read out louds.
• Intervention Program: 1 hour of academic Intervention with a Credentialed teacher in either English Language Arts and/or Mathematics. Student to teacher ratio is 17:1. This program has eligibility requirements, inquire within.
• ASPIRE Program: 1 hour of academic Intervention with a Credentialed teacher in either English Language Arts or Mathematics. Student to teacher ratio is 6:1. This program is based on parent choice from a list of options.
• Language Arts and Math: 1 hour per week of grade level appropriate English Language Arts and Math provided by My Skills Tutor which is assisted by the Academic Coach. This is a computer based program where students practice and learn new skills while playing various games and activities.

• Enrichment opportunities: 1.5 hours structured enrichment or recreation. Enrichment programming includes disguised learning activities such as, arts and crafts, athletics, leadership, teambuilding, tribes, and home economics programs. Programming focuses on the youth development model.
• Nutrition Education: 7 hours a week of nutrition education and physical activity promotion, including SPARKS. Students participate in nutrition lessons, cooking classes and field trips to the Gardens.
• Cooking Class: Each group attends cooking class for 1 hour each week where they're taught to prepare healthy meals / snacks, by following a recipe that can be prepared at home.
• Bay Point Garden: The Bay Point Garden hosts daily classes in the garden serving all CARES After School Program Sites integrating nutrition, youth development, and community development. Along with our on site garden, Fair Oaks takes approximately 6 students once a week to the Bay Point Garden for gardening classes, planting, and tasting opportunities.
• Fair Oaks Garden: Fair Oaks CARES established its own garden in the spring of 2008. The Earth Boxes that were purchased are available to each CARES student every week to support our garden and nutrition classes.
• Physical Kinetics: All students participate in daily physical activity. We start out with warm-up exercises led by students, recreation specialists and/or site coordinators. The entire group participates. After about 15 minutes of warm ups, the students break up into their groups for organized physical activities or sports called S.P.A.R.K.S., C.A.T.C.H., and P.L.A.Y. This encourages students to participate in vigorous to moderate physical activity.
• Clubs: Students are given the opportunity to select a club of their choice to participate in. Clubs are lead by Recreation Specialists and Site Coordinators and planned with student interest in mind. Clubs meet once a week for 1 hour and have a duration of approximately 4-5 weeks. Examples of some clubs at Fair Oaks are - photo club, animal club, soccer club, jewelry club, American Sign Language club, scrapbook club, cooking club, dance club.

• Middle and High School Volunteers: Middle School students are qualified 6th, 7th and 8th grade students who enjoy helping their peers learn. After homework and tutoring, volunteers participate in ongoing enrichment activities.
• Upper Grade Students in the Classrooms: Students in fifth grade that are above Benchmark are selected, with parent permission, to be placed in a first and second grade group to help with the ratio during homework time as well as any enrichment and/or recreation activities.
• Youth Advisory Council (YAC): Students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades are selected by Staff to participate in the Y.A.C. which serves as a window into the minds of our students. They make decisions abut CARES events, prize suggestions and any other area of the program that is up for discussion. The Y.A.C. also is a voice of the students and to the students - they make announcements, take polls/surveys to gain student input and are an example to other students. We hold elections in the Spring to add additional students to the Y.A.C. The Y.A.C. meets every-other week.

Who We Serve

Number of Students served: 116
Male: 53.4%
Female: 46.6%
Free & Reduced Lunch: 61%
English Learner: 23.3%
Special Education: 8.6%

Demographics
Chinese: 0.9 %
Latino: 38.7 %
African American: 21.7 %
Asian Pacific Islander: 9.4 %
Other White: 25.5 %
Other Non-White: 3.8 %

How We Serve
Staff to student ratio: 1:20
Number of credentialed staff: 1
Number of additional credentialed staff: 3
Number of volunteers: 1
Number of CARES staff: 8
Number of community partners: 8
Number of subcontractors: 3

Community Partners

• City of Concord Parks and recreation
• MDUSD
• Concord Police Department
• Bay Area Community Partnerships (BACR)
• First Tee
• Wells Fargo