After-school inspiration for kids

Like many college students and instructors, Paul Harding and Jeanine Caver were debating class material.

Harding, the instructor, and Caver, the student, went around and around about movies and literature. Harding was philosophical; Caver was the argumentative teenager.

That's because Caver's only in middle school.

Caver, 14, is one of 65 students enrolled in Children's University, a year-round program run by the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle that pares college courses to the elementary- and middle-school level. For the past six weeks, Harding has run the summer session of Children's University and tonight will see all of "his kids" graduate in a special ceremony.

The summer session is structured to mirror a day at high school or college: Students take "core subjects" like math and reading in the morning, followed by "electives" during the afternoon. Some of the electives include "Journey of a banana," "What causes poverty" and "The importance of laughter." Harding, the Urban League's director of education, skims local college syllabuses with his staff — three certified teachers and nine interns and administrative staffers — for ideas. He then tries to tailor course content to specific grade levels: History lessons become coloring-book pages for second-graders and classic novels become plays for middle-schoolers.

The program is targeted at children of color, ages 6-14, most of them black. As a group, African-American children tend to drop out of school in greater numbers, score lower on standardized tests and go on to college at lower rates than white and Asian students.

High-school graduation, Harding says of his students, "is not a given for them."

Harding has been known to don a pharaoh outfit to make history lessons more interesting and to get so passionate during lectures that volunteers tug their ears to signal he should stop.

"In this class, in these courses, it is not about right or wrong," Harding said. "There will be no tests, there will just be exposure, and we will begin the conversation."

Three years ago, the Seattle Urban League launched the after-school program, which is the only one of its kind among the 105 Urban League branches nationwide.

Seattle Urban League President James Kelly and Harding, then a new volunteer, came up with a plan to expose children to university life, in hopes it would inspire them to stay in school.

"It is so important to expose what the possibilities are at an early age," Kelly said. "That way, when it comes time to think about college, it's automatic."

Operating out of Seattle University's facilities, the five-day-a-week summer program costs parents $300. The year-round after-school program, which begins in mid-September, costs $125 a month.

When Caver got a D in a seventh-grade class, her parents enrolled her in Children's University last year to help her catch up before she entered high school. Carver now plans to stay in the program for another year and go to college to become a fashion designer.

In recent years, as Washington educators have focused more on test performance, schools are looking to after-school programs for help, said Janet Frieling, associate director of School's Out Washington, a resource for after-school programs in the state.

After-school programs traditionally focused on arts and crafts, relationship building and life skills, but today, she said, they team up with schools and are more academically oriented.

"Increasingly, after-school programs are being called upon to help kids pass tests. It's an appropriate role, but the important thing is the programs need to have a balance," said Jen Rinehart, associate director of Afterschool Alliance, a national organization that works with after-school programs.

Rinehart said mixing fun activities with academics is especially critical in attracting and retaining the most at-risk youth.

A number of advocates say that in addition to boosting test scores, after-school programs can help prevent problem behavior, such as sex, drug use and crime.

For Penny Scott of Seattle, the choice to enroll her sons in Children's University's after-school and summer programs was a matter of grades. Her eldest, she pointed out, pulled his grades up from barely C's to solid B's in the past year.

Her younger son, Johnathan Porter, 7, proudly tells everyone he goes to college.

Christina Siderius: 206-464-5066 or csiderius@seattletimes.com