Jessica Sweeney was announced earlier this year as the Sedona-Oak Creek School District’s director for the Wildcat Extended Day program, and said in the past three and a half months since she began, she’s already made some fairly big changes.
“Safety is always top priority for me and for the people in the program,” she said during a presentation to the Rotary Club of Sedona on Tuesday, Oct. 28.
Sweeney said when she arrived, many parents had opted out of the program simply because they were unsure of how their children would fare while there. Program volunteers sometimes would not know where a child was or the supervision was fairly lacking, she said.
Sweeney said one of the major changes made was a rigorous check in and check-out process.
“We all meet in the cafeteria, and I have tables set up for each grade, and then I have tables set up for children who are going to clubs,” she said. “I then have adults checking them in, and then club leaders come, and either they pick children up and bring them to clubs, or one of our teachers walks the children over to the clubs at the end of the time for their clubs.”
Sweeney personally escorts kids to the buses, and will take them to their club or to general program activities if they don’t have an assigned club.
“When parents come to pick up their students, they have to check in in one classroom and one classroom only,” she said. “So there’s always two adults in that space, which I’m one, and if we don’t recognize a parent, you’ve never met them before or maybe it’s a different family member picking up, we do ID everyone that we don’t know. And we check against our records, which I keep in binders, and I also have access to a computer with all the records, too.”
Sweeney showed a slideshow of several different children involved in the program and explained them.
Many of the photos showed arts and crafts, like little pipe-cleaner pumpkins the children made or kids playing a game of Guess Who?
“So much goes in, so much collaboration, cooperation, turn taking,” Sweeney said. “I mean, there are so many lessons that were learned just by playing a simple board game. There’s actually a lot more going on here than meets the eye.”
After seeing the slide show, Rotarian Jennette Bill, said there’s probably more resources she can use from the Big Park Community School in the VOC.
“I was just there this morning, and understand that there’s lots of sports equipment and lots of other stuff that are still there in the classrooms and that sort of thing,” Bill said.
SOCSD Superintendent Tom Swaninger Ph.D., recently announced a broker to handle the sale of the school property.
Sweeney said she’d talk to Swaninger about using those tools, too.
Sweeney has a heavy background in Montessori instruction; she worked mostly in Montessori-based schools and earned a master’s degree in Montessori integrative learning from Endicott College in 2020.
Jean Barton, a Rotarian and Extended Day Program volunteer at WSS, said the changes Sweeney has made have been very successful and have helped students soar academically.
“I want to also add that the school ratings are coming out at the end of October,” Barton said. “The principal shared the reading improvement, and I think that we’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
In the last academic year, WSS scored a D overall from state tests. The scores being released this October are for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Sweeney said she has been trying to play to the strengths of the volunteers as much as possible.
One volunteer, Sweeney said, has been very helpful with creating some better conflict resolution procedures for the program.
“She was a college professor, and she has a background in movement therapy and conflict resolution, a psychology background,” Sweeney later said. “So right away, she said to me, ‘Look, I’d love to do some social emotional learning with the kids to kind of foster that.’”
“So to become a volunteer, you need to have a Level One IVP [Identity Verified Prints background check] for local parents card, which is a little bit of a process, but we can walk folks through that who are interested,” she said. “We also have a volunteer packet that has a sheet that needs to be notarized.”
Sweeney said she then meets with volunteers to give them a better idea of the vision Sweeney has for their efforts and figure out what they’re passionate about.
Another larger change Sweeney introduced this year was having less access to cellphones during the Extended Day period.
Children have lockers or backpacks they can keep them in, but they are much more restricted on using them.
“I put it right in the signup sheet that they had to agree that their child would not have access to their cell phone or a smart device while they work with us,” Sweeney said. “I’ve only had two kids give me pushback for like five minutes about it.”
“Whenever you’re working with humans, … you’ve got peace, some days, you’ve got chaos other days, and that’s just the nature of the beast,” Sweeney said. “But I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to do so far, and I really look forward to what we’re going to be able to do in the future.”
Those looking to volunteer can email Sweeney at sweeney@sedonak12.org
