Levelland ISD will discontinue the After School Centers on Education (ACE) Program after not being chosen to receive the Texas ACE grant. The grant funds the program for five years and provides activities at no-cost to students before and after school.
Instructional Services Director Donna Pugh explained that theACE Program has operated for 10 years at Levelland ISD.
“The first five years we had it in a grant with Lubbock Cooper and they needed some other schools to participate,” Pugh said. “They used 10 schools and so four of our schools participated at that time. It’s a five-year grant most of the time so, when their grant ran out, we applied on our own to see if we could get it on our own and you can have up to 10 campuses. We applied hoping that our six would be selected and luckily, we were selected so for the last five years we’ve had the grant locally.”
Pugh explained that the Texas ACE Program had over 140 applicants and 50 of those were selected. The application will reopen in 2025 and Pugh expressed a great interest in reapplying for the grant.
“It’s great for staff, it’s great for parents and it’s great for our community, so we’re really sad we didn’t get it,” Pugh said. “We’re at the end of our five-year cycle so we have to apply again and it’s a competitive grant. we were disappointed And actually we’ve been very successful in the implementation, so we were hopeful, but it didn’t pan out that way.”
Pugh explained Levelland ISD schools provided an additional hour in the morning and two and a half additional hours after school. Pugh said this helped the parents by allowing them to drop their children off early and pick them up late if their schedules required it.
“It was a before and after school program and it changed a little bit every year but basically, they had to have 15 hours outside of the school day,” Pugh said. “Most every campus did five hours in the morning, one hour before school, which was huge for parents who could drop their kids off basically an hour early if they needed to, and then their child could participate in the ACE program and then it was for two and a half hours after the end of the school day.”
Academic remediation, college readiness, career readiness and fitness among other activities were offered to students who attended the ACE Program.
“The program was obviously academic, so there were a lot of things in place to help with their remediation but also homework help to help with homework, because then that takes a little bit of pressure off of parents when they when they get home from work and their kids get home from ACE,” Pugh said.
Pugh explained students were exposed to photography, drones, robotics, Esports, coding, cooking and other activities through the ACE Program.
“It benefitted schools because we were able to work with our kids, so they would have more success in academics, but it also benefitted our students who could stay after school,” Pugh said. “It benefitted our parents who needed their kids to stay at school a little bit longer. We didn’t ever want to call it childcare because it wasn’t childcare, because they were actively engaged in a variety of activities. They could use the Glow Forge, which is a 3D printer. Our students have had tremendous opportunities, and the ACE grant provided the funding to buy the equipment that we needed to make those things happen.”
Pugh said Levelland ISD will continue to be able to use the items purchased with the grant money as enrichment activities even though the program will not continue. She also said after school activities will continue with their respective organizations.
“It’s bad that we didn’t get the grant, but the good part is all those things we purchased are now ours,” Pugh said. “We can continue to, for example, use the drones and obviously now if they need repairs then the expense is going to be on the district. We’ve put so many great things into place that we wouldn’t let those just die.”
The ACE Program also benefitted Levelland ISD staff by offering additional income but will now benefit the staff by allowing them to have downtown after school.
“It benefits teachers because the teachers and the paraprofessional’s were paid for the extra time, so they got their regular pay plus extra pay if they stayed and helped us before or after school. That was an asset to our staff as well,” Pugh said. “On the flip side of that, they may not be able to be paid now, but one of the things with all the teacher retention is that we want teachers to have time to have some downtime so that they’re not 24/7 having to think about the next day’s lesson. So, when they leave, they change roles, put on a different hat, and go home.”
Pugh explored the option of asking parents to pay tuition to start a program similar to the ACE Program, but this option does not seem to be coming anytime soon if at all. Pugh also said parents have already been informed to allow ample time to prepare other arrangements for their children.
“Now if we wanted to implement some other kind of program where, for example, parents pay the tuition. At this time, we’re not planning to do that. I’m not saying that we wouldn’t ever do that in the future because it was a benefit,” Pugh said. “As soon as we got the information, we shared that with our administrators who shared it with their parents because parents who counted on ACE now are going to have to make other arrangements, you know, to either use the school buses to get to and from school or work with one of our local daycares.”
Pugh said Levelland ISD saw the benefits of the program and plan to reapply in hopes to regain the grant in the future.
“I think the big thing to know is that we saw the benefits for our students, and we definitely wanted to continue that,” Pugh said. “Our intent was to continue that but unfortunately, when you’re in a competitive grant application process, sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t win. We get no documentation and no feedback to why we didn’t get it. We’re just on a list that says awarded or not awarded and unfortunately, this time we were on the not awarded list.”