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Prince Edward After-School Program Proposal
Megan Hedgepeth
Jennifer Cava
Brittany Johnsons
Simmons: ENGL 400-10
November 21, 2014
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Prince Edward After-School Program Proposal
History
In 1951, students at Moton High School, an African American school, in Farmville,
Virginia, went on a strike to protest the inadequate
facilities at the schools in Prince Edward County
(June-Friesen, 2013). Later these students became a
part of one of the five cases that formed Brown v.
Board of Education. In 1959 the courts ruled that it
was unconstitutional to close schools down because
of integration issues: Prince Edward County refused to integrate and locked its doors for five
years (June-Friesen, 2013).
During this time there was a private school, Prince Edward Academy, built specifically
for wealthy families. Prince Edward Academy was funded by state tuition grants and private
donations (June-Friesen, 2013). The opening of Prince Edward Academy left 1,700 lower
income students searching to receive their schooling elsewhere (June-Friesen, 2013).
This in turn led to the poverty
of the town of Farmville. Sixty years
later, the Virginia Department of
Education shows that during the 20132014 school year, 69% of Prince
Edward students used free and reduced
lunches. The state average is only at 41%.
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Problem
Due to the poverty of the town, this doesn’t allow for parents to provide care for their
children after school hours. There is one option currently available to the parents of Prince
Edward county school students: an after-school program held at Southside Virginia Family
YMCA. This program is held at the YMCA’s facility, requiring the students to be transported via
busses from Prince Edward to the YMCA. This program costs $130 per month for 3 hours of
after-school care 5 days a week (Afterschool, 2013). Even though this sounds relatively cheap,
for the parents of Prince Edward children it isn’t affordable, due the lasting effects from closing
of Prince Edward county schools as well as the economy. We are proposing that Longwood
students will volunteer their hours to create a free after-school program held at Prince Edward
county schools. Their volunteer hours would be used to help with tutoring and assisting with
their physical and health education.
Solutions
Between discussions with Longwood professors and students, some ideas were passed
around. These are the following solutions that the professors and students of Longwood
University have considered.
Solution 1
One simple solution would be to hold an after-school program at Prince Edward. This
after-school program would solely be an opportunity for Longwood University students to go out
into the schools and tutor Prince Edward students. Although this is a great idea, with college
students, attendance becomes an issue because guaranteeing their time is hard. Students get busy
and things come up, causing attendance issues. Realizing this during a conversation with Dr.
Vonnie Colvin, we decided to further the investigation of possible ways to find a solution.
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Solution 2
Another option that could possibly fix the problem would be to create an one-credit
elective class held through Longwood. Students would go out to the schools Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday during their class time for five weeks. They would use this time to tutor
the students in subject areas where the Prince Edward students are not successful. Longwood
students would have to provide their own transportation to and from Prince Edward schools.
Longwood could also offer this as a work-study program, allowing the students to get paid for
the hours they have spent out at Prince Edward tutoring students.
Solution 3
Another option would be to hold seminars on Longwood’s campus focusing on subject
areas in which the students are not successful. Each department on campus could host a different
seminar each weekend, asking their Longwood students to devote an hour or two of their time
for one day. To a college student this could be a reasonable amount of time, rather than devoting
2 hours everyday after school.
Solution 4
One last option is a program that Radford University uses in their Physical and Health
Education Teacher Education program. It’s called Gym and Swim the idea is that however many
classes you take in the program is how many weekends you must give back to the community
per month. We could implement this idea to Longwood University by however many hours you
would have to give back each month. This could be completed after Prince Edward school hours
or during the weekend because, as we know, college students are very busy. For example, if you
took 5 classes in the program, you would in return have to give back 5 hours of your time to the
community by tutoring Prince Edward students.
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Survey
We created a survey, for students at Longwood University. We asked three main
questions to start with: Have you ever volunteered? Would you like to volunteer? Would you
want to be a volunteer at an after-school program?
As of November 14, 2014, we have had 39 people respond to our survey.
Already Volunteer
77% of the respondents said they already volunteer, 10% said they sometimes volunteer,
and only 13% said they never volunteer.
Would You Like to Volunteer
87% of the respondents said that they would like to volunteer, 13% said they would like
to volunteer sometimes, and 0% said they would never like to volunteer.
Would You Want to Volunteer at an After-School Program
85% of the respondents said they would like to volunteer at an after-school program, 5%
said they would only sometimes like to volunteer, and only 11% said they would never like to
volunteer.
Already Volunteer
Always
Would Volunteer
Sometimes
Never
After School Volunteer
0
20
40
60
80
100
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Responses
Follow up questions include: what age group would you be willing to work with? If
Longwood organizations partnered with Prince Edward schools to create a volunteer based afterschool program, would you be willing to volunteer regularly? If you said yes, in what ways
would you be willing to help? (Ex: coming up with activities, tutoring certain subject areas, arts
and crafts, working with children with disabilities, etc.)
Ages
Although we had 39 people respond to our overall questions only 36 of the respondents
decided to respond to the question about which age group they would mostly like to work with.
There was overlapping with ages because many people said they would be willing to work with
all age groups. Thirty-three out of the 36 people who responded to this question about which age
group they would like to work with said elementary students. Twenty-seven out of the 36 people
who responded to this question said they would like to work with middle school students.
Finally, 25 out of the 36 people who responded to this question said they would like to work with
high school students.
Elementary
Middle
High
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Would You be Willing to Volunteer Regularly
Some respondents who said yes to wanting to volunteer at an after-school program, gave
responses such as “Fun, because I am an education major”.
Some respondents who said they would only sometimes like to volunteer at an afterschool program, gave responses such as “Depending on my schedule”.
Some respondents who said no they would never like to volunteer at an after-school
program, gave reasons such as “ This is close to where I live”, “I work a full time job”, “I work
at an after-school program already”, “Won’t be here after December”, “Not enough time”,
“previously did after-school program at PECES and hated it”.
If You Said Yes in Which Way Would You be Willing to Help
Some respondents who said yes they would want to help at an after-school program held
at Prince Edward schools responded with comments such as: “I would be willing to help in any
way I could to better the lives of the students”, “I would be willing to help with students who
have disabilities”, “I would help tutor students who struggle in math”, and “I would be willing to
help students find ways to deal with stress”.
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Interviews
Between two interviews with Longwood University professors in Physical and Health
Education Teacher Education program, there has been a lot of talk about solutions to fixing
crime and poverty rates in Prince Edward County. These two professors are passionate about
helping in the community where the live and creating a better future for those to come.
Dr. Vonnie Colvin
While interviewing with Dr. Vonnie Colvin, Professor of Physical Education and
Program Coordinator at Longwood University, her personal experience with helping out at an
after-school program at Prince Edward helped immensely with the ideas for solutions. Dr. Colvin
in previous years ran a program called PEx3. It was a
program specifically for Physical Education at the
middle school level. Longwood University students
were involved with this program, mainly students in
the Physical and Health Education Teacher Education
program, students from the Theatre department that
would also help. Dr. Colvin’s biggest concern was
how would we get college students to dedicate their
precious time to an after-school program. This is
when the discussion for solutions began; we sat and bounced ideas off of each other for nearly an
hour. One of her favorite ideas was creating an elective class that Longwood University students
could choose to take. Dr. Colvin loves Prince Edward and does a huge amount for the
community, and she would love to take part in this proposal. She hopes that it goes farther than
just this English 400 course. She wants it to be put into effect.
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Dr. Matthew Lucas
While interviewing Dr. Matthew Lucas, Associate Professor of Physical Education at
Longwood University, personal experience and insight were given to our group about the
possibility of an after-school program within Prince Edward County. Dr. Lucas shared from
experience that most families in the Prince Edward Country school system are single-parent
families or families where both parents work full-time jobs. He shared that due to the number of
children and families that live in poverty
the juvenile crime rate increases because
there are little to no options available to
keep children out of trouble. Dr. Lucas
explained that children who attended
Fuqua are more involved in after-school
programs due to money and resources
available to them. It was stressed during our interview that the need for a more affordable afterschool program is evident. The after-school program Longwood would hold will not only help
the children, but the community as well by lowering the juvenile crime rates. Dr. Lucas stated
that this program is a great idea and he would support it if this proposal was put into effect.
Conclusion
The history of Prince Edward county school systems isn’t one to be proud of since the
closing of schools in 1951. The poverty of the county has continued on a downward spiral that
can only be fixed by increasing the education of our future students. In order to increase the
education of the students there needs be time allotted outside of the regular school day. If an
after-school program were to be implemented in the county, the chances of bettering their
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education and the community would begin to increase. Something even better than just an afterschool program would be to implement some type of tutoring. Whether it be on Longwood
University campus or Prince Edwards, during the week or during the weekends. Something
needs to be done to better Prince Edward County and one of our solutions could be the fix to the
whole problem.
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References
Afterschool. (2013). Retrieved November 6, 2014, Retrieved from
http://www.southsidevafamilyymca.org/afterschool.html
June-Friesen, K. (2013, October). Massive Resistance in a Small Town Before and after Brown
in Prince Edward County, Virginia. Humanities: The Magazine of the National
Endowment for the Humanities. Retrieved from: http://www.neh.gov/humanities/
2013/septemberoctober/feature/massive-resistance-in-small-town
Longwood University. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2014, from
http://www.longwood.edu/hrk/8439.htm
Prince Edward County High School - Varsity. (n.d.). Retrieved November 20, 2014, from
http://baseball.isport.com/baseball-teams/us/virginia/farmville/prince-edward-countyhigh-school-varsity-1034966#photos
Timeline Photos - The Farmville Herald | Facebook. (2014, September 24). Retrieved November
6, 2014, from https://www.facebook.com/farmvilleherald/photos/a
10150232155282533.361318.163635187532/10152769785207533/?type=1