Learning and fun

Angel Perez does not want to eat horse meat. The 9-year-old hopes to get a basketball to add to his collection and he likes the challenge of trying to get across the rock climbing wall without falling.

Mostly, Angel would like to be a good student.

“I am going to try my best to be an A student,” said the fourth-grader. “I usually hate poetry, but this summer I am finding that I am getting into poetry and I am getting into math. I like fractions.”

Angel is being exposed to poetry, fractions, rock climbing and more as part of the Summer Tutoring and Recreation (STAR) program help this week at The Community School of Naples.

The partnership between the school and the Guadalupe Center in Immokalee, which is the organization that runs the STAR program, is designed to help improve the younger students’ Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) scores.

Megan McCarthy, director of school-age programs at the Guadalupe Center, said the goal is to give the children a safe place to go, while exposing them to academic and recreational opportunities. Students attend classes in reading, math and computers in the morning, and then participate in activities like tie-dying, basketball clinics and “bouldering,” which is walking across a rock climbing wall instead of up it, in the afternoon.

The program, which is targeted to kindergarten through fifth-grade students in Immokalee, is one of the only free academic programs offered in Immokalee during the summer, according to McCarthy.

“Last year, we had 200 kids. About 125 came back and we expanded to 300 kids,” she said. “We want to give them a good academic base to start on.”

Community School third-grade teacher Susan O’Malley spent the morning teaching the students about poetry. After reading some poems by Jack Prelutsky, the children got to write their own poems about their least favorite food.

“I want them to have fun, to have a good time,” O’Malley said. “I am doing reading and writing with them.”

Elisa Lopez, 10, wrote that she would never eat broccoli.

“I would eat toothpaste or a turtle face,” said O’Malley, as she read Elisa’s poem. “What if I brought in a turtle face tomorrow for you to eat? Are you sure you would eat that over broccoli?”

Elisa, who will be a fifth-grader next year, said the best thing about camp was writing poetry and playing games.

“I like Four Square,” she said.

Students from Immokalee High School, Community School of Naples and St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland serve as student “mentors” with the youngsters and accompany them to their classes and to their afternoon activities.

Bob Carroll, 17, and his classmates are on a mission trip from their high school in Ohio.

“It’s been fun getting to know the kids and work with the kids. I want to be a friend to them,” he said. “We’re having a great time.”

The high school students said it was obvious the children were responding to the older children in the classroom.

“They learn and they have fun. It’s good for them to spend time with other people,” said Sonia Ponce, a 17-year-old Immokalee High School senior.

“There are teachers here who have never been to Immokalee, who have one impression of Immokalee. The students have a perception of what people in Naples are like. We want to show them that it isn’t true on both sides.”

O’Malley said her perceptions of what Immokalee students might be like were changed the first day of camp.

“They are so bright. I was shocked. I thought they would not be reading on level and that it would take us the entire 35 minutes to get through a story. They are amazing kids,” she said.

Jill Rochette, director of student activities at The Community School of Naples, said the program is about exposing children to something different.

“We want them to be excited about education and hone their skills. It is about having fun while they learn,” she said.

Kisha Gadsden, an adult tutor for the afterschool program at Pinecrest Elementary School, said the camp has also given her the opportunity to get ideas for her classes in the fall.

“There are things they do here that we do not do in Immokalee,” she said. “The kids are being challenged and I am getting a lot out of it as well.”