Community Ed. : Enrichment, Development & Recreation

By Steve Bruchman

Community Services Director

Welcome to another school year, one that will be filled with lots of opportunities for you and your family to get involved with school, school events, and—hopefully—Community Education programs, classes and activities. Here’s just some of what is going on:

The Fall/ Winter brochure will be mailed to all residents of the New Prague and Montgomery-Lonsdale school districts September 8. It lists classes for adults, families and children; adult and child recreation programs; art and local and area events, resources and information.

Kids’ Company, our school-age child care program for kids in grades K-5, begins with the first day of school. Stop in the Community Education offices, the Primary or Intermediate School offices, or call us to get a packet and registration forms.

Our Youth Enrichment and Development programming will offer students opportunities like: Chess Club, Mock Trial, Model U.N., Model Assembly, Knowledge Bowl, Academic Decathlon, Math League, Poetry contest, Science Fair, Spelling Bee, and conferences in areas like creativity, writing, fine arts and other interest areas.

Registration forms for youth basketball for students in grades 3-6 go out in October; practices begin in November and run through February. Fifth and sixth grade girls and boys teams play games against teams from area towns in January/February. The program first and second graders runs in March.

Volunteers are a large and critical part of Community Education. One of the reasons that we can offer many youth programs for very reasonable fees is the involvement of parents and older students who volunteer to coach in our youth baseball, tee-ball, softball, soccer, track, football, and basketball programs. Last year more than 250 volunteers helped coach and develop kids in these programs! You can be a part of this as well by signing up to coach on the youth basketball forms in October—it’s a great experience to help your child and other kids learn, develop and achieve.

Information on all of these, plus other opportunities, are available in the Community Education brochure. You can also call us at 952-758-1677. We look forward to seeing you or hearing from you this fall!