Our children are our most valuable resource; they are our future. The Siouxland Community is blessed with a before-and-after-school program called Beyond the Bell that creates a safe place for our children to play, learn, and grow.
“Our mission at Beyond the Bell is to support Siouxland children and their families in reaching their full potential. Our main goal is to serve as many children and families as possible with structure and quality. We want to go that extra mile to look at each child individually and say what else can we do for this child or this household? Every family is different, with different needs. Quality experiences are our top priority for the families that we serve,” stated Jenna Andrews, Director of Development at Beyond the Bell.
The Beyond the Bell program is available in Siouxland. It runs from 6:30 in the morning until classes start for the children and then is available after school again until 6 p.m.
“We’re very fortunate to have a long-standing partnership with the school districts we serve. We’re able to provide that program on-site at the schools. We can get into those buildings at 6:15 a.m. to prepare for the children and again in the buildings after school. An amazing number of children need care early in the day and then late in the day. We’re there for the population of families working those shifts,” said Jenna.
It is up to the families to decide if their children require early morning care, after-school care, or both.
“We work with the school buildings’ families and teachers to determine if any of the children might need additional academic support. We provide that in a couple of different ways. Some things are all-encompassing within our program, where we sprinkle in some of the academic stuff and make it fun for the kids using games. We make it fun for the kids, and they may not realize they are learning something new at that moment,” stated Jenna.
The program also offers direct 1:1 tutoring for the children.
“They may just need a little more support, and teachers just don’t have the time to get to it during the day,” said Jenna. Math tends to fall into that category, and it helps students learn how to show their work and reach their conclusions for their math problems. It isn’t just a two-step process to show and prove your work anymore.
However, Beyond the Bell also assists families in other ways.
“Some of the other things we are able to provide for the families we work with are the Food Bank of Siouxland, and we can provide monthly Food Banks at multiple locations for our families. We try to do it very discreetly where if you need a bag of goods, you can discreetly take a bag of and go. Especially in the past three years, we have discussed pre- and post-COVID. COVID has changed a lot of things, and we’re finding a lot more families need that extra assistance,” commented Jenna. In fact, 70 percent of households in the Siouxland area need support.
The Beyond the Bell program also allows for more family time at home after a long day of work and school. The tutoring enables the children to complete their more challenging homework with the assistance of a tutor. Then, when they are at home, they can complete the rest of their homework that they do not require extra help with to complete. This allows for some downtime and a family to have a meal together.
“I’m a mom myself,” shared Jenna, “and my kids are school-aged. The time we get with them is so short that you find yourself clinging to ‘What can I do that is the most impactful time with my kids?’ But they have that geography test tomorrow, so you help them study for it. But that’s part of what we’re trying to do with Beyond the Bell, to ease some of those task things for the parents so that instead of helping their kids with their homework, they can break out the board games and maybe play some Monopoly or Sorry, and build their relationships with their kids.”
Beyond the Bell is available for children in preschool and up to the 8th grade.
“We’re always enrolling and accepting applications to serve as many families as possible. The only thing we run into at times is if we have reached our capacity for our licensing capacity or staffing,” shared Jenna.
The Siouxland area has many colleges in the surrounding area, with students majoring in education and looking for job experience. They can get that by volunteering or working at Beyond the Bell if they meet the qualifications.
“Childcare is something people hear about all over the world. It is something that needs to be looked at very seriously about how we will continue to invest in caring for our children, which means caring for our families, which means caring for our employees, and our economy, and all of the things that spiral out of that. I would encourage anyone listening or reading this to pay attention to those conversations and try to understand and support where they can.”
To inquire about enrolling in the Beyond the Bell program, go to www.beyondthebell.us.com or call (712) 277-3600.
By Amy Buster
