ROGERS — Students at Oakdale Middle School will have access next year to an after-school program meant to help improve their performance on math, science and literacy tests.
The program will be paid for with a five-year, $550,000 grant from 21st Century Community Learning Centers, a federal program.
James Goodwin, principal of the school, said the program will enroll about 120 students who scored basic or below basic on standardized tests in math, science or literacy.
The program will include literacy instruction by student teachers from the University of Arkansas and robotics and other science projects, Goodwin said.
"What we need to do is get kids involved," he said. "Kids that are involved are kids that succeed."
Janet Estes is a math facilitator at the school who helped write the grant application. She said the program will help students who have trouble learning the material through traditional classroom approaches.
"We're trying to make this totally different than the classroom," she said. "So many students learn in different styles, and we're just hoping that this will help those students get a better grasp."
Iris Shepard, a graduate student at the University of Arkansas, is the on-site coordinator for the literacy part of the Oakdale project.
Literacy activities will include reading and writing scary stories and creating skits, she said.
Estes said one math-related activity will have teachers will hide items, then have students find them using coordinates and GPS units.
Goodwin said one important part of the grant is that it will pay for students to be taken home after the sessions. The sessions will be held three days a week from 3 to 5:30 p.m.
Goodwin said many of the school's students live far away, in Avoca or Garfield. That's made it difficult for them to participate in after school activities without transportation provided, he said.
Elmwood Middle School is entering the fifth and final year of a similar after-school program paid for by the federal program.
Bob White, principal of Elmwood, said it's difficult to track how much of an impact the program had, because so many factors can influence students' performance. But he said students who were in the program generally did better on tests than before they were in the program.
The district also received a 21st Century grant to start a prekindergarten program at Old Wire Road Elementary School.
This year, the district will have five programs paid for with 21st Century grants.