Experiences with City of Berkeley after school programs?
Like many, we're scrambling for after school care for our kindergartner. Does anyone have experiences they can share with the City of Berkeley's after school programs? I'm specifically looking at the one at Strawberry Creek, but I'd be happy to hear of any interactions with the city-run programs to get a general feel for how well run they are.
Aug 11, 2021
Parent Replies
The City of Berkeley after-school programs are the best deal around! My kids attended the after-school program as well as the summer camps for years at James Kenney, which was very convenient for me to pick them up from. The staff were always loving and fun, my kids got nutritious snacks, the program was flexible in terms of how often my kids attended, a bus brought them from school to the program, and it was the most affordable option. My kids made friends with kids who went to other schools, which was great when they went on to middle school and high school. I figured that, as a homeowner, I'm paying for the programs in my property taxes anyway so I might as well take advantage of them! It has been a few years since my kids have aged out, although my 17-yr. old now is applying for a job to work with them.
We are only two days in, but we also have experience with the summer playground program, and from what I can tell they are very similar. Our kindergartener is at Live Oak Park and did the playground program at Strawberry Creek over the summer and has had a good time at both. There's a lot of free play and some activities led by the counselors, and it seems like a good mix of active stuff and quieter activities. Here's the schedule for the aftercare:
2:00 arrival/free play
3:00 circle time
3:30 transition / snack
4:00 homework / story time (so far this is story time, but I guess for kids in older grades it's a chance to do their homework?)
4:30 group games / arts and crafts
5:00 free play
They seem well run and the staff are friendly. It's a lot of unstructured time with staff on hand as needed, so most of what I've seen is just the kids playing with each other on the playground or at the creek, which is exactly what I want for aftercare especially as my kid is transitioning to the structure of real school. Both days he's been there he wanted to stay longer and keep playing when I got there to pick him up, so that seems like a good sign.