A new, after-school enrichment program in Redmond’s Union Hill neighborhood borrows principles from the business world to mentor elementary students. The goal isn’t to rush kids into the workforce, but to ensure that in their formative years, they become rooted in habits that will help them thrive both mentally and physically as teens and adults.
“My biggest challenge is not to be categorized as ‘after-school day care,'” said Amandeep Narula, who left a career as a software executive to start ALLY (Academy for Leadership and Life Skills for Youth).
The decision was motivated by his own dual-income family’s hectic lifestyle and his desire to instill core values in his three young sons. His six-year-old twin boys attend Rosa Parks Elementary and their 10-year-old brother is enrolled in the Quest (Highly Capable) program at Louisa May Alcott Elementary.
The ALLY program runs on regular school days during the Lake Washington School District’s (LWSD) academic year. Students are picked up from their respective schools and transported to the program’s space at the Redmond/Sammamish Boys and Girls Clubs of King County. In turn, that facility is located on the shared campus of Emily Dickinson Elementary and Explorer Community School.
The ALLY program is structured around three pillars: organized sports, homework help and leadership/life skills development.
For the fall curriculum, the organized sport is basketball, taught by certified coaches at Eastside Basketball Club.
“The idea is not to join the NBA, but enjoy the skills,” said Narula. “After six or seven hours at school, kids need to let out energy, exercise,” he pointed out.
As for ALLY’s homework component, certified teachers from the LWSD Quest program are employed to help students understand the curriculum.
“It’s not to teach them new material but clear up the concepts, give them building blocks to learn more,” Narula explained. “A lot of parents just don’t have the skills or (the subject) was taught differently when they were in school.”
ALLY’s leadership/life skills approach focuses on “communication and interpersonal skills — working one-on-one or in a group, finding out about negotiations, empathy, getting your point across. Also, decision-making and critical thinking ability. Take a problem and logically think about it and arrive at a decision,” said Narula.
As well, “we work on coping and self-management skills,” he said. “What is the best response when you’re stressed, when ‘someone is in your face?’ Maybe there’s a problem within yourself and you can fix it. Maybe you haven’t eaten and your blood sugar is low. Maybe you need a sandwich.”
That leads to another point within the ALLY program, said Narula: “Respect for one’s body. If I can get them at a young age to respect their body, don’t smoke, don’t drink, know the five food groups, how to choose wisely at a restaurant.”
In simpler times, parents were the ones who monitored kids after school, made sure they exercised, ate nutritious snacks and completed their homework on-time.
“Times are different now,” Narula stated, adding, “we had stability and parents with quality time.”
He’s not criticizing working parents, he noted. His wife is an executive in Microsoft’s Xbox division. He knows firsthand how busy life gets when parents juggle work responsibilities with kids’ school and extracurricular activities.
So when kids are enrolled in the ALLY program, said Narula, “kids come home having exercised, they’ve done homework with a teacher, developed leadership skills. Parents and children can spend the rest of the evening not chasing a deadline.”
Furthermore, said Narula, if you tabulate the separate costs of after-school care, transportation, tutoring, sports and/or other extracurriculars such as art or music classes, your total expenditure per child could easily be $550 to $675 per month.
Pilot program costs at ALLY are $499 per month for the full-time program (five days a week) or $399 per month for part-time (three days a week). Narula said that breaks down to $6.78 per hour for the full-time enrollment or $9.04 per hour for the part-time.
Costs will be higher when the program is established, he said.
For more information, call (425) 449-2530, e-mail aman@narulainc.net or visit http://www.positiveally.com.
