School Age Children/Teens

Ideas from Community

• Offer ninth grade “Planet 9”
• More diverse activities for students (not just sports)
• Need more:
  • After school activities for teens and middle school aged children
  • Intramurals
  • Information of school activities and what they are about
  • Interschool sports at earlier age
  • Community Education classes
  • Spring Break options
  • Activities for seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders, such as non-competitive sports activities, more summer programs like Planet 7, after school and weekend activities, variety of adult-sponsored activities, things to do not connected with school, things for “un-niched” kids to do, before and after school programs for junior high students (similar to KIDS WEST)
• Provide more opportunities for middle school and high school students who are not the “best” (i.e. pep band, intramural band)
• Expand Kids West to make room for more kids
• Identify kids that don’t “fit into the box”
• Create more linkage between early childhood initiatives and school-age programming
• Involve kids in some community decisions
• Ask and listen to kids
• Listen to:
  • Latch key children
  • Kids who don’t fit into the box
  • Kids with financial constraints/limited opportunities
  • Kids with health concerns
  • At-risk students
  • Bulliers” and victims of bullying
• Need “cool” activities that will draw teens (traditional ones won’t fly)
• Keep teens busy with helping at camps, community service
• Offer activities for kids not involved in school functions
• Offer reasonably priced activities
• Create city/school outreach partnership at Valley High School (after school, easy to join)
• Grow out youth groups that are “cool” for kids to join
• Accommodate all seventh-graders in Planet 7
• Need activities for teens
• Target 3-5 p.m. and early out days
• Offer opportunities to socialize outside school/summers
• Ask teens what they want
• Offer inexpensive/non-work-related activities
• Have youth/teen recreation center with huge indoor winter playground, wellness center, ropes course, gym and pool
• Have somewhere safe, drug free and open late to “hang out”
• Offer many options for entertainment
• Have a late night coffeehouse
• Need activities for teens after school, weekends, summer and throughout winter
• Need sports for seventh-graders
• More options for teen socializing
• Have more community clubs and recreational intramural sports
• Have an Iowa leadership event

Concerns from Community

• Kids are stereotyped by adults
• Kids’ opinions are not sought, heard and respected locally or nationally; kids (even elementary age) have valid opinions and good ideas
• Seventh-graders left out (no KIDS WEST or athletics)
• Address decline in sports participation from ninth to tenth grades