BENTONVILLE -- The School District is partially outsourcing its before- and after-school program to a local businessto better meet community demand for such services.
The district's Adventure Club serves students in kindergarten through sixth grade. Tuition is $65 per week. As of October, there were 345 children enrolled in Adventure Club and another 384 on the program's wait list, according to information the district provided at the time.
Finding enough people to staff Adventure Club so the district can serve all the families that want to be a part of it has proven difficult, according to Deputy Superintendent Janet Schwanhausser.
The School Board, in an effort to reduce the wait list, agreed in October to partner with Mobius, an after-school and summer care center on Pleasant Grove Road run by Nick and Katie Bartelt.
The deal allowed the Bartelts to start a pilot program, called Discovery, at Vaughn Elementary School that would take the place of Adventure Club there for the rest of the school year and the summer of 2023.
In turn, the district shifted its two Adventure Club staff members at Vaughn Elementary to Evening Star Elementary, allowing more kids at that school to join Adventure Club.
There are now 42 students enrolled in the Discovery program at Vaughn and 338 students enrolled districtwide in Adventure Club. The Adventure Club waiting list has been reduced from 384 in October to 256 as of Friday, according to the district.
"This is a service that we need to provide for our families," Superintendent Debbie Jones told the board at its October meeting. "And we would like to take everyone off the waiting list. That is our goal."
Bentonville's struggles finding sufficient staff for its Adventure Club program reflect a national issue.
A survey conducted in March and April by Edge Research showed 69% of the 948 after-school program providers polled were either "very concerned" or "extremely concerned" about finding staff to hire, according to results published by Afterschool Alliance, an organization based in Washington, D.C.
The Discovery program costs $10 more per student per week than Adventure Club costs. The district is covering this extra cost so that families do not experience an increase mid-school year, Schwanhausser said. That adds up to about $220 the district will pay per student to be enrolled in Discovery through the end of the school year.
Katie Bartelt is a former Bentonville High School math teacher. Schwanhausser told the board she is "very confident" in the Bartelts' program, based on what she's seen.
Jones said the district has tried to recruit more workers for Adventure Club, but hasn't been successful.
"This is why we're trying something new," she said.
A series of rotating features at the top of the district's website includes an advertisement for Adventure Club employees. Minimum pay for Adventure Club teachers is $13 per hour, a rate that increases about 15 cents per year, according to the district's salary schedule.
This is the first time the district has outsourced before- and after-school services, though it has outsourced its custodial and food services for years.
As for the future of the partnership with Mobius and the Bartelts, Schwanhausser told the board that district officials will decide that in the spring. The main factor in their decision will be the labor market and whether Adventure Club is still struggling to find help, she said. The district might discontinue the partnership or extend the Discovery program to other schools.
Mobius opened in 2020. Its website states its mission is "to engage and inspire young minds to aim high and be good citizens of our community" and that it offers "experiential learning opportunities through curriculum, activities, and educational experiences to inspire and challenge children from kindergarten through sixth grade through our afterschool and summer experiences."