T-L Photo/ROBERT A. DEFRANK Lisa Kleevic, site coordinator with the East Central Ohio Educational Service Center, updates the Martins Ferry City School District Board of Education on activities and assistance offered through a five-year, 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant.

Martins Ferry — The Martins Ferry City School District has been offering after-school activities and academic help for middle-schoolers through a 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant, with additional summer activities planned.

The board of education recently heard from Lisa Kleevic, site coordinator with the East Central Ohio Educational Service Center. She described the program, which is for middle school students from fifth through eighth grades and operates from 2:30-5:30 p.m.

“The first three years of the grant we get $250,000 a year. Then we go down to $200,000 and then we go down to $100,000,” she said. The after-school programs for this school year will end April 28. The year began with 28 students in the program, and 16 have been retained.

“So that’s a good thing,” she said.

Kleevic said the ECOESC recently purchased two interactive SMART Boards for the school district.

“They also lay down like a table so the children can use them interactively with different computer programs,” she said. “They’re great for presentations if you have something in the gym. You can move them around.”

Kleevic said the district is in the third year of a five-year grant.

“At the beginning of next school year, we’ll still have two years on it before we have to begin rewriting of it,” she said, adding it was shared with Bridgeport Exempted Village School District’s middle school. “It’s a great grant. It really is. They’re really good about getting us anything we need for the kids.”

Kleevic added that the grant addresses what she considers an important element: providing food for the children.

“We incorporate cooking clubs in our class where we actually get the food and teach them how to cook, and then they get to eat it. That’s just one of the many clubs that we have,” she said. “There are clubs that cover subjects ranging from computers to coding.

“Anything they show an interest in we try to devise into a club that we can utilize for the last hour of our day,” she said. “Anyone can come see what we do throughout the day. Basically we are a math and reading enrichment grant, and we are trying to up the scores for math and reading for the kids and help them get caught up and keep caught up on homework. Everybody knows COVID put everybody behind, so the homework help really helps the parents. … That is the big crux of our grant.”

Kleevic said they are able to chart the students’ growth and progress. Teachers provide the students’ math and reading scores and fill out a survey on the improvement of their academic performances and social skills since attending the after-school program.

Kleevic added there has been progress compared to last school year’s disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’ve seen a good growth,” she said. “We have it for two more years. We’re real excited about it and we’re going to try to do as much as we can.”

In addition, there is a summer school plan for the first two weeks of June.

“It’s really not a summer school, it’s a summer camp. It’s really a reward to the kids. I like to try to take them someplace they might not have been able to go on their own,” she said.

Some activities include bowling, possibly axe throwing and a barbeque to a shelter at the St. Clairsville Memorial Park.

“That’s for their parents to come and their siblings on the last day. … Hopefully we’ll have enough kids turn out that we can utilize that camp. We didn’t have a chance to last year. We’ll just wait and see how it goes.”