Program Operations, Staffing and Recruitment
Operations
The Kent Community Success program was offered throughout summer (2024) and school year (Fall 2024-Spring 2025) sessions. Summer programming for Mill Creek was held for four weeks, Monday-Friday from 9:30am-3:00pm, Neely-O’Brien was held for two weeks, Monday-Thursday from 9:00am-4:00pm, and River Ridge was held for four weeks, Monday-Thursday from 9:00am-3:00pm. During the school year, all three sites offered after school programming, Monday-Thursday for 2-3 hours. River Ridge also offered one hour of before-school programming. All programming was in-person during the 2024-25 school year. Mill Creek, Neely-O’Brien, and River Ridge all had regular, early-release Wednesdays during the academic year, which allowed site coordinators to run the afterschool program earlier in the day.
Staffing
Kent Community Success program staff include a director and site coordinators (at each site) to oversee programming. In 2024-25, additional staff included paid and volunteer roles, as outlined in Table 2.
Table 2: Kent Community Success Staffing by Site and Session, 2024–25
|
Type of Staff |
Summer Session | School Year Session | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Mill Creek |
Neely O'Brien |
River Ridge |
Mill Creek |
Neely O'Brien |
River Ridge | |
| Administrators (paid) | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Administrators (volunteer) | 2 | |||||
| College students (paid) | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||
| Community members (paid) | 10 | 2 | 1 | |||
| Community members (volunteer) | 2 | |||||
| High school students (paid) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| Parents (paid) | 1 | |||||
| Parents (volunteer) | 1 | |||||
| School day teachers (paid) | 8 | 1 | 6 | 1 | ||
| Other Non-teaching School Staff (paid) | 3 | |||||
| Other Non-teaching School Staff (volunteer) | 3 | |||||
| Subcontracted Staff (paid) | 1 | 3 | 3 | |||
| Subcontracted Staff (volunteer) | 4 | 5 | 5 | |||
| Other (paid) | ||||||
| Other (volunteer) | 1 | |||||
| TOTAL STAFF | 12 | 14 | 24 | 12 | 6 | 27 |
Recruitment
Recruiting students for the Kent Community Success program included a range of approaches in 2024-25. Kent Community Success program staff collaborated with school-day staff to identify students who may benefit from the program, including those who had scored below proficient on local and state assessments, who had not received passing grades, who were referred for additional support with reading or math, and who had challenges with regular school-day attendance. There was also more limited recruitment focused on students who are English Language Learners (ELL or MLL, multi-lingual learners), who had experienced behavior-related issues, and who with special needs. Neely-O’Brien used other recruitment approaches, such as teacher recommendations to build SEL skills. The Kent Community Success program is open to all Mill Creek Middle School students who want to participate, and enrollment is offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Additionally, fifth grade graduates from Neely O’Brien and River Ridge were recruited for the Mill Creek summer program to support their transition to middle school.