Rec activities to keep students busy on teacher work days
By JENNIFER WILSON
News editor
If you're a working parent, you've probably faced this dilemma.
A "teacher work day" is coming up soon, and that means no school. But you've still got to work, and you can't take off to stay home with your children. Do you call a baby sitter? Ask your mom to watch the kids?
Never fear. The Hillsboro Recreation Commission has a solution.
Starting this fall, the rec commission is offering daylong activities scheduled for the USD 410 teachers' work days. The first work day is Monday, Oct. 14.
This is the first year that the rec commission has scheduled events for each teachers' work day, said rec commission director Lonnie Isaac. The events will be primarily geared toward children ages kindergarten through sixth grade.
In the past, the rec commission has tried this on a smaller scale, by taking a group of youngsters bowling during a teacher inservice day. Eighty children went bowling that day, Isaac said.
A wide variety of activities will be offered, ranging from an open gym day in town to a trip to the Wichita Ice Palace for ice skating.
Isaac hasn't completely planned out the year, since it's still in the "feeling out" process, he said. But for the Oct. 14 date, the group will probably stay in town.
On Nov. 11, the group will travel to Wichita, possibly for a visit to the Sedgwick County Zoo or Exploration Place, and on Dec. 20, the group will attend a Christmas play at the Wichita Children's Theater. Jan. 20 is the date for the ice-skating trip.
Currently the rec commission is working with the school district to get adequate transportation. They'll probably rent buses from the district, Isaac said.
The cost per child will vary with the activity, and for those who can't pay, scholarships may be available.
"It's not a money-making thing for the rec commission," Isaac said.
But it takes more than money for the activities to work — it takes sponsors, Isaac said.
The activities will need parents and teens to act as supervisors and sponsors for the various activities, especially the trips to Wichita.
"We will be asking for parental sponsors," Isaac said. "That will affect the numbers we can take to these events."
For more information, contact the Hillsboro Recreation Commission at 947-3490.
