"Jasmine was a beautiful girl. But she was failing because of language issues. She spoke Spanish at home and could not keep up with lessons at school. Her family was unable to provide help for her."

Jasmine's story is not unique. In this corner of the Bay Area, many parents work long hours to make enough money to simply put dinner on the table—which means they have little-to-no time to help their children with schoolwork. And in many of these families, English is the second language, creating another barrier for parents as far as helping with schoolwork goes. This adds up to children at risk for poor performance, even failure, in the school system.

Fortunately for Jasmine, Little referred her to Kids Learning After School—a special collaborative program set up to keep students like her from falling through the cracks. KLAS is jointly sponsored by the Sunnyvale School District, the city, the parks and recreation department and private organizations such as the YMCA and high-tech giant AMD.

Little says that once Jasmine started getting help, the changes in her were remarkable. "She picked up so fast, and by the end of the year she made it to the honor roll."

While the primary focus of this after-school program is to bring students who are academically at risk on track, it's also an all-round developmental plan that provides a secure and challenging environment for children to excel, says Christine Garrow, project manager for the program. The program addresses many aspects of life, from anger management to playing a musical instrument.

This innovative after-school initiative is available in three schools in the Sunnyvale School District: Bishop Elementary, Lakewood Elementary and Columbia Middle School.

"Most of the children here have parents who are both working. Some of them even hold two to three jobs just to pay the bills. So the parents either don't have the time and energy or are not equipped to assist their children with schoolwork," says Lourdes Reyes, who leads the KLAS program at Bishop. "So when these kids come here right after classes are over, they get homework assistance, tutoring, and snacks and are exposed to other enrichment activities every day that would not be otherwise available to them."

The program provides a variety of extracurricular activities that range from lessons in craft, dance, drama, magic, music and science to outside sports and classes in self-defense and pottery for older children.

Unlike other after-school projects that are run by each individual school campus, KLAS is a collaborative venture partly funded by the California Department of Education.

Five years ago, the department started a grant scheme that promised three-year seed money to qualifying schools for an after-school program.

The schools had to meet two important criteria: First, at least 50 per cent of its student body should qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches, implying a huge chunk of the student population would come from economically disadvantaged families. And second, a large number of the youngsters would likely come from homes where English is not the primary spoken language. Every three years the contract would be renewed depending on whether the schools still met the criteria and as long as their Academic Performance Index (API) suggested improvements.

While half the money comes from the Department of Education, the rest would have to come from other sources. And this is where the program gets collaborative.

The Sunnyvale School District, the city, parks and recreation and private agencies like the YMCA and businesses such as AMD partner to bring in contributions required to make the program comprehensive.

AMD is one of the biggest private resources for the program. "They have given us pockets of money, and the employees have also held email tutoring sessions for our students," Garrow says.

The Y runs a special enrichment activity at Columbia Middle School called JUMP (which stands for Just Understand, Motivate and Provide). JUMP is a leadership program targeted at teens that emphasizes communication, decision-making, anger management, conflict resolution and goal setting.

"Middle school is a tough crowd, and it's very hard to pull these kids in. So it's very important we create a program they like and will stick with," says Garrow.

Bob Davis is the Y's representative at Columbia. He runs the JUMP program every Wednesday. "Many of these kids are under tremendous pressure from society, their peer group or their family. So we provide an outlet for them to talk about it." But, he says, it's not very easy to win their trust.

So Davis comes up with ways to initiate these intimate conversations with his bunch of early teens. One Wednesday afternoon, he asked his group to create a collage of what they perceived as pop culture. Once the project was completed, students began discussing gender stereotypes they saw in the culture they had singled out. "At the end of the class, if a student wants to discuss something along those lines or if they are comfortable enough, to discuss personal issues, they come to me. But it is a gradual process," he says.

It's gradual—but after a period of time most children are hooked. "During the first year of the program, the number of middle school students who were enrolled dropped. Many of the kids thought it was just a day care and thought they were too grown up for it. But over the years we've gotten good. We are also getting elementary school students who have been with this program before and know what it is and enjoy it," says Garrow.

Serj Khorozian, a seventh-grader at Columbia, has been attending the after-school program since he was in fifth grade. "I love KLAS, especially sports and the fact I get help with my homework. I also love the dog house," he says.

"Dog house" is a part of the program in which middle school students can do whatever they want for slightly more than one hour every Monday through Thursday. They can play video games, watch movies or just hang out and have fun—in a safe and supervised environment.

For Serj's buddy Juan Godirez, who moved from Seattle two years ago, the after-school program was the best way to meet and make new friends.

Garrow points out another advantage of having teenagers under supervision after school. According to statistics, most teen crimes, from shoplifting to vandalism and even worse, take place between 3 and 6 p.m. when teenagers are out of school and parents are still at work.

"But we've seen that the crime rate in the Columbia neighborhood area is 10 percent less than for the rest of the city for the past three years. And that is a huge impact," she says.

Elementary school teacher Little has one fixed rule for her students attending the after-school program. "They know that I have a condition. They have to finish their homework before moving on to other enrichment activities. They know it's waiting for them once they are done with their work," says Little. And the bait inevitably works.

"I love the days we have dance or drama," says Annie Chen, a fourth-grader at the school. "Today we danced to songs from Men in Black, Chicago and Kimpossible," she says grinning. Annie has been attending the program since she was in the first grade.

For others, like Sandy MacDaniel, another fourth-grader, it's all about little achievements. "My grandma is sick and she cannot help me with homework. So I do my homework here and I always get it right," she says with pride.

Little's "success" this year is a walking, talking energetic little girl named Victoria (who did not want to use her last name). At the beginning of the school year, Victoria's grades were slipping. Apparently, the day care the fourth-grader went to after school was so noisy and full of distractions that she could not finish her schoolwork. Little decided to intervene and introduced Victoria to the after-school program.

For parents especially, KLAS has been a huge blessing. "I get back from work pretty late every day. By the time I pick up my daughter and I have dinner on the table, it's almost 7 p.m. I'm very happy with this program, because I find her homework is completed and her grades are also improving," says Raymond, Victoria's father.

Raymond (who also prefers not to use his last name) is relieved that the cost of the program is much cheaper than the day care he was sending his daughter to earlier. Raymond works in electronics and says he's feeling the pinch of the valley's economic downturn. KLAS costs less than $1 a day for each child.

Despite its success, Garrow says it's not easy running a collaborative program. "All the partners are vying for the same pot of money to run the portion of the program they are in charge of. For example, if a TV breaks down, who will pay? It's absolutely hair-graying. But in the end, no particular group wins. The victory is across the board," she says.

Reyes, the site leader at Bishop, points out that staffing is one of the main challenges of the program. "The student-instructor ratio at Bishop is 20 to one. It gets difficult for the instructor to pay close attention to all the students. But we don't have more funds to recruit more people. We also have children on waiting lists."

Despite the internal conflicts and monetary issues facing the program, Garrow says, "KLAS is probably one of the strongest collaborative educational programs in the state. The wave of the future will be to work in collaboration. We are getting smart about how we use our resources, and at the end of the day, everybody is a winner—parents, teachers, the city, parks and recreation, the Y. And most of all it is joyful to see the kids healthy, smart and learning how to exercise their brains."