Some Prince George’s students will have art, dance and theater after-school classes — for free

Marianna wants to try tae kwon do, learn ballet or take art classes. But her mom is a librarian, her dad is an electrician and there’s just no way for them to drive her to those extracurriculars on time.

For now, her elementary school day ends at 1:40 p.m. and her grandmother takes care of her until her parents come home for dinner. But next school year, the 8-year-old will have the opportunity to join a free after-school program in which she could dance, paint or learn to play an instrument.

“I’ve looked at so many options, and the timing hasn’t been right,” said her mom, Annie Osorio, of Suitland. “Having this already in-house is going to be a lifesaver.”

This program at William Beanes Elementary School is supported by $610,000 of more than $7 million of recently announced federal funding. Maryland Sens. Angela Alsobrooks and Chris Van Hollen and Rep. Glenn Ivey traveled throughout the county on Monday to visit other recipients, including the Latin American Youth Center, Attick Towers Apartments and Ivy Community Charities of Prince George’s County, according to a news release.

At the elementary school, the senators were joined by Prince George’s County Public Schools Superintendent Shawn Joseph to celebrate opportunities this will provide students.

“It gives them a space to discover their unique voices, to express their realities,” Joseph said, “and to build powerful connections to their learning and to one another.”

School leaders hope this program will help working parents.

At this campus, seven in 10 students are from low-income families, and more than one in four are learning English. Students are also behind in reading and math, with about 17% of fifth graders proficient at English and about 5% for math.

Principal Nyree Smith has noticed that more children are absent on early-dismissal days, when parents may not be able to get off work to pick up their kids at off-hours.

This new program, which Smith said will be open to students in pre-K to fifth grade, will still operate on those days, providing another support for parents.

Smith tells the adults: “You get them here, we got the rest.”

When Alsobrooks was in elementary school in Suitland, she said, her parents learned she had attention deficit disorder. When she was 8 years old, she said, they enrolled her in Howard University’s children’s theater program. She gained confidence, learned how to present herself to others and became comfortable standing on a stage.

“That set the foundation for, I have to tell you, absolutely everything else that happened in my life,” said Alsobrooks, the former Prince George’s County’s executive and state’s attorney.

Darmika Miller sat outside her daughter’s elementary school on Monday and listened to the officials’ speeches. She thought about how her third grader loves drawing portraits, and is particularly focused on getting people’s noses and eyes just right. This new program, she thought, sounded like something her kid might like.

Miller is a substitute teacher in D.C., and sometimes a relative has to pick up her daughter from school. If this program turns out to be a good fit — and free — she’s excited about her daughter getting a few more hours at school.

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