Bounding through their front door at 2:30 p.m., young children go straight to electronic devices to occupy themselves while their parents finish working at home. In order to not bother their working parents, some children spend their afternoons in front of a screen instead of engaging with other kids or playing outdoors. At the end of the day, these kids become restless from the lack of mental stimulation. This is the reality for many elementary school families after the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the RecPASS program serves as a solution for working Wayland parents.

In 2018, Wayland Public Schools voted to change school start times for the elementary, middle and high school. The proposed change led to all three elementary schools starting an hour earlier at 7:55 a.m and ending an hour earlier at 2:25 p.m.. As a result, after-school childcare that some Wayland parents relied on was no longer available. Some Wayland parents were forced to end their work days when their children arrived at home.

“My work productivity is significantly impacted by the fact that I have two little kids at home who have lots of needs,” Wayland parent Corey MacGregor said. “They spend too much time on screens while I’m working from home, so this situation hasn’t been ideal for anybody.”

BASE is a common after-school child care option for some Wayland parents. However, after COVID-19 and the change in school start times, there has been a difficulty in hiring BASE staff. According to a survey sent to over 500 Wayland parents by the Parents for After School Solutions (PASS) founders, the lack of staff resulted in only 20% of kindergarten through fifth grade students being afforded a spot in the BASE program. The children who were not given a spot in the BASE program were put on a waitlist.

“Every spring we [parents] would get emails from BASE that said ‘you do not have a spot,’” PASS Founder and Co-Chair Karen Kelly said. “Eventually, I decided to post [on Facebook] and say ‘okay, we’ve got to solve this. Send me a DM if you want to get involved.’”

Without after-school childcare, the responsibility to look after children often falls on mothers, many of whom have to sacrifice their careers to care for their children. Approximately 700,000 more women in the United States would have returned to the workforce if childcare was easily accessible.

“By inhibiting [after-school childcare], you are inhibiting the female workforce,” Kelly said. “I have worked every day of my life since I graduated from college. Who is anyone to tell me that I cannot continue to pursue my professional dreams because [our town] can’t figure out how to problem solve after-school care.”

Kelly sought out former Wayland Children and Parents Association (WCPA) Chair and PASS Co-Chair Amanda Shaw, formerly Amanda Irsch, to seek a solution to the lack of after-school childcare in Wayland. Together, they reached out to the the Recreation Department, the Town Manager’s Office, First-Student Transportation, the Town Select Board and each of the Wayland elementary schools in order to create an alternative after-school childcare program.

“I’ve organized companies, but I’ve never organized a community, and it really came down to Shaw and I’s complementary skill set and the way we communicate with each other,” Kelly said. “We don’t always agree, but we always hear each other.”

After meeting with Director of Wayland Recreation Department Katherine Brenna, Kelly and Shaw partnered with the Recreation Department to create RecPASS. This program, beginning in the fall of 2023, takes place at the Wayland Town Building and provides a variety of extracurricular recreation activities, from sewing to sports, for elementary school children.

“We wanted to give kids an opportunity to both be active and play games outside or in the gym, but also to work quietly and independently in a classroom,” Brenna said. “We selected local vendors, [like Be Ahead of the Game and HipStitch], based on their proven track record to provide a great program, smart curricula and caring and responsible staff.”

Kelly and Shaw also headed the partnership between the Wayland YMCA and Recreation Department to create the after-school program at Camp Chickami. The Chickami program currently only has space for 30 kids, but plans to expand over the next few years.

“The Chickami program alleviates a great deal of stress and anxiety for our family,” Wayland parent Kim Fox said. “We are at ease knowing that our daughter will have a reliable, safe and enriching after-school program. Prior to this option becoming available, my husband and I were interviewing after-school nannies, which would have been three times the cost of BASE tuition.”

One of the biggest obstacles in executing the after-school programs was finding transportation to bus students from the elementary schools to the Town Building. Because of the nationwide bus driver shortage, securing a new bus route posed a challenge for RecPASS coordinators.

“[The RecPASS program] seemed like a pretty obvious solution in terms of what would benefit parents and kids, but [the issue was] finding transport to the program because the town owns the bus contract, not the schools,” Shaw said. “There were pre-existing programs already being run by the Recreation Department, so the question was how do we get a bus and get the town and everyone involved organized enough to get the transportation piece in place?”

Around the second week of July, Kelly and Shaw received confirmation that bussing was approved for the RecPASS program. To the RecPASS committee, the bus confirmation was a sign that their program was getting recognition and priority in the community.

“What I saw inspired me so much,” WCPA President and RecPASS Committee Member Keira Liu said. “I feel like the world is such a tough, depressing place and it’s not often that you see a community of working parents come together. That was a beautiful thing to watch happen.”

Some Wayland parents believe that after-school programs are as crucial to a child’s social, emotional and educational development as the school day itself. The RecPASS program provides elementary students with opportunities to continue learning and engaging with their friends outside of school. In addition to the benefits for students, the RecPASS program allows working parents to complete their workday without having to look after their children at the same time.

“I want to express my tremendous appreciation for Kelly, Shaw and Brenna for making this happen,” MacGregor said. “[After-school care] has been a tremendous need for a lot of parents for a long time, but [Kelly and Shaw] took the initiative and worked tremendously hard to make this happen for parents.We’re really appreciative and I think our family’s year is going to be a lot easier and better as a result of it.”