Shalimar to restart program for teens

Jennifer Kho

COSTA MESA -- The Shalimar Learning Center on Monday will reopen the

portion of its program aimed at teens because some students are already

falling behind in their studies without the benefit of after-school

tutoring.

“Some of the teens are taking their most challenging classes right now

and we want to be sure they get help immediately,” said Pablo R. Diaz,

executive director of Think Together, which oversees Shalimar and five

other learning centers. “Education is their ticket out of poverty and we

want to make sure they have a solid education.”

Shalimar officials decided to reopen part of the center during a

closed meeting Wednesday. Diaz said staff members are now working

frantically to get everything done: lining up volunteers, making

schedules and contacting students and parents to let them know the center

will be back and running.

Between 80 and 100 teens were active participants at the 6-year-old

center when it shut its doors Sept. 15, Diaz said. No date has been set

for reopening the rest of the center, which served about 300 students,

but staff will begin discussing it next week, Diaz said.

Randy Barth, volunteer chairman for Think Together, said the center

was closed because the staff felt threatened after children and parents

protested the firing of Maria Alvarez, a longtime staff member.

Alvarez was let go because she disagreed with a new schedule which

staggered the times that different children could come to get academic

help, Barth said.

Esbeydy Belmontes, a 15-year-old who has been attending the

after-school tutoring program for three years, said the two-week closure

has had a drastic effect on her grades.

“I’m excited it’s finally going to open again,” Belmontes said. “When

I was at the teen center, I was a straight-A girl. Now I have Bs, Cs,

even Ds in my classes. My grades have really dropped.”

Taking difficult classes like biology and algebra II without the

one-on-one tutoring she had at the center, Belmontes said she had started

to lose hope in her potential for academic success.

Now, she said, her confidence in achieving good grades has been

restored.

“Reopening the center is the best thing they could do for the

community and all the teens,” she said. “If they didn’t, it would have

gotten harder and harder and I might have given up.”