Westside center to help kids

Lolita Harper

Another academic school year is looming for Westside children -- a

thought few students want to entertain as they frolic in the warm

Southern California sun. But this fall will offer an additional tool

for academic success, as community partners will open a new learning

center.

Think Together, an organization that operates educational centers

in low-income areas, and Harbor Christian Church on Costa Mesa’s

Westside have joined forces to offer a new after-school learning

center to the children of Wilson Street. The center is designed to

supplement students’ formal academic curriculum and provide them with

tools to get ahead at school.

The Wilson Street Center will operate out of two church classrooms

and serve predominantly Wilson Elementary School students, said Bill

Gartner, the pastor of Harbor Christian Church. Officials hope to

open the center doors by mid-September, just in time to get children

on the right track for the school year, Gartner said.

“It’s been proven time and time again that after-school centers

help kids succeed,” Gartner said. “We’ve done enough long-term

studies; now it’s time to make it happen.”

Think Together officials launched the Wilson Street center by

following the footsteps of the successful Shalimar and Pomona

learning center models. Laura Johnson, the executive director of the

Shalimar Learning Center, said she hopes the new center will

similarly embrace not only the neighborhood students but the entire

families, as her center does.

“We get to know the families and engage with the kids in the hopes

that the families will make more of an impact in the learning process

also,” Johnson said. “We are hoping the center on Wilson will do the

same.”

Gartner said the family aspect is already present for him, as he

had two children at Wilson Elementary, has lived in the area for more

than a decade and is the leader of a close-knit congregation.

“I’ve got a really vested interest in this area, and I’m

anticipating some exciting changes,” Gartner said.

Another vested group, which also has an outreach office at the

church, is the UC Irvine Outreach Center. While the outreach center

is not a contractual partner, its leaders feel they hold an integral

role in the center’s success. Administrators for both the UCI

Outreach Center and the Wilson Street Learning Center will share

office space, while the actual tutoring will be done in the separate

classrooms.

UCI officials have committed to helping the learning center retain

tutors by offering connections to university students looking to

volunteer time, said Victor Becerra, executive director of the

university outreach program. Becerra said he is excited about the

effect the collaboration will bring the community.

“Think Together has an established track record, and I think this

center will be very successful right from the very start,” Becerra

said.

The mission of Think Together is to assist educationally at-risk

youth and provide them with learning tools and a study venue to be

successful in an academic environment. Officials said the students on

Wilson Street fit the prototype perfectly, as a large majority of the

students come from immigrant families and have language barriers to

overcome before they can even tackle the content of their schoolwork.

Becerra said the center will arm immigrant children with the tools

they need to tackle the rigors of elementary education. Any

additional help with schoolwork helps, he said.

Westside resident Janice Davidson worries, however, that the

center will be too focused on immigrant children and will alienate

students of other ethnicities who also need help. She said the

community should look for facilities that encourage the interaction

of different races and ethnicities, not venues that cater to one

ethnic background.

“The other center [seems to be] for Latinos only, and it’s really

not quite fair,” Davidson said. “They have all of these extra

homework schools for the Latino kids, but nobody is looking out for

the [other] children in the city.”

Gartner admitted the center will most likely serve Latino

children, but that is just a fact of life, he said. Sheer statistics

of the ethnic breakdown of the neighborhood and the elementary school

that will feed the center show that, primarily, Latino students will

attend the center, he said.

“That is just how things are because this is where we are,”

Gartner said. “But if the implication is that we will not open our

doors and assist Anglo students -- or anyone else for that matter --

that is completely false.”

Davidson also questioned the proliferation of learning centers on

the Westside, saying there are various locations in the city that

could benefit from extra tutorial services.

“There are other kids in the city who need the same type of help,

and I don’t see anyone helping them,” Davidson said.

Gartner did not disagree with her sentiment but said he was doing

his part for his specific neighborhood.

“We could use a center like this in every Costa Mesa neighborhood,

and I applaud the schools who have already facilitated something like

this,” he said.

* LOLITA HARPER covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4275 or by e-mail at lolita.harper@latimes.com.