Education foundation finds quick success in Downey

Downey students perform in a winter dance recital offered through the Downey Foundation for Educational Opportunities. (Courtesy photo)

DOWNEY — It’s been just a year and a half since the Downey Foundation for Educational Opportunities took over after school programming for Downey Unified Schools, but the organization has already seen tremendous growth.

DUSD handed the reins over to DFEO at the conclusion of the city’s ASPIRE program, which ceased on June 30, 2021.

At the time, the DFEO consisted of Executive Director Sheila Tetangco-Bartolone and Programs Director Laura Hurtado. Expansion would begin quickly, however.

“Obviously, we did our parents, with our focus groups, existing and waitlist people, and we needed a morning and an after-school program,” said Tetangco-Bartolone. “We went from two employees over that summer in August 2021, and we opened up with 55 employees. So that summer, we were hiring.”

With increased demand for after-school programs, DFEO now boasts over 300 employees.

“We’ve brought on partners in the community, STAY Arts being one of them, HFA (Home Field Advantage) being another,” said Tetangco-Bartolone. “Then we have a dance troupe, we have music; these are all performers, formal performers, like best in class. And we’ve been able to incorporate it into after-school, so every single student gets it for free.”

DFEO offers a wide range of arts and physical activity across all of Downey’s middle and elementary schools. A new grant recently received has now allowed the organization to offer these programs for free.

“We have the ASES (After School Education and Safety) grant, and then we got another grant from the State of California,” said Tetangco-Bartolone. “What we decided was we have to find a way to give these classes to people who would never experience it, because art class is $45 dollars a class, dance class is $65 dollars a class. I don’t even know what sports and fitness is, and I don’t even know what music class is.”

Morning programming is not covered by the grant and still requires a fee.

There is still quite the demand for services, and despite DFEO’s explosive growth, there are still waiting lists of interested students. In response, Tetangco-Bartolone says that the DFEO is looking to bring on as many as 100 more group leaders on board in the coming months.

She added that the grants dictate that DFEO prioritize “unduplicated pupils.”

“That’s free and reduced lunches, foster, lower-income and homeless; that’s the priority according to the grant,” said Tetangco-Bartolone. “That’s first priority, but once it’s offered, anybody can do it.”

Programs director Laura Hurtado (left) and executive director Sheila Tetangco-Bartolone.

Along with art and sport-based activities, DFEO has incorporated social and emotional learning and enrichment.

“Our teachers do social and emotional learning, they do tutoring / homework help, and then enrichment,” said Tetangco-Bartolone. “Enrichment can be, of course, all the stuff we offer, but also like journaling, it could be talking about what you did this weekend and how to deal with it emotionally.”

DFEO currently has over 1800 students involved, with another several hundred planned incoming.

Tetangco-Bartolone credits the demand to “word of mouth.”

“The word has gotten out,” said Tetangco-Bartolone. “We’ve not had to advertise; it’s all word of mouth. We have posters, we have not had to advertise.”

DFEO’s next step is intersession offerings.

“We provided classes for one week during Winter; we’re providing programming during the week of Easter break,” said Tetangco-Bartolone. “We also run during summer when DUSD has summer, but now we’re looking at something between where they end and where school starts, because there’s those three or four weeks where parents are like, ‘What am I supposed to do with my kid?’”

Tetangco-Bartolone is thankful to parents for “trusting us.”

“Now that we’ve pretty much got it down – we know how to grow, we know who, what, and why to hire – now we’re getting the good stuff,” said Tetangco-Bartolone.