At the core, our focus in caring for children is to provide an environment that provides physical activity, free play options, and academic support in a safe and structured environment.

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Our staff will plan for and engage students in physical activities that safely promote the development of fine and gross motor skills, teach rules and sportsmanship, focus on team work, and provide opportunity for friendly competition.    Our unique approach to games keeps downtime to a minimum and keeps the children engaged, focused, and active.   Unless weather conditions prevent outdoor play, most days, children will have access to the school playground for a period of time.

HKEC has a variety of board games, Legos, and crafting supplies for students to enjoy.  Children are welcome to bring special games they enjoy to play with friends

While we will take multiple factors into account when developing cohorts; safety is paramount.  Our program will be generally cohort the children by grade/school as we have found that the physical and intellectual differences between HTS and PVS students can create situations that are counter-productive.

Two-way communication is critical in supporting your children.   We will freely communicate if we see issues with behavior, homework, social interactions, etc.    Our policy is to communicate any injury requiring even minor first aid to the parent.   We are required by License Code to notify you as soon as possible of any injury “above the shoulders”, even a seemingly minor one.

You may request to speak to the Director at any time and the phone number will be communicated to all families.   If you have questions or concerns about the program, we strongly encourage you to share those with us and help us reach a beneficial solution.

Personal Electronic Devices:  Harrison Kids Extended Care’s Electronic Device Policy prohibits the use of personal electronics during program hours.   Any personal device must be stowed in the student’s backpack.   Exceptions are made only for Academic Support needs with written permission from the parent/guardian.   Any child needing to contact their parent, must request to do so.  Please review our Policy on Student’s Own Devices for a full description.

Our Homework support approach provides children the opportunity to complete their homework (depending on pickup time), prior to leaving the program for the day.   Our approach includes having a working environment conducive to focusing and staff to ensure your child is completing their work.   If we determine a child is struggling with a particular topic, our policy is to communicate with the parents about the issue.   Our staff will NOT provide answers to or complete homework for students.

Our support staff will have access to on-line resources to assist with research and homework completion.

We will work with each family to understand the parental expectation of homework completion, requirements for Silent Sustained Reading, and other aspects of importance to the parents

Our approach to snacks is to provide snacks in appropriate quantities and of a nutritious nature.   Water is the beverage of choice, and highly processed foods will be avoided, with special exceptions from time to time.

Safety, Structure, and Discipline: As stated in our program mission, a corner stone of our program is safety.    A component of building a safe and respectful environment is providing structure, behavioral expectations (rules), and accountability for both staff and students.    Safety starts with staff who are qualified, well trained, and who have a desire to work with children.  The staff are supported by polices that provide the framework and rules for their supervision and interactions with the children as well as for the interactions between children.   Children will be held accountable to program rules which will be continually communicated and reinforced.  Our simplest and most basic rule is “First time, Every time.”  This simply means that we expect the children to do as they are asked, when they are asked to do so.

Additionally, all staff are equipped with a walkie talkie.  This allows staff to communicate with each other to coordinate activities, transitions, and in the event of an emergency, coordinate any necessary response.