Each elementary school has unique needs for arrival/dismissal and different
procedures for the safety and well-being of students, based upon their unique
campus design and percentage of walkers, car riders, and bus riders which
creates the need for specific begin/end times for before and after-school
enrichment activities.
General guidelines surrounding before and after-school enrichment use:
- Use is considered ‘General Public’ (see Priority VIII Use: High Volume herein this guidebook for more details). This ensures competitive opportunities for vendors to offer programs to MCPS students.
- Vendors may reserve classrooms as available online with the understanding that the room number may be changed at the discretion of the school for before and after-school enrichment activities.
- Vendors are assigned a room by the school, regardless of what the reservation shows.
- Likewise, if the school desires a slight start time adjustment, the group may stay for the same amount of time scheduled but starting at the time in which the school advised based upon their dismissal process.
- There is no need to notify CUPF of a time change for the before or after-school program. This allows schools and groups reasonable flexibility in order to promote successful before and after-school activities.
- Reservations may only begin on the hour and half-hour in the scheduling software; however, elementary schools have a variety of times they need before and after-school enrichment activities to begin and end. CUPF supports the necessity of schools having a great deal of flexibility in this regard as noted above.
- If a before or after-school program has reserved 3:30-4:30 (1 hour) but the school needs the group to be flexible in order to accommodate dismissal of students, groups and schools will need to work together on what exact time the group may enter the room. In the example above, if the school wants the group to begin at 3:45, then the program may run 3:45-4:45 since the group paid for an hour of use.
- For use of facilities such as Gymnasium, Media Center, All-Purpose Room, or Cafeteria, groups may only use the facility reserved and should not be placed in any other room(s) other than where they are scheduled; however, the beginning and end time guidelines above are applicable.
- If a school sees a before or after-school activity on the schedule that the school is simply not able to accommodate at all, the school will notify CUPF to cancel the permit. CUPF will advise the vendor and the vendor will notify the parents of students that the school is not able to accommodate the enrichment program.
- This flexibility in room assignment and begin/end times ONLY applies to space for before and after-school enrichment activities for students at their home school during the first 60-90 minutes before or after the official school day for students.