Photos by EMILY SCHWARZE/Adelante Volunteer tutors work with children in Centro Latino's new space during the after-school program. The new space provides much-needed room for Centro Latino's after-school program and teen tutoring program. Monday through Thursday, children who participate in the program are tutored individually.

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Students in Centro Latino’s Escuela Latina have more space to learn and play

By Diego Sorbara
Adelante staff writer

Kelcey Evans and Jessenia Pedroza sit together at a spacious table, holding a conversation without having to shout over the other competing voices.
Together, the two take out a pack of multiplication flashcards and Evans times how fast Jessina can complete the deck.
“The highest I can do is 12 times 12, which is 144,” the fifth-grader informed her tutor.
It’s the new Escuela Latina (Latino School), and it’s a much different scene than the Centro Latino’s former after-school program. The old room in Centro Latino, no wider than a hallway, is now empty at 4 p.m. The van with the children in the after-school program has already arrived, but the children have not piled into the almost claustrophobic room. A few doors down, in the underbelly of Parkade Plaza, the after-school program has a new home.
Thanks in part to a $10,000 grant from the Rolla-based Tom Sager Foundation, the after-school program now has newer, more ample space for the children to learn and play.
“There’s so much more space,” Evans said. “The kids have space to run around and breathe.”

Mary Knauer, education coordinator at Centro Latino, helps a young student make an alphabet book inside the center’s new space.

The new classroom is about 2-1/2 times larger than the slim corridor in Centro Latino’s main office. One side is lined with a row of six computers and a bookshelf bursting with Goosebumps novels and picture books. In the front of the room is a dry-erase board and a few school desks. In the middle sit two large, circular tables with more than enough room for all the students. Before, the children were crowded together at several long tables with barely enough elbowroom.
Now, there’s even a “wall of fame” at the back, where A+ papers are hanging.
“It’s a lot easier for the kids and volunteers to concentrate,” said Mary Knauer, education coordinator at Centro Latino.
At first, they started holding the after-school program in the new room without any furniture. However, the mother of one of the volunteers, a teacher in Kansas City, donated some tables and desks. Columbia/Boone County Community Partnership also donated chairs and six computers. Now they are trying to raise money for a phone line so they can connect to the Internet.
Despite the work that still needs to be done, the children like the new room. Jessenia likes that they can now play more games.
“We have more space and we get to play Duck, Duck, Goose,” Jessenia said.
Now with more room, it’s easy for Jessenia and her tutor to sit together and read a few pages from a book. While others are playing Go Fish and drawing on the dry-erase board, Jessenia reads quietly from “The Ghosts of Mercy Manor.”
All over the room, the children are having fun, each with a space to stretch out and work.
“This allows for more creativity,” Knauer said. “It’s just better for everyone.”