Boys & Girls Club working to complement Havre school plans

The Havre School Board of Trustees voted Tuesday for a blended approach of having half of the students one day and the other half the next and the director of Boys & Girls Club of the Hi-Line said the club will be working to accommodate members when the students will not be in school.

"We have been talking with the school since before their meeting in July trying to coordinate with them, because we want to make sure that we're taking care of kids and their families when they are not in school," Director Tim Brurud said. "We are not just an after-school program, we're an out-of-school time program."

He said the club is going to complement what the school district does.

Since the district decided to go with half of the students attending classes in the schools one day and half the other, he said, the club will take Monday and Wednesday the students who are in school Tuesday and Thursday, and on Tuesday and Thursday will take the students who are in school Monday and Wednesday. The club will be closed Fridays.

In the school re-opening plan, Group A will meet Mondays and Wednesdays and Group B will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays. 

In the event school is not in session on Monday, Tuesday will serve as the "A" day, moving the days back with school in session on Friday.

The club will offer programming starting at 8 a.m. and the end time is pending, he said.

"We have had the club running all summer, and we're going to keep doing things the same way we did during the summer," Brurud said, "which is smaller sizes, so we take half of the capacity that we normally take - we take seven different groups because we have seven rooms that we have available to us."

He said each group stays within that group and the club has staff members who are assigned just to that group.

Since the mask order has been in effect, he said, they have required the children to wear masks.

"That's been great, that's the wonderful thing about kids," he said. "That first day they asked, 'Why do we have to wear a mask?' and we just explain to them it is to help keep everyone safe, and that was it. We haven't had one word of problem on masks since then."

He said when children are socially distanced they don't have to wear a mask, but when they are not they have to wear one as well as when in transitions to do things and other activities.

The club will continue to mirror what the school does, he added.

"If they go into Phase 3 or Phase 4 we'll follow along and provide an after-school program for all the kids that are signed up," Brurud said.

He said the club's school program will start Monday, Aug. 31.

Registration will be available Wednesday, Aug. 19, on the club's website at http://www.bgchi-line.net .

Space will be limited, he said, it will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.

He said the groups will have no more than 15 children and will be divided up by school.

"We'll take as many kids as we can, the max we can do is 105 per day, so 210 different kids total. That's when we talked to the health department about what the safe numbers were, that's where we are at," Brurud said.

"We're going to complement what the school does, so that parents will have an option - if kids are not in school they'll have an out-of-school option from us for as many as we can take, which unfortunately is limited," he added.