By Joni Simon
Contributing Writer

LEON SPRINGS – Every Saturday morning, a Northside bus makes its rounds through every neighborhood in the Leon Springs Elementary attendance area. Although the bus run is new to the Weekend Wisdom Club, the program itself was founded last year by Principal Kathy Dodge-Clay. She says the children, who attend, are actually excited about going to school on Saturday morning.

“One little girl told me she’d rather be here than at home,” Dodge-Clay said. “The kids are so excited, I have to stand at the front door and remind them to walk down the hall to the gym. Otherwise, it’s a stampede.”

The purpose of the club is to hone skills needed for success with the TAKS test in May. Rated exemplary, the school met that goal last year under what Dodge-Clay calls challenging circumstances.

“This program really helped when we were so overcrowded,” she said. “Last year, we had 850 students. We had a temporary waiver from the state, so that we had 24 students in a classroom. You might not think it makes all that much difference to have two more students in a classroom, but it does.”

The principal says she and her teachers continue the Weekend Wisdom Club with the current census of around 540 students simply because it works. Dodge-Clay attributes much of the program’s success to the fact that the students enjoy what they’re doing and don’t think of it so much as preparing for the TAKS test.

“They don’t even know,” Dodge-Clay says. “They think they’re coming to Dr. Dodge-Clay’s birthday party.”

The secret to a successful attendance rate, which averages 25 to 30 students every Saturday, is organizing the morning so it doesn’t seem like, well, school.

“I knew that some other school districts did Saturday school. I thought we might want to consider doing it here, but we didn’t want it to be school. We wanted it to be fun,” Dodge-Clay said. “When I took it to my fifth grade team, I thought it wasn’t going to fly, but it was unanimous. The teachers were so receptive to it. They told me they’d much rather be at the school working with kids on a Saturday than have their students pulled from the classroom during the day.”

On Weekend Wisdom Saturdays, students first head for the gym, where they can work off some of their boundless energy. From there, they march up the steps to the library where Frank Salinas, a master chess player, teaches them the game. After that, they break up into small groups for tutoring. The students are then treated to pizza, courtesy of Dominos Pizza manager Robert Elizondo. The morning is topped off with PTA-sponsored door prizes that recognize the students for specific academic behaviors.

Dodge-Clay says the Weekend Wisdom Club cross-represents the Leon Springs Elementary attendance area.

“Some of the students live in the Mobile City neighborhood and some in the Dominion, and you would be hard-pressed to figure out who is who,” she said. “One thing that is amazing about our school is that you can walk in any given classroom and you would never be able to tell who comes from what neighborhood. That is the beauty of public education.”

Dodge-Clay is among area educators teaming with the education department at Trinity University on a publication targeted to the Alamo City. The principal says she hopes to publish an action research study on the Weekend Wisdom program in this publication that is so much in its preliminary stages it hasn’t been named yet.

“What they’re trying to do is start a San Antonio based journal and it’s going to be action research where we’re actually doing research on programs and their practice,” Dodge-Clay said. “And so one of the things that I’m curious about is really looking at some data to substantiate this program.”