Some Safekey programs in the Las Vegas Valley are seeing increased enrollment after the Clark County School District’s new bell schedule left parents with rigid work schedules searching for childcare options.
Safekey is a before- and after-school youth enrichment and childcare program at CCSD schools. Elementary campuses, where most Safekey programs operate, moved their start times this year generally to 9:15 a.m. from 9 a.m.
The 15-minute change was made with programs like Safekey in mind, Jesse Welsh, district deputy superintendent of teaching and learning, said when the bell schedule was announced in January. He added that a bigger shift was “potentially problematic” to municipalities who gave the district feedback on the idea.
Managers of Safekey programs in the valley said their greatest enrollment growth has generally occurred at schools with unusual start times that saw dramatic bell schedule changes.
“We thought maybe we would be negatively impacted when CCSD was saying that their (enrollment) numbers had gone down, but we have not experienced that,” said Lori Lopez, manager for Las Vegas’ Department of Youth Development and Social Initiatives. “Parents definitely have a need and are still utilizing the before- and after-school program for those students that are going to school.”
Las Vegas, Clark County
see some growth
The city of Las Vegas’ 71 Safekey programs have generally seen growth at schools that moved to a 9:15 a.m. start, but declines at schools that shifted to earlier start times, according to Lori Lopez, manager for Las Vegas’ Department of Youth Development and Social Initiatives.
Lopez said she expects Las Vegas Safekey enrollment to grow to more than 8,000 students by the end of this school year, rivaling the 2024-25 school year count of 8,016 that marked a post-pandemic high for the city. Safekey in Las Vegas had just 7,441 students enrolled last school year, Lopez said.
This expected program enrollment bump led Las Vegas to beef up its Safekey staff to 300 employees from the roughly 250 to 275 it had last school year, Lopez said. Clark County did the same, its recreation supervisor, Nathaniel Jaramillo, said.
Lopez said a survey found that 99 percent of Las Vegas Safekey parents use the service to either accommodate their work schedule or attend school so they can get a job.
“It’s definitely a service that is absolutely needed based on parents’ usage,” she said. “Especially knowing that it’s imperative to them working.”
Jaramillo said his programs have seen nearly 300 more families enroll their kids this year than last year, bringing total enrollment to over 5,000 families. Clark County has Safekey programs at 86 schools.
“For the most part, what we’ve heard is it’s being attributed to the change in times with a little later elementary school time,” Jaramillo said. “Parents got to get to work at a specific time.”
Jaramillo added that demand for after-school Safekey programs at middle schools grew this year, causing Clark County to add two more programs in response. “It’s rare that we onboard middle schools for a Safekey program,” he said.
With few exceptions, middle schools now begin at 7:30 a.m., half an hour earlier than last year. The earlier start time means middle schoolers are released from class sooner, a change that Jaramillo said has boosted Safekey enrollment at Clark County middle schools.
“It’s just a safe and fun environment that the kids can actually be overseen,” Jaramillo said. “It allows these kids to not be at home by themselves and allows parents to feel a little bit better knowing that they’re being supervised.”
Henderson, NLV report minimal changes
In Henderson and North Las Vegas, Safekey administrators said their total program enrollment has not changed much. Certain schools with larger start time changes, however, did see some Safekey attendance growth.
Twitchell Elementary School, for instance, has seen Safekey enrollment double and has served up to 80 kids each morning in the first three weeks of school, according to Alexandrea Crocker, recreation services supervisor for Henderson. Twitchell starts at 8:30 a.m. this year, a half hour later than last year.
“I imagine most parents were able to drop their kids off by 8 a.m. last year to get to work, and this year they’re needing to utilize Safekey before school,” Crocker said.
After-school program attendance in Henderson’s programs was down almost 1,000 participants in the school year’s first three weeks, Crocker said, and morning attendance has seen a slight downtick as well. She expects end-of-year attendance to be comparable to years past.
“It’s really hard to tell, with the overall (attendance) being down, that it’s a direct reflection of the school time, or is it just families changing how they’re doing things,” Crocker said.
Crystal Jackson, recreation supervisor for North Las Vegas, said she has seen modest attendance gains in about seven of the 21 schools that the city’s Safekey program operates in.
She added: “The numbers are steady for us across the board.”
Parents: Safekey needed
for work schedules
Morning Safekey has been busier this year at Fong Elementary, where a drastic start time change to 9:15 a.m. from 8 a.m. has forced families to adapt.
Enrollment in the mornings has sometimes tripled to average between 16 and 20 students this year, up from the six to eight students typical to last year, according to Israel Alvarez, senior youth development specialist with the city of Las Vegas.
Inversely, Alvarez said, Fong Elementary’s afternoon Safekey program now averages 11 to 15 students, down from the 30 to 32 kids that came last year. He said later release times have enabled more parents at Fong to pick up their kids right when the school day ends.
“We’ve seen that increase and decrease at almost every single one of those locations that we have,” Alvarez said.
The 10 kids who participated in Fong’s Safekey program one afternoon earlier this month entered the lunchroom when class dismissed at 3:45 p.m. and could stay as late as 6 p.m.
After settling down with 15 minutes of reading and a snack of pizza, salad, grapes and chocolate milk, the kids spent their excess energy playing games as a group. One boy wailed “no!” when he was told in the middle of a game that his parent had come to pick him up.
Parents of Safekey kids at Fong Elementary told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the program offered an essential and affordable childcare option that aligned with their work schedules.
“I’m not able to pick (my daughter) up right on time because I have work, so this helps me out a lot to help keep my daughter safe while I’m at work,” said Akeem Williams, who enrolled his fourth-grade child in Fong’s Safekey program. Williams, who works for an electrical company, said he would likely miss work hours and be fired if Safekey did not exist.
Chalet Evans, a medical assistant with a first grader at Fong named Iyla, said she enrolled her daughter in Safekey because the new bell schedule conflicted with her work schedule.
“I wouldn’t be able to start any time after 9,” Evans said, “and with the 9:15 start, it’s harder.”
Contact Spencer Levering at slevering@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0253.
