In the fall of 2005, Grand County School District received a 21st Century Community Learning Center grant from the State Office of Education to fund a comprehensive after school and summer program. BEACON manages after school programs at Grand County Middle School and Helen M. Knight Intermediate School.

BEACON's mission is to empower students to discover their innate ability to succeed.

The BEACON After School Program has two goals:

• To provide a diverse range of academic tutoring and homework assistance outside of the school day in order to help students meet local and state academic standards.
• To provide healthy after school environments with art, recreational and life skills activities and clubs.

In the 2009/2010 school year, BEACON provided programming to over 600 students in grades K-8.

Recharge!

BEACON teachers headed over to St George on February third for the Recharge conference. This one day conference was geared towards motivating afterschool program teachers. Eleven tutors and activity leaders from HMK and the Middle School were able to attend. The conference was held at Dixie State College and covered a range of interesting and informative topics.

Some of the classes were based on technological advances and tools that are now readily available, yet often under used. Some of us now know how to Tweet, and use the internet to find limitless resources for planning activities and curriculum. The club leaders and tutors that attended Ozvaldo and Rigoberto Garcia’s class on Experiential Club ideas were blown away! These brothers run an amazingly successful afterschool program in the St George area and shared many of their exciting club ideas with attendees. These inspirational teachers rotate 200 students through 16 different clubs, reading intervention, and homework help four days a week.

Most of the attending BEACON staff members were able to attend due to scholarships distributed by the Department of Workforce Services. Those able to attend are extremely grateful, and look forward to using all that they have learned to further assist the students at HMK and the Middle School.

We got to try hands-on science activities, including Project Wet.

Tutors from BEACON After School are learning the latest technologies.