Safety concerns of location leads to decrease in staffing

By Hayleigh Gowans

Staff Writer

Safety concerns at the Springfield Garden Apartments has led to a decrease in staffing for the education programs run by the DeWitt Recreation Department at the David Klim Learning Center, and this staffing decrease has caused the discontinuation of these programs for residents of the area.

Megan Ball, DeWitt recreation supervisor, said the department ran education programs at the Klim Center within the Springfield Garden Apartments on Caton Drive in DeWitt, offering a preschool program for about 15 students and after-school programming for about 50 elementary students in the Jamesville-DeWitt School District. The programs were offered at an affordable cost to DeWitt residents, and the programs included many students who resided in the Springfield Garden apartments.

In January 2017, Ball said the attempted shooting of an undercover county sheriff detective at the apartments was widely reported in the media, which caused the Le Moyne Education Department to not allow its students to participate in work study at the Klim Center due to growing safety concerns.

Ball said this caused a large decrease in staffing because many of the staff for these programs were part-time employees or work-study students. Students at Le Moyne were perfect candidates to work at the center because of their proximity to the building, their flexible hours as well as their need to gain work experience in education. The decrease in staffing led to the discontinuing of the after school program in the spring, and they will not be offering the preschool program for the 2017-18 school year, said Ball.

Ball said these programs were crucial for the students in the area, many of whom are from immigrant families or have lower incomes, in order to provide necessary care, resources  and technology to be successful in school.

“It’s been a long and frustrating process,” said Ball. “It is really hard to be having families call and us not being able to help them.”

This matter was discussed at the Sept. 6 meeting of the DeWitt Town Board, where Ball presented the problem and wanted to gain some feedback from the town board on possible solutions.

Staff turnover at the Klim Center is high, said Ball, because the budget will not allow for many full-time employees. Some solutions discussed by the board at the meeting included reaching out to retired teachers and see if they would be interested in part-time work, or to Syracuse University to see if a similar program for work study students could be created.

Ball said the Le Moyne College Education Department may look into reestablishing the work study program if safety measures are taken by Longley Jones, the owners of the Springfield Garden Apartments.

According to a statement from Le Moyne obtained by the Eagle Bulletin, “Due to ongoing concerns, Le Moyne College has made the decision to reassign our students from the Klim Center to other community partners. The college made its concerns known to the management firm that operates Springfield Gardens, and received assurances that a number of new measures would be put in place to enhance overall safety, but to date none of these steps have been taken by the company.”

Town Supervisor Ed Michalenko suggested the members of the recreation department work with the recreation committee to discuss further solutions.