Running around the Goodrich Campus field, crafting, helping with homework or engaging in gossip with a seven-year-old are all part of an AK coordinator’s job description.
Adventure Kids, more commonly known as AK, is the after-school program for lower school students. Like most programs, it serves to bridge the time gap between the school day and when parents are available to pick up their children.
What is unique about the program is the connection formed between the upper and lower School, as many of the activity coordinators for the program are seniors.
Senior Tysen Hayes started working at AK at the beginning of the school year after being inspired by his friends.
To work at AK, “You need to be a fun easygoing person,” he said.
Most of his shifts, Hayes said, consist of playing with the kids or refereeing their games.
Being in high school, play is not a common routine and for the coordinators; certain skills are needed to be playful while also enforcing rules. In this, a certain balance between being fun and being assertive is required.
“I usually play some kind of game with the kids, like tag or basketball,” Hayes said.
Senior Max Cooper has this skill set from working in childcare positions in the past, but at AK he appreciates the diversity of personalities of the lower school students and all the conversations he has had working there.
“I played catch with a third grader for an hour and we talked about all her favorite stuff and it was really interesting,” he said.