22nd Annual MSCR Awards Celebration
Collaboration for the sake of the children

By Jonathan Gramling

       For the past 82 years, the Madison School Community Recreation (MSCR) program has provided athletic and other activities for the citizens of the
Madison Metropolitan School District at both the schools and parks across the Madison area. And while for most of its history, its mission was to provide after
school and summer activities, during the “modern” part of its history, it has honed its mission to work with others in the social and educational development of
the children under its charge.
       Since its 60th anniversary, MSCR has held an annual awards ceremony to recognize the contributions of its seasonal staff. It also recognizes the
contributions of some of its partners with whom it works collaboratively to implement meaningful after school activities. On September 24 at Olbrich Botanical
Gardens, MSCR gave its Community Support Award to Judith Rosario, who through a joint appointment by the Urban League of Greater Madison and Centro
Hispano, coordinates the Schools of Hope middle school initiative.
       “We’ve been working with both agencies since 1998,” said Lucy Chaffin, MSCR’s executive director. “I think her position has brought the partnership to a
higher level. Here are the things that have improved: better coordinated after school teams at six middle schools. Each team has an employee from Centro
Hispano, the Urban League and MSCR. Her position helps do that. The coordination has been tighter and there has been increased accountability for student
behavior during after school because all of the agencies are now consistently following the same behavior expectations. Also joint training opportunities are
taking place between the agencies. The result of all of that is there is a better connection between school and after school for kids. Everyone is on the same
page. Judith sure helped that come into being.”
       “There is a funny story about Judith,” Chaffin continued. “She works a lot with my staff. We had a week when we took over 60 kids to Camp McKenzie this
summer. She is a cook. So she spent four days there as a part of her job and she was the cook for all of them. It was great fun for her. But I don’t know if I would
want to do that for four days and give up my nights. But she is pretty dedicated to do that kind of thing. There were 60 some middle school kids and she cooked
breakfast, lunch and dinner. We thought she was a saint.”
       Also honored was Joe Gothard. When he was a MMSD student, Gothard participated in MSCR programs. Now Gothard is the one providing services as the
principal at La Follette High School. As the principal, Gothard led the effort to establish a community learning center at La Follette in collaboration with
MSCR, the first at a Madison high school. For his efforts, Gothard received the MMSD Taff Recognition Award.
       “He has brought the community learning center concept to a higher level in his school by making sure his staff knows,” Chaffin said. “So he developed and
presented a power point to present to his school staff so they could understand where this grant was going to go and what we were going to do. He spent many
hours at community meetings to plan it. He’s already found a physical location within La Follette to have an after school community learning center. So kids
have an actual space they can call this learning center. And he has done community meetings with businesses to get them involved. He is more hands-on and
really wants the after school part to be a part of the whole school picture. He’s been in a middle school where we have had a pretty big program that we just
talked about. He was really excited about having that same thing happen at his high school.”
       “Joe really gets it and gets his staff on board so that we feel the MSCR staff is not seen as outsiders,” Chaffin continued. “They are seen as a part of the
schools and that we are there to serve the kids. He tries to make the turf issues go away.”
       And with this high level of collaboration between internal and external partners, not only are scarce public funds used more efficiently, but the students
are also the winner because they can access a seamless array of educational opportunities. Everyone comes out on top.