By Annie Davis of UNLV
Janet Martinez leads a busy life. She’s a wife, mother, teacher’s assistant and a student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. On a dark December afternoon, she makes her way through a playground and past a baseball field to the back door of Bracken Elementary School. She rings a doorbell and a Safekey teacher opens the door to a well-lit gymnasium.
Safekey is a before and after school program operated by the city of Las Vegas. Every day during the school year, Safekey serves 6,500 children ages 5 to 11 in 62 schools spread across the city, including Martinez’s 8-year-old daughter, Leah.
“I know she’s somewhere safe,” Martinez said, “and I’m able to accomplish my personal goals in going to school.”
Martinez is studying to be an elementary school teacher. With her husband on call installing and servicing air condition units, Martinez drops Leah off at Safekey in the morning and on this day, picked her up a little after 4 p.m. At Safekey, Leah gets “a whole meal” and extra help with her homework. She also makes crafts, participates in group activities, and most important to Martinez, makes friends.
“Leah’s really shy, and we’ve been working on communication skills at home,” Martinez said. “I like it that the kids are getting this kind of social time and just learning how to talk to each other. She’s often not ready to go home when I come to pick her up.”
Martinez credits the teachers for making Safekey a home away from home.
“They always welcome us with a smile in the morning,” Martinez said. “Leah loves them and has fun here. She has never complained about going to Safekey.”
The social enrichment activities at Bracken and the other City schools help to make Safekey more than just a babysitting service. Some parents bring their kids to the program even if they don’t really need the after-school supervision part of it, said Gabriela Cervantes, the 24-year-old site lead for Bracken Elementary. “Miss Gaby” as her students affectionately call her, lives near the school and works the morning shift from 6:45 to 9 a.m. and evenings from 3 to 6 p.m.
“We have kids who come in who don’t have to,” Cervantes said. “Sometimes these kids don’t have siblings, but still want to have fun and socialize.”
Like Martinez, many of the children’s parents and guardians value Safekey’s focus on facilitating social interaction in a safe and educational environment. The crafts and activities are just another bonus.
“It’s allowed me to bond with parents and students through the crafts we do,” she said. “The kids get so excited, too, because they made something they can take home. When their parents get here, some of them go running up to them to show what they made.”
On this December day, the creative project that Cervantes and her colleague, Alizeaha Gonzales, taught the kids was making candy canes, which each student customized themselves. Gonzales said that seeing the kids come together and work with one another, like they do during craft time, is one of her favorite parts of the job.
“I feel like my own inner child come out,” she said. “It’s really a good opportunity for people who want to work with kids.”
Gonzales has worked at Safekey for four weeks, having applied with the City for the job. She plans to work at Safekey while pursuing a degree at the College of Southern Nevada. Her long-term goal is to become an art teacher.
“I really love kids and feel I’m patient enough with them,” she said.
Recruiting teachers is one of the program’s biggest challenges. The City recently increased the hourly pay rate for the program, hoping to attract more applicants and retain talented young teachers such as Cervantes, who has been with the program since 2021. She started as “floater” working at various schools before choosing to stay at Bracken. She took over as site leader in fall 2022.
Cervantes greets parents as the start coming for their children as early as 4 p.m. It’s an opportunity for “Miss Gabi” to get to know the parents and make sure that the children remember their crafts.
“You may not be having a good day, but you have to set that aside because the kids expect you to come with a good attitude and have fun,” she said. “The kids may come in feeling down too, so you have to be positive for them and be there for them.”
Erica Stewart, a Safekey regional manager over 11 schools, said that for many of the parents, the program helps take away the social stigma they might feel about not being able to pick their kids up immediately after regular school classes end.
“Some of these parents work eight to 12-hour days,” Stewart said. “Safekey takes away that guilt parents might feel because they know their kids are participating in social, academic, and physical activities while they’re here.”
By 5:30 p.m., only a handful of children remain. They are still laughing and talking to one another after a group activity in the middle of the gymnasium. Cervantes said she stays until the last child is picked up, even if it’s after the program ends at 6 p.m.
“The parents will say, ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,’” Cervantes said. “I tell them that there’s no rush, it’s okay. We don’t mind being here.”