Ulysses Recreation Dept. offers new learning environment

The Town of Ulysses Recreation Department is offering a winter school-day program for kids in seventh or eighth grade in the Trumansburg Central School District. The program was created in response to COVID-19 and is an alternative to doing virtual learning at home.

The program runs five days a week from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the American Legion and serves working parents who don’t feel comfortable leaving their kids home alone during Zoom days. Currently, seventh- and eighth-graders are scheduled to attend in-person school two days a week and participate in virtual learning two days a week, with one asynchronous day.

Recreation Director Will Glennon said that the town, village, school and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County worked together to create and implement the first session of the program at the end of summer 2020. It was well-received by the community and usually had about 13 kids per day.

“A few of the parents work in the school system,” Glennon said. “They want to have someone there to keep their kid on schedule. There’s one student that was falling behind, so the parent felt like if there’s somebody else there, they’re going to keep her on task. You can’t just get up and make yourself a sandwich and sit in front of the TV. But when they have breaks, we have a number of activities they can do.”

The first session ran for five weeks at the Trumansburg Fair Grounds with desks donated by the school, wireless internet donated by Ontario and Trumansburg Telephone Companies and a grant from the United Way of Tompkins County.

Glennon said they are down to about five kids per day now. He explained that they had a difficult time finding another location once the weather got a bit colder, which caused a gap in the program from October to January. In the meantime, families that were taking part had to come up with alternative solutions.

“We’re providing support for families and the kids have been having fun,” Glennon said. “The challenging part is trying to keep the program viable for those that need it. It’s been pretty beneficial for the students to be around other people.”

Staff member Ian Rugless said that during the first session, he went on a lot of nature walks with the kids and they played badminton and corn hole. The kids have less free time during the day now due to a scheduling change at the middle school, so Rugless said he mostly helps them with homework and organizes indoor games during their breaks.

“I think it helps to establish a sense of normalcy for them,” Rugless said of the program. “We have an ‘airing of grievances’ session with them once a week where they can talk about things that are stressing them out, and it seems to be mainly the uncertainty of it all. Then, at the end, we leave on a positive note where they say things they’re feeling happy about.”

Rugless described the COVID-19 cleaning and sanitizing process staff takes. Staff members wipe down surfaces when the group moves from room to room, and recreation equipment is cleaned after play. Kids have to fill out a daily online screening form before arrival and have their temperatures checked upon arrival. Rugless said they also do a deep clean every day after the kids leave.

The COVID-19 cleaning procedures are new for the recreation department, but so is most everything else. This is the first year that the town of Ulysses is in charge of the recreation department instead of the village of Trumansburg.

Ulysses Town Supervisor Nancy Zahler explained that the community has worked together for many years to run recreation programs through the Trumansburg/Ulysses Youth Commission. It is a volunteer steering group made up of residents from the village, town and school that makes youth development funding recommendations.

The town and village each allocate money to the recreation department, and then the village used to oversee the programs.

At the end of 2019, after listening to feedback from the community, the Commission recommended that oversight of recreation programs be transferred to the town, starting in January 2020.

Both municipalities, as well as Tompkins County and United Way of Tompkins County, still put money into a shared pot, but the money now runs through the town’s budget. In February 2020, longtime Director Tom Major was replaced by Glennon.

Zahler said that though Glennon hasn’t been able to conduct many of the normal activities like running sports programs, he has been innovative in creating opportunities for kids to have fun.

“Last year, when we couldn’t do recreation in the traditional sense, Will partnered with the Trumansburg Conservatory of Fine Arts and ran an outdoor, three-movie series at the farmers market,” Zahler said. “TCFA purchased a portable movie screen, and people signed up online. They spray-painted circles on the grass for families to watch the movie safely.”

Zahler said that the community had been asking for the ability to get information and sign up for programs online for a while. She said she has high hopes for what Glennon will accomplish when things can open up a bit more.

“We want to broaden the definition of recreation, create more opportunities for community members to participate,” Zahler said. “Will is interested in getting access to the school for things like pickleball, which appeals to kids and adults. We want to make programs that run year-round and improve information access and registration.”

The cost of the school-day program is $35 per week, and there is financial assistance for those in need. Kids can sign up online at any time, up to the day of. Learn more and register here: https://ulysses.recdesk.com/Community/Home.