LBDC Report
submitted to LBDC: 9/5/2015
by: Adam Porth
This past week ended a very successful chess year for the children of the Blaine County School District, culminating in the annual Chess Rage Day camp. This report highlights the impact of the LBDC grant ($3000) for the BCSD Chess Club and demonstrates the importance of this after school program that spans all year (even in summer) and engages kids from pre-school to 12th grade and beyond.
LBDC Report
submitted to LBDC: 9/5/2015
by: Adam Porth
This past week ended a very successful chess year for the children of the Blaine County School District, culminating in the annual Chess Rage Day camp. This report highlights the impact of the LBDC grant ($3000) for the BCSD Chess Club and demonstrates the importance of this after school program that spans all year (even in summer) and engages kids from pre-school to 12th grade and beyond.
The Chess Club meets every Thursday, 3:30 - 5:30 pm in the Community Campus during the school year. Attendance at chess club is sporadic and varies from week to week, however the average in attendance across the year was 8.3 kids (not including adult attendance). The range is broad, 3 - 38 students. There were 597.6 contact hours with kids during chess club (not including tournaments) over the course of the year because of your support - without any cost to the children. There were an additional 14,000 contact hours with kids at tournaments with BCSD students! There were 58 different students that participated in various chess activities, conservatively. I am not compensated in any way for those hours.
Tournaments demonstrated the importance of competitive play for individuals wishing to enhance their chess skills. We provided 14 local tournaments and attended 9 tournaments elsewhere. Local tournament costs varied but were lower than previous years moving from $10-15 to $5 and average attendance was 13.2 students. The cost of running a tournament is typically $150 and income is far from it. Running tournaments has always had a deficit with costs always exceeding income and any deficit made up by me personally. Organizers of the BCSD Chess Rage ensures that every student that wants to play chess competitively may do so without financial hindrances. Five at risk high school students in particular would not have played in tournaments in Driggs, Salt Lake City, Boise, Twin Falls, and Columbus Ohio were it not that lodging, food, and tournament fees were supplemented with grant money. Overall, costs for the National High School Chess Championship were nearly a quarter less than previously and BCSD had 5 students participate.
These numbers do not reflect adequately the activity of our chess program as many more students benefited from the various side programs. Five tournament boards were provided to Alturas Elementary School to help their chess program and touched kids unable to attend chess club or tournaments. We also produced an Idaho Education Network Chess Class for high school students. This allowed students from Weiser High School to virtually interact with Silver Creek High School and Wood River High School students in chess matches and instruction. There were 24 students involved in that class. Outside help and tutoring from "old guys" from the Idaho Chess Association also enhance the program.
This past week featured 7 high school student counselors mentoring elementary school students in a summer chess camp. Our program emphasizes the importance of age-integration as it does not matter what age you are, but rather your experience and skills. We had 18 students participate in this program and 5 were completely scholar-shipped in with no fees charged the students. One child asked his mom, "Why can't we have camp all summer or instead of school?"
These successes are beyond the “trophies,” but we did a great job earning those as well and for students that are not engaged in other extra-curricular activities, these awards are precious to them. Only a small fraction (maybe 20%?) of our membership participates in other organized activities. We were 21st high school team nationally at the U1200 level but 1st place in West Jordan and Drigg’s. We earned 1st place in the State for the fifth time! And individually our students took home approximately 47 awards/trophies from tournaments.
Our enthusiasm as a club has attracted a few national donors that provided digital chess clocks and chess boards to the chess club. We are now an affiliate of the United States Chess Federation and can run rated tournaments. We were provided 50 free premium memberships for Chesskids.com for two months, as well. To continue that program however will cost us $250/year. We partnered with the Idaho Chess Association to bring the Girl’s State Championship to Hailey with over 20 girls participating. Because of this, Dylan Porth (SCHS), was selected as Idaho’s representative to the National Girl’s Invitational Championship held in Phoenix at the US Open this past month!
The chess program is a valuable extra-curricular program that touches numerous kids in ways that academic accountability drum-beaters are demanding of our educational system. Our chess club teaches the Idaho CORE curriculum. We do receive financial support from the school district and rely on the community to continue. Chess breeds independence and creativity, enhances reading and math scores and understanding, develops confidence and social skills, and many other benefits (contact me for the studies and research). I hope the LBDC chooses to support us again - I believe this was one of the best years ever.
submitted to LBDC: 9/5/2015
by: Adam Porth
This past week ended a very successful chess year for the children of the Blaine County School District, culminating in the annual Chess Rage Day camp. This report highlights the impact of the LBDC grant ($3000) for the BCSD Chess Club and demonstrates the importance of this after school program that spans all year (even in summer) and engages kids from pre-school to 12th grade and beyond.
The Chess Club meets every Thursday, 3:30 - 5:30 pm in the Community Campus during the school year. Attendance at chess club is sporadic and varies from week to week, however the average in attendance across the year was 8.3 kids (not including adult attendance). The range is broad, 3 - 38 students. There were 597.6 contact hours with kids during chess club (not including tournaments) over the course of the year because of your support - without any cost to the children. There were an additional 14,000 contact hours with kids at tournaments with BCSD students! There were 58 different students that participated in various chess activities, conservatively. I am not compensated in any way for those hours.
Tournaments demonstrated the importance of competitive play for individuals wishing to enhance their chess skills. We provided 14 local tournaments and attended 9 tournaments elsewhere. Local tournament costs varied but were lower than previous years moving from $10-15 to $5 and average attendance was 13.2 students. The cost of running a tournament is typically $150 and income is far from it. Running tournaments has always had a deficit with costs always exceeding income and any deficit made up by me personally. Organizers of the BCSD Chess Rage ensures that every student that wants to play chess competitively may do so without financial hindrances. Five at risk high school students in particular would not have played in tournaments in Driggs, Salt Lake City, Boise, Twin Falls, and Columbus Ohio were it not that lodging, food, and tournament fees were supplemented with grant money. Overall, costs for the National High School Chess Championship were nearly a quarter less than previously and BCSD had 5 students participate.
These numbers do not reflect adequately the activity of our chess program as many more students benefited from the various side programs. Five tournament boards were provided to Alturas Elementary School to help their chess program and touched kids unable to attend chess club or tournaments. We also produced an Idaho Education Network Chess Class for high school students. This allowed students from Weiser High School to virtually interact with Silver Creek High School and Wood River High School students in chess matches and instruction. There were 24 students involved in that class. Outside help and tutoring from "old guys" from the Idaho Chess Association also enhance the program.
This past week featured 7 high school student counselors mentoring elementary school students in a summer chess camp. Our program emphasizes the importance of age-integration as it does not matter what age you are, but rather your experience and skills. We had 18 students participate in this program and 5 were completely scholar-shipped in with no fees charged the students. One child asked his mom, "Why can't we have camp all summer or instead of school?"
These successes are beyond the “trophies,” but we did a great job earning those as well and for students that are not engaged in other extra-curricular activities, these awards are precious to them. Only a small fraction (maybe 20%?) of our membership participates in other organized activities. We were 21st high school team nationally at the U1200 level but 1st place in West Jordan and Drigg’s. We earned 1st place in the State for the fifth time! And individually our students took home approximately 47 awards/trophies from tournaments.
Our enthusiasm as a club has attracted a few national donors that provided digital chess clocks and chess boards to the chess club. We are now an affiliate of the United States Chess Federation and can run rated tournaments. We were provided 50 free premium memberships for Chesskids.com for two months, as well. To continue that program however will cost us $250/year. We partnered with the Idaho Chess Association to bring the Girl’s State Championship to Hailey with over 20 girls participating. Because of this, Dylan Porth (SCHS), was selected as Idaho’s representative to the National Girl’s Invitational Championship held in Phoenix at the US Open this past month!
The chess program is a valuable extra-curricular program that touches numerous kids in ways that academic accountability drum-beaters are demanding of our educational system. Our chess club teaches the Idaho CORE curriculum. We do receive financial support from the school district and rely on the community to continue. Chess breeds independence and creativity, enhances reading and math scores and understanding, develops confidence and social skills, and many other benefits (contact me for the studies and research). I hope the LBDC chooses to support us again - I believe this was one of the best years ever.
