The Chenery Extended Program (CHENEX) has offered a high quality youth program serving the Belmont community since 1997.

See the Handbook & Forms section for detailed information about the program’s administration, licensing, and procedures. The CHENEX People section introduces you to our staff members and our Board of Directors.

The CHENEX Board of Directors is a volunteer group of parents and community members who help define the policies of the program. Family participation is crucial to the health and success of the CHENEX Program. All parents/guardians are strongly encouraged to join the board. See CHENEX People and the Handbook for more information.

Letter from the Founder

While the Chenery Extended Program -- CHENEX -- officially began in 1997, the seeds of the program were sown in 1994. Directors from three of the elementary schools, Pam Curtis (Butler), Lucia Gates (Wellington) and I, Nina Vansuch (Burbank) began tossing around the idea of an after middle school program. We surveyed the community and received 140 responses that conveyed interest in a program at the Chenery Middle School. We approached school officials and were given the go-ahead. They also advised us that we would not be given any dedicated space and we’d be lucky if we had 25 enrollees.

The plans for the program were stalled when the Chenery Middle School was rebuilt following a fire. In September 1996, I revisited the plans with the new Chenery Headmaster, Debbie Alexander, with the hope of starting the program the following year.

In 1997, CHENEX started up in the Chenery cafeteria with a total enrollment of 50 students, averaging 40 students per day. With the support of Board members from all four elementary schools, we created a program that would not feel like childcare or babysitting to our adolescent community. A young staff was hired. We looked for people who understood this age group and who could develop a flexible structure that would offer a wide range of activities acknowledging and incorporating the growing independence of our constituency. We succeeded!

That first year’s line up included clay/ceramics, photography, writing, drawing/painting, chess and games tournaments, dance, aerobics, computer workshops, science/math challenges, and sports, sports, and more sports. We offered these activities in clusters of four-to-eight week blocks. We collaborated with the Kendall Center for the Arts and had artists visit the program for workshops. Students also visited the Kendall for photography dark room experience and to work on a potter’s wheel. Some of our students participated in private and group music lessons; they later played at the Kendall’s highly popular “Garage Band” nights. We established a relationship with BCTV8 to run video production classes (the first production featured CHENEXers in “The CHEN-X-Files”). Community service, required for 6th graders, became an activity for all grades levels. We worked with the Chenery guidance office to institute a tutoring program using high school students. And so on . . .

Dedicated space is the dream of every after school program. In 1998, Mrs. Alexander arranged for us to have a room of our own! We had couches; individual spaces for students to keep their CHENEX artwork, writing, photos, etc.; a stereo; room to keep ongoing projects . . . in other words, a dream come true. Unfortunately, we lost this space as the Chenery population grew and classroom space was at a premium.

Despite the limitations of space and outside financial support, the CHENEX staff persevered and flourished. Each year the staff has added to the established classes and has also developed activities that creatively use what space we have, including the greater Boston area: a museum club (off site visits to the MFA and ICA; instruction from ICA teen docents in becoming a volunteer at the museum, et al); field trips (love those early release days!); brain teaser/challenges, Red Cross baby-sitting courses . . . and so on. CHENEX thrives!

CHENEX is now one of the largest middle school programs in New England. Our talented staff, led for the past three years by Site Coordinator Kendra Blitz, keeps our current 140 enrollees happily engaged. As one student said to me recently, “CHENEX is cool. This ain’t your father’s after school program!” (No, I didn’t correct his grammar.)

CHENEX will always face the issues that all after school programs encounter: lack of dedicated space, funding, hiring/salary/benefit issues for the staff who work with our students at the toughest time of a student’s day; and most disheartening, diminished parent participation in their children’s’ activities. From my professional and personal experience, this is NOT the time to pull back! Your active participation on the CHENEX Board of Directors ensures that CHENEX will continue to offer this high quality program. I strongly urge you to sign on!

I am leaving the Boston area in July of 2004. Kendra Blitz was chosen as the new Director. I am confident that she and the highly capable staff will be successful in bringing CHENEX through its next phase. I am honored to have been a part of the development of CHENEX. I look forward to hearing the good reports.

30 June 2004

Nina Vansuch
CHENEX Founder
Director 1997-2004