DIS After School

Mariners Soar

and the sky’s the limit!

Welcome to the 2021-2022

After School Program!

We are offering lots of fun and educational activities

Monday-Thursday from 2:30-4:45

for students in Grades 2-7

(except holidays and vacations!)

After school snack, beverage, and transportation included!

We work with your student’s teachers to make sure the programs we offer support classroom learning, while giving the kids new ways to understand and engage the subject matter. Our program is staffed by educational professionals who are dedicated to sharing the joy of learning with students.

We provide individual or small group tutoring on an as needed basis. Once your student has finished their 15-20 minute tutoring session, they can join in their activity. The activities we offer are project based and are designed to engage students’ curiosity and interests while providing them with plenty of guidance and support while they spread their wings.

Please download the required registration form here and turn it into the office. If a paper form is easier for you, call us at 348-6301 ext 303 or email our site coordinator Ester Adams, at eadams@dises.org, and we’ll send a form home with your student.

Student Voice and Choice

We feel it is super important to offer students a voice and choice in the programming we offer. In addition to checking in with the kids here at school and providing a suggestion box, we will ask students to fill out surveys twice a year as part of our self assessment. Please help your student contact us if they have any questions. We are here for them!

Community Collaboration

We are looking forward to collaborating with our community. What does collaboration look like? Maybe it is a contractor providing scrap lumber for the kids to use in our maker’s space. Maybe it is a local boat captain or pilot teaching our students the art of navigation. Maybe it is someone letting us know about some community service our students can be involved in. If you have an idea or would like to be involved please contact our director, Marti Brill, at mbrill@dises.org. We are always looking for more ideas to stimulate the little gray cells of our students!

Our Core Team

Marti Brill has been involved in Peninsula schools for the last 20 years and finally decided to shift her career to education. She is thrilled to help your students explore their potential using collaborative project-based learning, along with a sense of fun and adventure! She lives on a small homestead in Sedgwick with her son, two cats, two dogs, four goats, six geese, and six chickens. Her homestead is all about providing food and habitat for the native bees and other pollinators she is so passionate about. She dreams of having a couple of donkeys in the not too distant future.

Esther Adams grew up here on the Island and is a graduate of Deer Isle-Stonington High School. She believes that our schools

are the center of this community, and that the abundant resources of this island community--from Haystack to MCCF to IHT to the myriad individuals with skills and knowledge to share--can serve our students. The after school program can take into account the needs and interests of each individual student. As Site-Coordinator, I am excited to help support students in creating their own well-rounded, collaborative, project-based learning experience that will serve them in whatever paths they choose in the future.

Program Goals and Funding

The after school program at DISES is funded, in part, through a five year 21st Century Community Learning Center grant awarded in 2018. The remainder of our funding comes from community partners and cost sharing with the CSD. The goals for the program, as stated in the grant, are academic improvement, educational enrichment, health & wellness, parent education & engagement, and sustainability & collaboration with community partners. Our dream is to make our program financially self-sustaining in the next two years so that once the grant is over, we can put all our energy and effort into developing great programs for your students instead of spending a fair amount of time filling out government reports. We look forward to working with you to make this dream a reality!