How some kids in Elgin spending summer, thanks to police

"An idle brain is the devil's playground," says a song in that literary masterpiece "The Music Man." With that in mind, the Elgin Police Department is banding together with Elgin Township through the long, hot summer to fill the brains of older children with constructive activities ranging from basketball and cooking and board games to, well, spiders and snakes.

Called Kids United, the program meets this year at Larsen Middle School at 665 Dundee Ave. in Elgin. Students age 9 to 12 can attend from 4 to 9 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays. Teens age 13 to 17 can come from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And on Fridays everyone can go on field trips.

Participation is free but limited to residents of Elgin Township. It began in June and continues until classes resume next month.

Police Sgt. Jim Roscher, who oversees the project, said that in 2008, "We figured out that there were a lot of juvenile calls during these hours in the summer because kids had nothing to do. Kids United gives kids something constructive to do and a chance to connect with other kids. For parents, it provides a safe place to drop off their kids for awhile."

Paying for expenses with a $20,000-per-year grant from Elgin Township, the program began as open-gym nights at Garfield, Channing and Illinois Park elementary schools. Only 25 or so kids attended each night. But enrollment grew rapidly and so did the activities offered. Kids United moved to Abbott Middle School on Elgin's southwest side, where there was room for scores of kids and where a gym and playing fields could be found alongside a kitchen and a cafeteria.

Kids United moved to Larsen last year and this year because Abbott's building is undergoing summer remodeling.

The project is staffed by the police department's six school resource officers, who during the school year are assigned full-time to work with the students in each of Elgin's high schools and middle schools.

"The SROs really make an effort to get to know the kids and let them know what other programs are available," Roscher said.

"We want this to be a combination of education and fun and keeping them moving," said Officer Kathy Schreiner, who has been with Kids United from the beginning. "We added yoga this year. No video games."

"We don't ban cellphones," she said. "But if we see a kid sitting off by themselves, we try to get them involved in something."

On one recent night, about 60 kids were having fun in and just outside the Larsen gym. One group played basketball. At a table in the hall, kids were playing chess, Battleship and Sorry. Outside, others played kickball and drew designs in colored chalk on the playground pavement.

Javier Samaniego, 12, was learning chess from Officer Elias Acevedo, who in August will return to his duties as the resource officer at Ellis Middle School.

As Javier looked on, Acevedo told another chess student, "Remember not to rush. Every move your opponent makes may have changed your plan."

If he wasn't here, Javier said, "I'd probably just be hanging out somewhere with my older brother."

Acevedo said he is proud that Ellis went through all last school year without any student being arrested. He said cyberbullying is the biggest problem in middle schools. But if that is detected when it is still at the social media level, police, he said, families and school officials can keep it from progressing to physical violence.

Acevedo added that rather than suspending misbehavers from school, putting them out on the street to get into more trouble, most errant kids are placed in separate classrooms where they must do homework under adult supervision.

"In these middle school years, everything is changing for these kids," Acevedo said. "It's a sad day when you have to arrest a 13-year-old."

This year, Roscher said, some 300 kids registered for Kids United.

"In the first couple weeks we had 120 younger kids and 60 or 70 older ones."

"On Wednesdays and Thursdays we have cooking lessons led by what we call the Culinary Cops," Roscher said. The school resource officers become the only chefs in Elgin who have stirring spoons and spatulas in their hands plus automatic pistols on their hips.

"Kids come up with ideas for what to cook, and at the end of the summer they vote on which Culinary Cop made the best food."

Each participant also gets a free dinner each evening, courtesy of the Northern Illinois Food Bank.

"On Fridays we take field trips," Roscher said. Past Fridays have taken the kids to see sailing ships in Chicago, visit Medieval Times in Schaumburg, go on a nature hike in at LeRoy Oakes Forest Preserve in St. Charles, and tour the Angelo Organic Farm in Caledonia, Illinois. On Friday, July 29, they will go a Kane County Cougars game.

But on this day, the star attractions would be some non-mammal visitors. At 4 p.m. all the kids assemble outside to see an assortment of lizards, snakes and even a spider displayed by a jokey, energetic Jeremy Taulbee from a traveling zoo called Dave's World of Reptiles.

Taulbee begins with a giant African tortoise and progresses to ever-creepier critters such as a 75-pound, 6-inch-thick Burmese python. As a boy named Emanuel pets the giant beast, the kids strain closer to look.

"I didn't say to move. Sit down or I'll make this snake eat Emanuel," Taulbee jokes.

"It's rewarding to see that after nine years we now have some adult volunteers working with the program who used to come as participants," Roscher said.