New Haven Independent

The doors opened Wednesday afternoon, as officials gathered at 333 Valley St. — aka “The Shack,” a shuttered former after-school haunt for West Hills kids — for the launch of a year-round five-day-a-week afternoon program.

The Valley Street program was one of four launched Wednesday. The others are at Career, Lincoln-Bassett and Ross/Woodward. Another five open July 5 at Clinton Avenue, Truman, Dwight, Martinez, and Katherine Brennan.

The idea is to keep school buildings open longer so the community — especially kids — have a safe and constructive place to hang out. The city decided to open the schools in response to last summer’s wave of youth violence. It opened two summer-long Open Schools last year; now it has expanded to nine sites, year-round.

Mondays through Fridays, from 3 to 7 p.m., the program at Valley’s Street’s Shack features atheltics, martial arts, woodworking, arts and crafts, yoga, and deejaying.

And, of course, Keren Sheffield’s — “Pajama Mama’s” — class in telling, and videotaping, stories. She instructed her charges Wednesday in the long oral tradition of storytelling, as well as the digital revolution’s gift of small, cheap cameras that can record them all. In the above video clip she speaks about olden-days front-porch verbal duels.

In another room, Paul White was showing Calcyan Rangolam and Juan Sepulveda “The Eagle,” a tai-chi move.