Here’s how Olathe School District’s club entices kids to cruise into class engagement

Lowrider bikes and after-school programs might not seem to be a natural pairing, but it’s working out well for one Johnson County club. Now in its fourth year, the Olathe School District’s Lowrider Bike Club recently earned first-place accolades at the Olathe Police Foundation’s annual car show.

The idea came from Erik Erazo, coordinator of diversity and engagement for the district. He’d already established a Hispanic Leadership Club years earlier when he was working as a security guard at Olathe North.

“It started at the elementary level, introducing the idea of college and things like that. “A lot of kids, like myself, my parents didn’t graduate elementary (in their native country), so they sure weren’t talking to me about KU or K-State,” Erazo said.

“That program was born to help our kids even the playing field.”

While successful, the leadership program was more academic, and it didn’t reach everyone. The lowriders offered a new opportunity.

“I felt like I had some kids slipping between the cracks, that weren’t being addressed, kids that weren’t doing great in school or weren’t coming to school or (were) failing classes. I wanted to do something to reach them,” Erazo said.

He was looking for an activity where he could connect the kids with mentors. While the students’ individual projects are bikes they get to keep, as a group, they also work on cars.

“How do you get a kid that already doesn’t want to come to school, that doesn’t like school, and tell them, ‘Hey, stay after school, and we’re going to talk about your feelings with a mentor’?” he said.

The key was in his own love of building lowrider bikes. A grant from the Olathe Public Schools Foundation paid for the materials, and the club started in 2017.

“I think that doing something with your hands, seeing that you built it — it was a pile of metal, and you put it together — seeing the outcome of that; it’s really neat for kids to see from start to finish,” Erazo said. “A lot of kids will come for the bikes, and I think they really stay because of the mentors.”

Members of the police and fire departments, along with former students, make up the 15-to-20 person rotation of mentors who come to the weekly meetings. Sometimes guest speakers come, too.

About 35 kids are in the club, and there are usually 15 at any given meeting. There’s an equal split of girls and boys who take part.

“I really like expanding our kids’ networks. A lot of times that’s something that we don’t have, being from the Hispanic community or just being a minority. A lot of times you don’t have a big network because parents are not established in the country,” he said.

The catch for students is that if they want to work on the bikes, they have to keep their grades up.

“We do hold them accountable. If a kid is failing a class, we say, ‘Hey, you can’t come to the shop today. Let’s get that homework done instead.’ Initially, kids come in and say, ‘Forget this,’ but after they get into the bike. … It’s worth it,” Erazo said.

The kids go from trying to hide academic difficulties to feeling confident enough to ask for help. That supportive environment comes in handy with other tough situations, too.

“We might have kids come in and go, ‘Man, I’m going through a hard time, because one of my parents got deported,’ or, ‘Somebody at home lost their job, and we’re struggling.’ Those are conversations can be had without any judgment,” Erazo said.

“A lot of kids will express to me that even if they’re going through something, sometimes they don’t want to say it out loud to a teacher or counselor, because they feel that maybe somebody’s going to think what they’re saying is weird. They know the mentors are not going to judge them.”

Marissa Escareno, 17, loves the club. The incoming Olathe North senior will be the club’s vice president in the fall.

“The club really did do a lot for me. As a freshman, I didn’t really care much about school. It made me take school more seriously,” she said.

Once she was comfortable in the group, she saw it open new doors for her future.

“I got into an auto collision class, and they helped me with scholarships. It helped put me on the right to track to where I want to be, where I thought I couldn’t be. It gave me hope and made me more outgoing,” she said.

She loves the community service aspect of the club, where they fix up regular donated bikes to give to children. She’s looking forward to putting together her own lowrider bike this year.

“It all has a purpose. It’s all leading to something,” she said. “The whole meaning of our club is to break stereotypes and make our community better.”

This story was originally published July 15, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Here’s how Olathe School District’s club entices kids to cruise into class engagement."