The fundamental features of a bilingual after-school program designed to raise the level of and improve the attitudes toward school achievement on the part of a group of elementary school youngsters is presented in this document. The description traces the evolution of design and practice in the programs' structure methodology, in its training and supervision of both professional and para professional staff, and in its criteria for the evaluation of the children's progress. It also explores the lessons learned from the trial and error, review, and redirection that took place during the Learning Center's first two years of growth. In addition to its soundness of structure, its high quality of leadership and its practices and supervision, the center also contributes in the following areas: it demonstrates the degree to which structure and leadership are essential to the success of a community-based education program, it explores and modifies the Open Classroom form for severely deprived children, it provides experiences relating to the development of revised evaluation criteria for childrens progress in learning, and it embodies a high level of service, unique for a social agency, in an all embracing educational therapy flowing from ongoing diagnostic prescriptive assessments. (Author/AM)