After School Programs

What are your students doing after school? Look at some recent facts:

• Over 28 million school-age children have both parents or their only parent in the workforce.
• At least 5 million children -- and possibly as many as 15 million -- are left alone at home each week.
• Many children, especially low-income children, lose ground in reading if they are not engaged in organized learning over the summer.
• Experts agree that school-age children who are unsupervised during the hours after school are more likely to receive poor grades and drop out of school than those who are involved in supervised, constructive activities.
• Statistics show that most juvenile crime takes place between the hours of 2:00 and 8:00 pm, and that children are also at much greater risk of being the victims of crime during the hours after school.

At a time when more children are spending the time between 2 and 6 p.m. unsupervised, the need for quality after-school programming is great. A quality before-school, after-school, or summer program can provide a safe place for kids and additional learning opportunities.

Along these lines, Dr. Beth M. Miller, a senior research advisor to the National Institute of Out of School Time at the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College, pulled together and analyzed information available from studies of afterschool programs. The resultant study, Critical Hours: Afterschool Programs and Educational Success, highlights afterschool programs and their impact on the academic achievement and overall development of middle school students. The conclusion: afterschool programs can, indeed, make an important contribution to how well children perform in school.

It is therefore important that schools provide quality programs to help increase engagement in learning by giving students opportunities for personal attention from adults, a peer group with positive aspirations, and hands-on activities that hold students' interest and develop their skills and sense of competence. Even though schools often have difficulty providing these types of opportunities, research indicates they are critical to long-term academic success of the students.

Indeed, students who are engaged in learning behave better in school, have better work habits, higher educational aspirations, improved attitudes toward school, a greater sense of belonging in the community, and better relationships with parents.

There are plenty of resources available to help educators create interesting and productive programs.

The U.S. Department of Education offers information and materials on an array of topics related to the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program.

The National Center for Community Education and the National Community Education Association host free regional workshops to assist schools with their grant applications for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program.

National School-Age Care Alliance provides information on quality school-age care and after-school programs.

The National Institute on Out-of-School Time provides research and materials to assist applicants for 21st Century Community Learning Centers grants.

Family Education Network provides free local school connections for teachers and parents - both e-mail and Web pages. FEN also links to a variety of resources for adults who work with students.

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence has resources for teaching and learning from 30 federal agencies, with search tools and a bulletin board for teachers and federal agencies to communicate about potential collaboration on new teaching and learning resources.

Benton Foundation's Connect for Kids provides information and ideas to help parents get involved in improving the community for their children.

Beyond the Bell: A Toolkit for Creating Effective After-School Programs
The increased attention on the after-school hours raises questions for staff managing and working in these programs about how best to offer high-quality programs. Strong programs are the result of careful planning and a strong vision. Yet all too often, decisions are made quickly and without adequate information. This toolkit is designed to help after-school staff plan and make good decisions in six critical areas: management, collaboration, programming, integration with the traditional school day, evaluation, and communication. The toolkit can be used as a whole, or in pieces to help a program fit its needs and the needs of its community.

Strengthening Connections Between Schools and After-School Programs
Research shows that developing comprehensive after-school programs that are integrated into the regular school program and other family support systems within the community can yield positive outcomes for students and their families. A review of the research on effective after-school programs and interviews with active program sites indicate that there are 16 characteristics that lead to comprehensive program planning for integration. This document lists each of these characteristics along with an indicator that describes the characteristic in more detail and samples of policies and programs that indicate if the characteristic is present in the program activities.

21st Century Community Learning Centers Program
The 21st Century Community Learning Centers program (21stCCLC) was established by Congress and is run by the U.S. Department of Education to award grants to rural and inner-city schools for new or expanding after-school programs that benefit the educational, health, social services, cultural and recreational needs of the community. NCREL's Web site provides information on how to apply for funding as well as information you can use to prepare a top-quality application and links to the Department's Web page and other resources.

National and Regional Resources
These links will help you find resources on the many different aspects of after-school programming, such as safety, health and nutrition, parent involvement, project design, and finding potential partners for collaboration. Within the seven-state NCREL region (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin), there are links to data sources, collaborative partners and other state-based public agencies to assist you with your program or project design.