Contents

• Introduction
• Why a citywide approach?
• Getting started with citywide OST improvement: Six action elements
• Sustaining the system, achieving the benefits
• Building a sustainable OST system: Still a lot to learn
• Endnotes
• Related Wallace products

Click here to download the full report:
 A Place to Grow and Learn

ⁱ A survey of parents conducted by the National Survey of Children’s Health 2003 found that 39.5 million 6- to 17-year-olds participated in at least one organized activity, such as athletics or clubs, during the 12 months prior to survey. NSCH Data Resource Center. http://www.nschdata.org/

ⁱⁱ “Boys & Girls Clubs of America had its beginnings in 1860 with several women in Hartford, Conn. Believing that boys who roamed the streets should have a positive alternative, they organized the first Club.” Boys & Girls Clubs of America web site. https://www.bgca.org/about-us.

ⁱⁱⁱ Robert Halpern, “A Different Kind of Child Development Institution: The History of After-School Programs for Low-Income Children,” Teachers College Record, Volume 104 Number 2, March 2002, 178-211.

^iv “Afterschool Programs a Top Municipal Priority, NLC Survey Finds,” Nation’s Cities Weekly, National League of Cities, May 17, 2004. http://www.nlc.org/Newsroom/Nation_s_Cities_Weekly_v2/Weekly_NCW/2004_
v2/05_v2/17_v4/3161.aspx

^v By 2006, fully 74 percent of women with school-age children (6- to 17-years-old) were employed in the civilian labor force, a dramatic a shift in scarcely two generations. In 1950, less than one-third of married women with school-age children – 29 percent – worked outside the home. “Employment Characteristics of Families in 2006,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, press release, Table 5 May 9, 2007; Elizabeth Waldman, “Labor Force Statistics from a Family Perspective,” Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, December 1983, 18.

^vi “Providence Reshapes Its Out-of-School Learning System,” Report ’04, The Wallace Foundation, 21.    http://www.wallacefoundation.org/about-wallace/annual-reports/Annual%20Reports/Wallace-Report-2004-Surrounding-Children-with-Opportunity.pdf

^vii It is difficult to determine exactly how many American children are not well occupied in their out-of-school hours. Estimates range widely – from 6 million to 20 million young people – depending on such factors as the age span of the children under consideration, how the question is framed and one’s view of what “well occupied” means. What can be said is that millions of children and teenagers spend at least part of their time after school, on weekends and during school vacations without supervision, and millions do not regularly participate in athletics, the arts, tutoring or other potentially beneficial opportunities. In a 2003 report, the U.S. Census Bureau found that 20 million school-age children – or about 41 percent of 6- to 17-year-olds – did not, at the time of the survey, take part in sports, in after-school or weekend lessons in subjects like “music, dance, language, computers or religion,” or in any clubs or organizations, such as scouts, religious groups or a Boys or Girls Club. [ Terry A. Lugaila, A Child’s Day: 2000 (Selected Indicators of Child Well-Being), U.S. Census Bureau, August 2003, 10-11] The Census Bureau has also found that 15 percent of 5- to 14-year-olds – or just over six million children in this age group – regularly take care of themselves during a typical week. Among the older children, those 12- to 14-years-old, fully 33 percent care for themselves regularly. [Julia Overturf Johnson, Who’s Minding the Kids? Child Care Arrangements: Winter 2002, U.S. Census Bureau, October 2005, 12-13.]

^viii Jane Lawler Dye, Tallese Johnson, A Child’s Day: 2003 (Selected Indicators of Child Well-Being), U.S. Census Bureau, January 2007, 13.

^iv Past Wallace initiatives in this area include: Youth ALIVE! which sought to establish adolescent programs in children’s and science museums; Making the Most of Out-of-School Time (MOST); Public Libraries as Partners in Youth Development; Extended-Service Schools; the Urban Parks Initiative; and Parents and Communities for Kids (PACK).

^x Robert Halpern, The Challenge of System-Building in the After-School Field: Lessons from Experience, Critical Issues in After-School Programming, Discussion paper produced by the National Institute on Out-of-School Time, October 2003, 1.

^xi Ibid.

xii Robert Goerge, John Dilts, Duck-Hey Yang, Miriam Wasserman, Anne Clary, Chicago Children and Youth 1990-2010:Changing Population Trends and Their Implications for Services, Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago, 2007, 26.

^xiii Harvard Family Research Project, Understanding and Measuring Attendance in Out-of-School Time Programs, August 2004, 2.

^xiv Susan Bodilly, Megan K. Beckett, Making Out-of-School Time Matter:Evidence for an Action Agenda, The RAND Corporation, 2005, 107.

^xv Bodilly, 73

^xvi Susanne James-Burdumy, Mark Dynarksi, Mary Moore, John Deke, Wendy Mansfield, Carol Pistorino, When Schools Stay Open Late: The National Evaluation of the 21st Century Learning Centers Program: Final Report, U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Educational Services, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, 2005.

^xvii James-Burdumy, xxv

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