“The [out-of-school-time] field has long pursued a deeper relationship with schools, but most schools have just wanted to be friends. Changes on both sides have pushed them closer.” That budding romance is the subject of an article in Youth Today, an independent newspaper for youth service professionals. The article describes the history of partnerships between afterschool providers and schools and explores the conditions that have fostered closer collaboration—including new thinking about what, where and how children learn, as well as the maturation of the afterschool field. One sign of that maturation is the prevalence of citywide systems that coordinate afterschool services. The article cites a 2013 Wallace-funded study that identified 77 large cities that coordinate afterschool programs.