After School
After school programs benefit children, parents and communities by providing safe, enriching places for young people to spend their out-of-school time. In California, 3.8 million children, ages 6-17, live with working parents, and those children are likely to be unsupervised at least some of the time. High-quality after school programs provide individualized academic support and offer opportunities for students to explore new interests and build social and cognitive skills, all of which are essential to healthy development and school success.
California expanded its investment in public after school programs in 2006, extending them to thousands more schools. The remaining challenge is to ensure that those funds support high-quality, well-attended programs across the state.
Learn More about After School
Facts & Figures | Policy Recommendations | Policy Updates and Materials | Research
Fact & Figures [back to top]
- After school programs generate between $5 and $7 in public savings for every dollar invested.
- Students who participate in after school programs attend school more often; improvements are most pronounced for children who have had many prior absences.
- Children who participate in after school programs regularly are 30-50% less likely to be arrested than their peers.
- About 2.5 million children participate in some kind of after school program statewide. About 40% attend publicly supported after school programs.
- Between the 2005-06 and 2007-08 school years, California nearly doubled the number of public after school programs in elementary and middle schools to just over 4,000, and quadrupled the number of high school after school programs to 190.
- The expansion of public after school programs is expected to add 12,000 jobs in California, creating both an opportunity and a challenge.
Policy Recommendations [back to top]
- Continue to monitor the expansion of after school programs to promote quality and equitable access. The statewide expansion of after school programs promises to engage tens of thousands more children in meaningful activities in the out-of-school hours. The state, program providers and advocates must all work together to ensure equity in funding, program quality and opportunities.
- Monitor the allocation of funding for technical assistance to ensure new state after school providers receive the help they need. Outreach and technical assistance are crucial to ensuring after school providers are prepared to open their doors as soon as possible.
- Ensure California has a trained and sustainable workforce for our children. Well-qualified educators have a substantial impact on educational outcomes. Unlike California's investment in recruiting, training and retaining teachers for K-12 schools, however, little has not been done for the early care and education and after school fields. Those fields have lower pay and higher turnover, which sometimes forces programs to draw from a less educated pool of employees.
- Explore ways to use after school employment as a catalyst to develop teacher training and other career pathways targeted at disadvantaged children and young adults. This can be accomplished by creating partnerships between after school employers, community colleges, university campuses and community agencies. Work within those partnerships should focus on the creation of a career pathway for young adults that incorporates working in after school programs as part of their training.
Policy Updates and Materials [back to top]
Proposition 49, passed in 2002, and SB 638, signed in September 2006, provide new funding for after school programs and give priority to schools serving low-income students. To guide schools in the application process, Children Now has released a packet that includes helpful information on applying for new state funding for after school programs and tips on how to develop a successful program.
Research [back to top]
Our policy brief, Effectively Expanding California's After School System: Overcoming the Workforce Supply Obstacle, covers the state's challenges in meeting staffing needs for its publicly-funded after school programs.
Our report, The Financing of California's After School Programs: Preparing for Implementation of Proposition 49, analyzes existing state after school program requirements and offers recommendations for strengthening after school programs before Proposition 49 funds are disbursed.
Children Now worked with the Afterschool Accountability Committee to produce a paper that addresses shortcomings of the way publicly-funded after school programs are currently held accountable. The paper, Holding California Afterschool Programs Accountable, analyzes existing accountability measures for state-funded after school programs and offers recommendations for how the state can improve its measures of programs' effectiveness.
Other related research produced by Children Now:
