Community Need

Among the factors indicating the need for afterschool programs are:

• Children are most likely to be the victim or perpetrator of juvenile crime between the hours of 3-6PM.  (Fight Crime:  Invest in Kids, 2006)
• There are 100,000 students in Dallas County between the ages of 5 and 13 who are unsupervised during afterschool hours.  (Today’s Children: Tomorrow’s Communities, 2006)
• 38% of Dallas County ninth graders will fail to graduate in four years.  Economically disadvantaged students have the highest attrition rate – 45%, and Dallas ISD’s is even higher at 51%. (Beyond ABC’s:  Growing Up in Dallas County, 2009)
• Texas ranks 1st in the country in number of teen births, and 1st in the number of subsequent teen births, and our teen birth rate is now once again increasing.  (Beyond ABC’s:  Growing Up in Dallas County, 2009)

Our economically disadvantaged students, who are primarily Hispanic and African American, are most likely to be unsupervised due to a severe shortage of free or affordable afterschool programming in our community.  It is these student groups who are in greatest need of mentoring, academic support and guidance to alleviate the enormous risks of becoming involved in substance abuse, juvenile crime, and early sexual behavior.

The 2008 Fact Sheet from the National Institute of Out of School Time states: "Data shows that children who have access to out-of-school-time activities which are of high quality, designed and staffed by professionals, and are based on youth development research enjoy a wide variety of positive outcomes ranging from school success to better health."  Participation in various structured out-of-school time activities has been shown to have the greatest impact and most positive effect on those who are most at-risk.

Benefits of Afterschool Programming to students, working parents and our community.