Fall 2001

What challenges can organizations expect when creating a community/school collaboration for at-school, after-school programming? What models of collaborations can organizations look to when developing after-school programming?

These and other questions were addressed during the Urban Seminar on "Out-of-School Time" at Harvard University in May 2001. The Urban Seminar Series, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and directed by Professor William Julius Wilson of Harvard, focuses on issues related to the Urban Health Initiative.

Getting School-Based After-School Programming Off the Ground

As youth advocates and policy makers continue to emphasize after-school programming as an effective means to improve youth's social and academic development and decrease risky behaviors, challenges remain with regard to the best way to launch these programs in schools.

In their paper "Getting School-Based After-School Programming Off the Ground," Jean Baldwin Grossman, Karen Walker and Rebecca Raley report on the Extended Service Schools Adaptation Initiative (ESS), an effort funded by the Wallace-Readers Digest Funds to extensively explore the potential and feasibility of school-based youth development programs.

The paper presents several lessons-learned with regard to launching school/community initiatives and with regard to the first year of implementation.

For example, ESS encourages strong collaborations among providers, funders, schools and government agencies. "Decision-making processes that included all key partners were important in allaying the fears of reticent partners," the authors note. "Also, the assistance of national intermediaries in mediating early disputes helped the partners find compromises and solutions to problems that may not have otherwise occurred to them."

The paper also discusses needs assessment, school selection and assembling resources among the getting-off-the-ground issues.

The early implementation of the initiative also provides valuable lessons and highlights challenges that were perhaps underappreciated at the outset.

For example, all cities hired a coordinator to manage the day-to-day programs in a school, often on a half-time basis. "Almost immediately, however, programs recognized that it is extremely difficult to start an after-school program and run it well with a half-time coordinator," the authors say.

Transportation was "perhaps the most formidable challenge to programming because its remedy required the most of extra funding and its consequence was that some youth, often the most needy, simply could not participate."

In some cases, school districts are able to offer support for late busing; in other cases programs turn to community partners for transportation support. "As programs continue to work toward creative solutions to these transportation difficulties, the evidence suggests that long-term solutions rest in the capacity of cities and school districts to shoulder financial responsibility for extended service programs," the authors say.

Other early implementation issues covered by the paper are management and governance, programming, participants, space and custodial services.

Policy implications

The authors conclude that using schools as a venue for after-school programs is not as easy as it would appear. They discuss several critical issues that cities should consider when planning to use schools as a venue:

• The notion that school buildings are underused is simplistic. "We observed that at least some parts of the schools are often heavily used after-hours," the authors say. "The result is that ESS programs often have to compete for prime space such as the gym or computer labs."
  
  
• Limited resources for maintaining the schools' physical facilities and equipment also lead administrators to limit the buildings' use. "Given the tight budgets that the principals operate under, it is not surprising that there is tension between schools and ESS coordinators around the use of the building, student behavior and custodial issues," the authors say. "More public funds are needed to maintain school facilities if they are to be open for longer hours and used more intensively. Turf and control issues do arise, but can be resolved over time as trust builds; the resource issue will not go away without the public's greater awareness and support."
  
  
• Transportation is a challenge and it increases program costs.
  
  
• More effort is needed to draw the most disadvantaged students into programs. "Transportation, the difficulty of contacting parents and the students' own dislike of school are barriers the programs need to address."

After-School Time: Toward a Theory of Collaborations

In this article, Gil Noam of Harvard University addresses three central themes of community collaborations: 1) He shows that the essence of after-school care and education is partnering among institutions and individuals, a new ethos built around program needs; 2) He discusses the importance of understanding the results of most partnerships in after-school education in terms of the creation of "intermediary environments; 3) He introduces a typology of partnerships and their implications for developing intermediary after-school spaces.

Noam notes that after-school programs have evolved from single organization governance (e.g., Boys and Girls Clubs) to collaborations. "In the process they increasingly have become intermediary, located at the intersection between organizations and their cultures," he says.

Vibrant collaborations can produce intermediary environments that are…

• Typically participatory and in a position to foster and model democratic ideals;
  
  
• Always fragile because they are never fully evolved; they live in a realm of productive tension between collaborating organizations;
  
  
• Usually creative and innovative; they define themselves as different from traditional organizations;
  
  
• Vulnerable to potential power struggles as one collaborating group or another may vie for control;
  
  
• Not concerned with leadership structure and time use; they need to justify themselves by means other than efficiency.

Even organizations that single-handedly create after-school programs are part of intermediary environments, because they operate in communities and schools which are not under their control.

"These are deceptively simple ideas and yet, our most important child institutions, the schools, have to this day not fully appreciated their significance," Noam says. "If solitary institutions could accomplish the task, we would not need to develop intermediary environments; we would just let the schools extend the school days."