New England After 3 PM (2006)

New England After 3 PM is a series of reports, supported by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation and focused on the state of afterschool across the New England region. Collectively, the New England After 3PM reports present a picture of how youth in New England currently spend their time afterschool, how stakeholders throughout the region view afterschool, what’s currently happening to help advance afterschool and what next steps remain to be taken to make afterschool for all a reality in New England. Released in May 2006, the first installment, New England After 3 PM, examined afterschool across the region with a special focus on Massachusetts.

• Click here for the full New England After 3PM report
• Click here for the press release about New England After 3 PM.
• Click here for highlights of New England After 3 PM

Subsequent installments, called "Spotlight" reports, have focused on the views of specific stakeholders in states throughout the New England region. Click on the links below for more information about each "Spotlight".

• Spotlight on Maine, released in June 2008, examined the views of Maine's principals and found the vast majority agree that afterschool and summer programs are a necessity, but that funding is inadequate to meet the need for programs across the state.
   
• Spotlight on New Hampshire, released in October 2007, examined the views of New Hampshire’s education leaders and found an overwhelming majority say that afterschool programs benefit students in their schools and districts, and that they are an absolute necessity for children and youth.
   
• Spotlight on Rhode Island, released in May 2007, examined the views of municipal leaders and found strong support for afterschool by Rhode Island mayors and city leaders.
   
• Spotlight on Connecticut, released in October 2006, explored the need and demand for afterschool as expressed in surveys of parents and afterschool program providers.

New England After 3PM Highlights:

Across New England, one in five children has no safe, supervised activity after the school day ends. The lack of adult supervision means these children are left to take care of themselves at a time of day when juvenile crime peaks, and when a range of inappropriate behaviors beckon, including drugs and alcohol, gangs and teen sex. Those are among the findings of New England After 3 PM, a report from the Afterschool Alliance that was released in conjunction with the Massachusetts Governor's Afterschool Summit in Boston in May 2006.

While much work remains to be done before families' need for afterschool programs is met, New England nevertheless is showing signs of seizing national leadership in providing afterschool for all. Through regional commitment and cooperation, the area's schoolchildren could one day have the best afterschool opportunities in the nation.

Made possible by support from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, New England After 3 PM is the first ever to focus on afterschool across New England. According to New England After 3 PM:

• Only 14 percent of New England schoolchildren (just over 347,600) participate in afterschool programs, while 22 percent (just over 546,200) are alone and unsupervised during the hours after school.
• Unmet demand for afterschool across the region is high; the parents of more than 640,000 New England children would sign their children up for afterschool if a program were available.
• The overwhelming majority of parents of children in afterschool programs approve of the care their children receive: 88 percent of New England parents are extremely or somewhat satisfied with the afterschool program their child attends.