Weekly Media Roundup: March 13, 2024

English Learners Stopped Coming to Class During the Pandemic. One Group is Tackling the Problem By Helping Their Parents, Hechinger Report

In North Carolina, nearly one third of English language learning students were chronically absent last year, a rate significantly higher than the state’s overall student absenteeism rate. OurBRIDGE for Kids, an afterschool program for immigrant and refugee students in Charlotte, North Carolina, is addressing the issue with a comprehensive approach that is producing strong results. “We realized before trying to address why your child isn’t going to school, we needed to ask, ‘What’s worrying you right now?’ That question really opened up all the reasons why going to school was not the first priority for many families: housing insecurity, food insecurity, job loss,” Sil Ganzó, founder of ourBRIDGE for Kids and an Afterschool Alliance Afterschool Ambassador, told the Hechinger Report. In addition to providing culturally responsive afterschool programing, ourBRIDGE connects families to staff members who speak the same language and to local community support services.

State Working on Afterschool Programs. WV Metro News (West Virginia)

At the inaugural West Virginia Afterschool Quality Conference in Charleston, more than 120 out-of-school time programs gathered to discuss best practices and the need to expand access to afterschool statewide. The conference was organized by the state Department of Education in partnership with the Department of Human Services Division of Early Care and Education with the West Virginia Statewide Afterschool Network, which released its updated program standards at the event. “There are a lot more kids in West Virginia that would love to participate in an afterschool program if they had access to an afterschool program,” Susan Gamble, director of the West Virginia Statewide Afterschool Network, told WV Metro News.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Sierra Vista Expanding With a New After-School Program in Palominas School District, KGUN 9 (Arizona)

Students in the Palominas School District in Arizona will soon have access to a comprehensive afterschool program thanks to a new partnership with the Boys & Girls Club of Sierra Vista. The new program will be the Club’s third in the Sierra Vista area and will offer a wide variety of activities not currently available at the students’ schools. For example, Palominas School District Superintendent Sherri Rosalik told KGUN9, “We’ve got some kids who are so into STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), and we don’t have those resources, but we could set up a room that has those 3D printers and Chromebooks [at the afterschool program], and we could do cool STEM activities in there.”

After School Academy Aims to Complement Classroom Learning, Sonoma Index-Tribune (California)

At the After School Empowerment Academy in Sonoma, California, high school students are participating in driver’s education classes, ready to work programs, finance courses, and leadership and advocacy programs. The free afterschool program began this winter, thanks to a partnership between Sonoma Valley Educational Foundation, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Sonoma Valley, and Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance. “Long gone are the days of measuring success solely by a grade on a report card,” Sonoma Valley Education Foundation Executive Director Angela Ryan told the Sonoma Index-Tribune. “We know that true success for our students is the opportunity to explore who they are and what they want to become in a safe, resourced and inclusive environment. The After School Empowerment Academy reflects this sentiment by offering programs that develop the whole student — socially and emotionally, practically and academically.”