Weekly Media Roundup - July 25, 2012

Michigan awarded more than $300,000 on July 19 to Grand Rapids Public Schools to fund four afterschool program sites that were in danger of shutting down this year.   The school district was notified by the state Department of Education that it had lost its 21st Century Community Learning Center grants for nine of its 35 LOOP summer and afterschool programs. Five program sites are still in jeopardy. The school district is “working on a creative solution” to figure out how to continue the program, MLive.com reports. 

 

Thanks to a 21^st Century Community Learning Centers grant, Salt Lake County Youth Services will be able to open two new afterschool programs and a community learning center in Magna in the fall of 2012, the Deseret News reports. In addition to afterschool programs, the community learning center in Magna will have parenting and English as a second language classes for parents.

 

More than two dozen fourth- to eighth-grade students waded into the Passaic River to gather samples of water and river life thanks to a summer program. Rocking the Boat—an organization that gives young people mainly from the South Bronx chances to build boats, row or sail them, and help restore local waterways—partnered with the YMCA, the STEM Academy in Paterson, teachers from local schools, the 21st Century Community Learning Center, Paterson Education Fund volunteers and the National Park Service to make the river outing possible. Many of the students told The Record that though they grew up around the river, they had never been out on it.

 

Teenage brothers Will and Jamie Barry spend their after school hours giving weekly guitar lessons to low-income afterschool students. The brothers—Will is 18, Jamie is 16—started the program in February after realizing the need for more arts-oriented activities. “The budget cuts are a mess, especially on the middle school level.  Extracurricular activities are absolutely being wiped out,” Will told the Charlotte Observer. The brothers said they wanted to use their musical talents to try and help combat shrinking extracurricular activities.