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LA's BEST

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According to law enforcement agencies, the most likely time for young people to get into trouble is between 3 and 4 p.m. The hours immediately after school are when more an increasing number of minors have sex, use drugs, and become violent or are targeted by violence. To respond to this reality, thousands of after-school care programs have been launched across the country at public schools. Among the most successful and long-lived is called LA's BEST.

LA's BEST is a lot more than just after-school care for elementary school students. The three-hour program that runs from 3-6pm every day for some 17,000 kids in low-income neighborhoods is composed of three so-called blocks. The first block is nutrition and homework assistance. The second is cognitive learning programs, such as this workshop run by a NASA rocket scientist, teaching kids about motion and ratios. The third is a variety of activities suggested by the students themselves. At a few LA schools students can participate in folklorico, the preservation of long-standing cultural arts such as native dance and music.

Of the thousands of after-school programs across the country, LA's BEST is one of if not the most thoroughly tested and evaluated. It's been studied, studied and studied again, during its ten-year tenure. Among the findings:

- Students enrolled in LA's BEST for four years or more showed improved scores on standardized math, reading and language tests.

- Kids attending LA's BEST spoke more and better English.

- Kids and parents said the kids felt safer after school in the program than before they joined it.

- A greater percentage of kids told researchers they aspired to attending college after taking part in the program than before they entered it.

Because more American children are raised in single-parent homes, or homes where both parents work, and because there aren't the kind of cohesive neighbor relationships of yesteryear, there's a great need for more after-school programs. Even with significant public and private support, LA's BEST still has a much longer list of kids who want in, than the expanded number it already serves. In the state of California, for example, government-funded after-school programs serve 440,000 kids. But one-and-a-quarter million more children ages 5 to 14 need subsidized care while their parents work, according to a survey of law enforcement agencies.

LINKS AND RESOURCES

LA's BEST

U.S. Dept. of Education's After-School Programs page

U.S. Dept. of Education's Safe and Smart page

Afterschool.gov

After School for All