At the end of the school day for the
past 20 years students have been playing, drawing, learning music and making
friends at schools and community centers across the West Side. Some have been receiving
counseling, others have been getting help with homework.
All of
this might come to an end should the federal budget cut the funding it gives to
these programs through the state.
President
Donald Trump’s $4.8 trillion budget proposal released Feb. 10, includes a $19.4
billion block grant that states would receive. The administration would adjust
how states fund programs that support disadvantaged K-12 students. This would
be done by combining 29 programs which would mean a decrease of about eight
percent of the U.S. Department of Education funding.
Programs
that could be affected include those associated with the 21st Century
Community Learning Centers, such as the Boys & Girls Clubs’s West Side locations:
Butler-Mitchell Clubhouse on Massachusetts Avenue, Jon locations at Butler-Mitchell
Clubhouse, John F. Beecher Clubhouse on 10th Street and the Elmwood
Village Charter School on Days Park.
The U.S. Congress has been
supportive of such funding, but the President’s budget proposal would eliminate
it, said Jillian Luchner, policy manager of the Afterschool Alliance, which performs
research for the community learning centers.
“There will no longer be funding,”
Luchner said, “and the students will go to zero.” By Dasha
Hicks and Maria J Lascarro
