Song and dance: Students perform at Wednesday's advocacy day.

Running Out of Time

Facing an unexpected loss of funding, after-school programs ask for a small share of the $575 million that can be added to the state budget

Yesterday (Wednesday), hundreds of students, parents, educators, and after-school program advocates from across the state converged at the Capitol as part of an annual after-school advocacy day. This year’s convention came with additional urgency, however, as more than 200 after-school programs across the state soon may be forced to either significantly scale back services or shut down entirely due to a decision by the state Education Department not to release any federal money to after-school programs whose funding is up for renewal this year.

“At a time when the state is trying to really improve student achievement and achieve educational excellence, it’s a particularly huge problem to be shutting down programs that are having a really strong impact on kids’ success in school,” said Karen Scharff, executive director of Citizen Action of New York and chairwoman of the Coalition for After-School Funding. CASF is one of several organizations lobbying the Legislature and governor to save the 207 affected programs by adding $30 million to the state budget.

Locally, a program enabled by a partnership between the Albany School District and Capital District YMCA stands to lose the $543,000 it uses to operate extended-day programs in five of the city’s elementary schools. In total, the five sites serve 320 students and employ 60 staff members.

“I know there’s money out there,” said Lynn Siebert, chair of the Albany YMCA board of managers and school-age education coordinator at the Capital District Childcare Council. Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the Legislature agree there is about $575 million in additional money that could be added to the originally proposed state budget. “We’re just asking for $30 million [of that] to keep 34,000 children off the streets, not just our 320, but 34,000 across the state of New York.”

The Assembly and Senate had their first opportunity to add to Gov. Spitzer’s proposed state budget earlier this week, when they passed their individual budget bills. Neither house responded to the pleas of after-school advocates.

“How this is not resonating with our legislators at this point, and our governor, is a little perplexing to me,” Seibert said.

The state Education Department’s decision affects after-school programs funded through the federal 21st Century Community Learning Center grants, a No Child Left Behind program. The federal money is distributed to the Education Department, which, in turn, distributes five-year grants through a competitive process. The first funding round was offered in 2002, with additional rounds beginning during the following two years.

The first round of funding expires in June, but officials from the Education Department decided there isn’t enough CCLC money to allow for new or renewal applications.

The problem isn’t just that the state isn’t financially supporting the expansion of after-school programs, Scharff said, but also the programs that would lose funding are the most established programs that have had made the largest investments in terms of time and resources.

“We believe these are very worthwhile programs, and we would like to see them continue uninterrupted,” said Jonathan Burman, a spokesman for the state Education Department. However, he explained that federal funding grants have been “severely cut back,” so much as to necessitate a suspension of the competitive process until next year.

According to Siebert, that decision came abruptly and without warning to the programs that rely on these funds. As recently as the fall and winter, she said, the Education Department was indicating that information about the new round of competitive funding would become available in the near future.

“Then all of a sudden, on a Friday, we got the e-mail,” Siebert said. “We’ve been in crisis mode ever since.”

The $30 million figure would support the continuation of all 207 programs for one more year until the state education department, Legislature, and governor can “look forward and think about how we’re going to deal with after-school funding long-term,” Scharff said.

If an alternative source of funding cannot be secured, the most obvious effect will be on the 34,000 students who currently attend CCLC-funded after-school programs, Siebert acknowledged, but it’s far from the only impact.

“These aren’t communities that can necessarily sustain these programs through fee-base,” Siebert said of Albany’s five program centers. “We have plenty of fee-base programs that are doing well and are vibrant and they are in communities that can sustain them. These five communities cannot.”

The Albany School District and YMCA have spent five years investing in the professional development of people who staff the extended-day programs, Seibert said, and they may suddenly have to do away with 60 employees.

“To be honest with you, in the Capital District, in our YMCA, we have folks now who are already putting in their notice,” Seibert said. “They’re not waiting. They can’t wait until June. We are already beginning to see staff leaving us, which is not good for the children. They’ve built relationships with these staff, not only this program year, but for years because some of the staff has been with these programs for the duration.”

—Nicole Klaas

nklaas@metroland.net

Showing their support: Advocates for Hossain and Aref gather outside the U.S. Courthouse

Activists “occupy” lawmakers’ offices to demand that their elected representatives get America out of Iraq

Peace activist and Vietnam veteran Elliot Adams knew before arriving at the Albany office of U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) March 12 that his visit likely would end with his arrest, or at least some sort of run-in with the law. And despite that, Adams said that he and the 15 other local activists engaged in a very pleasant, albeit disappointing, meeting with Clinton’s staff. According to activist Bob Alft, the meeting was cordial even though they were informed that the senator would not take the action they had requested and vote against funding for the Iraq War. After the meeting, instead of leaving the Leo O’Brien federal building, four of the activists, including Adams, refused to vacate the premises and read the names of Americans and Iraqis who have been killed during the war that is now approaching its fourth anniversary.

The four protesters who were ticketed took their action as part of the Occupation Project, a campaign sponsored by Voices for Creative Non-Violence. VCNV was founded by Kathy Kelly, a nationally recognized activist and cofounder of the defunct peace group Voices From the Wilderness. Protests in lawmakers’ offices resulting in the arrests or ticketing of protesters have been taking place all over the country, thanks to the efforts of VCNV, who want to keep the pressure on officials to end the Iraq war. Protesters also have performed “occupations” in the offices of Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain.

Kelly said that it is important to remind officials that the Democratic majority was elected on a mandate to end the Iraq War, and that they need to deliver.

“For the first time in my life,” said Kelly, who waged a campaign to heighten awareness of the suffering inflicted on the Iraqi people during the trade embargos of the ’90s, “the public is on my side. It’s like trying on a different pair of shoes. Seventy percent of the public now disapproves of how President Bush has conducted this war. When we first started, we couldn’t get the word ‘Iraq’ into the newspapers. There was zero mention of the economic war waged. . . . Now the public knows very clearly there is tremendous suffering going on in Iraq. I think that one of the reasons elected representatives are trying to figure out what to do is they know we are not representing an eccentric, offbeat, fringe perception.”

Alft said he appreciated speaking with a Clinton representative about the senator’s decision to not vote against funding the Iraq War. And, he said, he appreciates her promise to end the war in 2009 if elected president. But he wants action now. “Her position is something that is being molded, as far as I can tell, and she will vote for the supplemental spending bill,” he said. Alft also said that Clinton’s representative told him that Clinton will not vote against the spending because if President George Bush sends troops to Iraq, they would be left without funding. Alft countered that he thinks the Pentagon would not send troops anywhere without funding.

Adams said that he is not sure whether his protest has been effective, but regardless, he felt bound to take action against an unjust war. “My war was Vietnam, when 20,000 of us were dead KIAs [killed in action]; the White House was talking about an unwinnable war and looking for a way out. Thirty thousand more of us died while they were trying to find an exit strategy.”

According to Adams, if politicians don’t start to stand on principle rather than politics, the Iraq War will not end. “I am tired of seeing these exit strategies. There are only two exit strategies, and those are ships and planes.”

—David King

dking@metroland.net

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