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Extending Learning
VUE Number 16, Summer 2007

David Cicilline orange star Audio Clip 3
Mayor, Providence, Rhode Island

How would you characterize the state of after school in Providence now, and how does that compare with where you’d like it to be?
[1 minutes, 13 seconds]
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TEXT VERSION:

We have a system in place that’s fully operational as it relates to middle schools. We have five “after zones” that are up and running, that are ensuring that children have access to very high-quality after-school programs, free of charge, in every single area of the city. We’ve divided the city into five after zones, which are really campuses, and we’ve connected a middle school and a public library and a rec center and several other facilities so that kids in that neighborhood belong to a whole network of activities. And there’s a transportation system designed to accommodate their ability to move from the library to the rec center to their school or whatever.

So if you go to an after zone on any given day, there’s dance, and music, and poetry, and boxing, and a homework club, and everything else in between. It’s really exciting to see the kids involved in so many different kinds of activities and to see what a difference it’s making in their lives. We have more than 1,000 kids participating. So we’re in the early stages of a full program. It’s my hope that it will eventually reach as many middle school kids as are interested in participating, and then begin to look at how we create the same kind of opportunities for our high school students and our elementary school students.

But we have a really strong system, with very good quality standards with lots of partners--hundreds of partners that are doing the work. So I think it’s among the best in the nation. The challenge we face, of course, is how we sustain it. Because having built this great model that’s being recognized around the country as a really excellent model, we have to now develop, and we have begun to develop, a system to sustain it over the long term.