The Survey Says: Afterschool programs are crucial to a child’s education

The United States is facing an education crisis in afterschool education. Recent polling suggests that over 90% of parents believe that afterschool programs are crucial for their child’s education. Unfortunately, for most of these parents, high-quality traditional afterschool programs are often out of reach. A recent study published by The Afterschool Alliance found that more than 24.6 million children in the United States alone cannot join after-school programs.

Understanding the Problem

Among the reasons listed by parents for not sending their children to afterschool programs, there are four that genuinely highlight the difficulty that parents face when trying to give their kids a quality education:

Cost: Most parents cited the cost of afterschool programs as the most significant barrier to enrolling their child in a program. With some courses costing $3,600 per year, the cost is simply impossible to manage for many families.

Availability: More than 42% of polled parents reported that afterschool programs were unavailable in their community, indicating that nearly half of the children in this country cannot attend quality afterschool programs because there aren’t enough of them to meet their needs.

Transportation: Parents also indicated that transportation played a role in their inability to send their kids to afterschool programs. With some parents working one or two jobs to pay the bills, there isn’t time to get their kids out of the house. For other families who live in larger cities, parents worry about safe transport for their children because they don’t have access to a car.

Quality: Quality is another factor holding parents back from putting their children into more “affordable” afterschool programs. Most afterschool programs are more daycare than education, with kids just playing around for a few hours instead of learning something truly beneficial.

How MentorKids Provides Answers

Cost: MentorKids programs are FREE to our kids and families, thanks to the generosity of our partners, supporters ad friends.

Availability: Our vision is to create a network of Promise Neighborhoods across the Phoenix metro area, and then expand across Arizona and around the country. We are in the process of opening our fourth Promise Neighborhood in the heart of Maryvale.

Transportation: We work with schools to provide free transportation from our local schools to our afterschool programs whenever possible. And because we focus on serving a distinct neighborhood our programs are more convenient for our parents to access.

Quality: This is an area where MentorKids really stands out in comparison with other afterschool programs. Our staff and volunteers offer homework help, one-on-one and small group tutoring, and supplemental literacy and STEAM activities to help instill a love of learning and confidence in our kids’ abilities to excel in school. We focus on each of our three pillars, Academic Excellence, Spiritual Growth, and Leadership Development every day, and offer a continuum of age-appropriate support, coaching and tutoring from K-12th grades.