The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education is excited that Mayor Bowser’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget proposal includes additional investments to strengthen and expand access to afterschool opportunities for District children, youth, and families.
In addition to sustaining nearly $17 million in grantmaking funding for the DME’s OST Office, the FY24 budget proposal includes an additional $5 million to build “My Afterschool DC.” This additional investment would represent the first step in our bold vision toward:
- Creating guaranteed access to high-quality afterschool programming, which will be piloted and located in elementary schools across the District; and
- Filling targeted programmatic gaps across the District, for children and youth with the greatest needs, through strategic grantmaking.
My Afterschool DC would lay the foundation for our long-term vision that every elementary school student and family has a free afterschool option at their school as well as citywide programs to choose from. The system will be a one-stop shop for OST programs offered by a range of agencies, including the Office of Out of School Time Grants and Youth Outcomes (OST Office), the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR), and schools, and will thereby increase ease of access for families.
Through this newly created system, we seek to model and, over time, expand access to free of charge, high-quality OST programming at elementary schools, and to expand lottery-based access to OST programming across the District.
In addition to developing a user-friendly portal, similar to My School DC, the majority of the funding for My Afterschool DC ($3.1 million) will go directly to free afterschool programming in priority elementary schools.
If you have additional questions about My Afterschool DC, please contact Dr. Shontia Lowe, Executive Director of the Office of Out of School Time Grants and Youth Outcomes, at [email protected].
