Educators value after-school program Trump wants to nix

CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio (AP) — As one group of squealing, chanting students smack a ball into the pavement in a heated game of four square, another finishes an after-school writing lesson inside Circleville Elementary School.

Later in the library, an instructor guides other students in a role-playing activity on how to handle criticism from a sassy friend.

The children already snacked on breakfast bars and apple juice. And there will be more study time before buses take them home, some to the small city down the road and others to farther parts of these Ohio hills.

This after-school enrichment is funded largely by the federal 21st Century Community Learning Centers, a $1.2 billion program serving about 1.6 million low-income students nationwide that President Donald Trump proposes eliminating. His administration says there’s “no demonstrable evidence” that such programs improve students’ performance in school.

But a 2016 report from the Education Department, issued when Barack Obama was president, credited the funding with aiding state efforts to close the achievement gap and found the program “touches students’ lives in ways that will have far-reaching academic impact.”

Fourth-grade teacher Jennifer Walters said she sees that in Circleville, the heart of a county that solidly backed Trump in November.

“It shows drastically even in the amount of homework we get returned,” Walters said.

In Concord, New Hampshire, junior Elida Ntirenganya got after-school assistance with a tough bit of math — a necessity on her planned path toward medical school — and elevated both her grade and her optimism.

“If I go in a classroom and I don’t understand what the teacher is saying, not all hope is lost,” Ntirenganya said.

Students aren’t the only beneficiaries, said Susan Farrelly, who runs the Concord programs.

“Parents can stay at work until 6 o’clock and know their students are happy, safe and learning,” Farrelly said.

The funding program was created in 1994 as part of federal education legislation and then expanded under the 2001 No Child Left Behind legislation, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush. Schools, community groups and faith-based organizations get funding through a competitive process, and the programs typically offer targeted academic intervention and other activities.