When Charlotte McDaniel’s granddaughter Jadah, a 7-grader at Wyvetter Younge School of Excellence, strolled up to her one morning and offered to make breakfast, you would’ve thought McDaniel heard the funniest joke ever told.
“I thought, ‘I’m not eating your breakfast,’” McDaniel said. “Well, she fixed a buffet-style breakfast.”
There were eggs, sausage – the works. She even set the table. The young chef learned her culinary skills at her school’s after-school program.
But that program might not exist next year.
Wyvetter Younge School of Excellence, East St. Louis Senior High School, Mason-Clark Middle School, Lincoln Middle School and Dr. Katie Harper-Wright Elementary are all set to lose their after-school programs as their funding runs out.
If these five programs close, just two of the district’s after-school programs for elementary, middle and high school students will be left, and approximately 300 students will be impacted.
Those children are not only losing opportunities to learn life skills like cooking and swimming, Younge site director Angela McCorkle and families said. District 189’s after-school programs also provide tutoring, hot meals, a safe place and mental health safeguards for entire families, they said.
“For me to tell (the kids) we may not have it, it’s a heartbreak,” McCorkle said. “They cry.”
Funding loss at center of potential closures
East St. Louis School District 189 typically uses federal 21st Century Community Learning Center Grants, which supports programming in high-poverty areas, to fund its after-school programming.
Those grants have been running out, and District 189 has been struggling to find alternative funding sources, said Sydney Stigge-Kaufman, the district’s executive director of communications.
This led to the after-school programs at Officer, Avant and Dunbar Elementary Schools and the SIUE Charter School closing ahead of this school year. It’s also why five schools’ programs are now in jeopardy.
In fiscal year 2024, the Illinois State Board of Education promised more 21st Century grant money than it was allotted to disperse to schools. It used federal pandemic relief money to close the gap, and all grantees received their originally-promised funding on schedule, the state board’s Director of Communications Jackie Matthews said.
Susan Stanton is the executive director of ACT Now, a coalition that advocates for quality after-school programming in Illinois. She said the state board of education’s error resulted in more programs than the limited federal funding pool could support, and fewer opportunities to secure such funding.
“Essentially, they manufactured a fiscal cliff that wasn’t there before,” Stanton said.
That’s why ACT Now and other advocates pushed for the state to direct $50 million in fiscal year 2025’s budget for after-school programs, she said.
They were successful, but with just a few months left in the fiscal year, the money has yet to be released.
Matthews says, though, that 21st Century grants were meant only to be start-up grants.
“The U.S. Department of Education did not design the program to be a permanent source of funding because it only allows grants to be renewed once,” Matthews said. “The availability of renewals and new grant competitions depends on the year-to-year availability of funds.”
Matthews said the state board released a new $10 million 21st Century grant competition in late June 2024 that prioritized new programs or those that hadn’t received a 21st Century grant in more than a decade. It garnered more than $34.5 million in applications.
At that time, District 189 had already received a renewal on their grant that funded after-school programs at its charter school, Avant Elementary, Officer Elementary and Dunbar Elementary. That ended, and the district didn’t receive the new 21st Century grant opportunity.
“Although we have high poverty and high need, we didn’t meet those other criteria,” Stigge-Kaufman said.
The four programs ended in late June. Fortunately, Stigge-Kaufman said, the district was able to revive the after-school programs at Avant and Officer in winter 2025 once they became community schools.
Now, as another 21st Century grant runs out, the district stands to lose its five other after-school programs for elementary through high school students. So far, Stigge-Kaufman said, another 21st Century grant competition hasn’t yet been released.
What District 189 could have received of the $50 million in state funding that hasn’t been released may not have been enough to save District 189’s after-school programs, the district’s Director of Pupil Services Lori Chalmers and Stigge-Kaufman said. But, they said, it would have at least given them another avenue to try.
After school programs are a 'safe haven'
After-school programs can be a highly-effective form of violence prevention, said Syerra Meadows-Haynes, network manager for the East St. Louis Youth Development Alliance. The Alliance is a coalition that contains many out-of-school programs in the area.
Meadows-Haynes told the story of a local single mom with four children. The mom’s oldest son, then a teenager, was approached to be in a gang. He declined, and the mom knew it was only a matter of time before her younger son faced a similar conversation.
“She just wanted to make sure that they were safe, so she enrolled them in one of the programs in East St. Louis,” Meadows-Haynes said.
“This was years ago. She was so happy with the staff and the programs that they were running within this after-school center that she eventually joined the staff of that same after-school program.”
Chalmers said after-school programming acts as a “safe haven” in many other ways, too.
Homework help keeps students on the path to academic success, she said, and the program also guards against the heavily-researched harmful effects of too much social media use on adolescents.
“At 21st Century, I may do a little bit of running, I may do a little bit of dancing, you do things that you’re not typically exposed to. But at home, you’re just scrolling on the internet all day … you’re not socializing with your peers,” Chalmers said.
That loneliness is where depression can set in, McCorkle said. It’s not just the health of the students to worry about if the after-school programs get cut, but that of the entire family as well, many involved in the programs, including Ceonica Scott, say.
Scott’s older children attend the Younge School of Excellence’s 21st Century Program. Her son in first grade is just one year away from being old enough to attend. Scott also volunteers with the program, as does McDaniel.
“Being a single mom, I have to do everything. It’s busy nonstop,” Scott said.
That little bit of time when her older children are at the after-school program is so valuable, she explained. It’s when she can rest, squeeze in some self care, catch up on housework, all little things that help her to be a better parent, she said. Plus, both Scott and her children can get connected to community resources through 21st Century.
Uncertainty remains
As of now, other after-school programs in the greater East St. Louis community are able to sustain themselves with current funding, said Meadows-Haynes. She also said many of these programs may be able to absorb the additional demand that comes from the district’s programs being shuttered.
The concern is how long these programs can last, Meadows-Haynes said.
“If there are not as many opportunities for us to apply to grants, that can affect us long-term,” Meadows-Haynes said. “And then, if this becomes a cycle of not releasing funding, if that continues to happen, that will affect us long-term.”
The Youth Development Alliance is advocating with ACT Now for state funding to be released and rallying behind House Bill 3082. This bill calls for $50 million for after-school programs and community schools in the upcoming state budget.
Lack of legislative intent is commonly cited as the reason for the delay in getting this fiscal year’s $50 million out the door. Stanton said the bill includes very specific language on how this money should be used, leaving little room for confusion.
Chalmers and Stigge-Kaufman said the district is trying to find other funding sources to continue its after-school programs.
Editor's note: This story was originally published by the Belleville News-Democrat. Madison Lammert is a reporter for the BND, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
