URGENT! Don’t let them Cancel Extracurriculars!
Contact your Fairfax County Supervisor and the Chairman now!
Did you know that the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors (BoS) has proposed to eliminate funding for the Middle School After-School Program (ASP) and summer programs next year? This program costs barely $4 million from the BoS but serves 23,000 students (and their families) across the 26 middle schools in Fairfax County. If you live or work in Fairfax County, contact them now to urge against this.
If this plan goes ahead it would eliminate all afterschool activities from basketball, drama club, chess club, Math Counts, and Model UN, leaving only cross country and track and field at any middle school. These are activities where students make new friends and learn new skills, preparing them for high school. For some students, these after school activities are lifelines that keep them engaged during the school year as well as during the summer.
My own kids took advantage of these programs at their middle school, participating in Dungeons and Dragons, Retro-Computing, Science Olympiad, drama, and cooking classes. My son earned regional and state medals in Science Olympiad, which set him up to be part of the team in his high school, and enabled him to hone his engineering skills that he is now using in college.
For my daughter, she developed friendships and skills in all of her after school activities. In particular, Frost Minds Matter helped develop resilience to change while encouraging her to support others in her school. Not only that, but she was the sole middle-schooler at the Minds Matter gala presenting their work to adults. This means she gained impressive presentation skills, as well.
For other children in the county, these after school programs offer connections to trustworthy adults, and also provide opportunities for students to get help with homework or develop networks that help them to succeed. These advantages were outlined in the Fairfax County Youth Survey. The survey identifies that having trusted adults to talk to and participating in after school activities offer “protective factors” to better manage stress, make better choices, and develop healthy habits. Also, participation of Middle school students in extracurricular programming gives those students a leg up in high school where the list of afterschool activities grows nearly exponentially.
Without such programs, students may be unsupervised for hours at a time. When left to their own devices students are more likely to engage in negative behaviors and activities, according to studies conducted shortly after these programs began. It is ironic that the BoS is considering cutting these programs to increase safety, which begs the question: safety for whom? Will middle school students and their families be safer with these cuts?
Nearly all of these afterschool programs are free of cost to all students. If these programs are cancelled, 23,000 students per year will miss these opportunities to grow, learn, and make connections. They can form lifelong friendships, as well as develop skills, interests, and hobbies that will serve them a lifetime.
If you live or work in Fairfax County, please take a few minutes to contact the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, and urge them NOT to eliminate middle school afterschool and summer programs and sign this petition.
Find contact information for your Fairfax County Board of Supervisor and the Chairman of the Board
Find contact information for your Fairfax County School Board member and the three At-Large members.
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