In June 2005, the Connecting Schools and After-schools initiative distributed eight year-long "mini-grants" (ranging from $5,000 to $10,000) to local agencies. The funding was designed to allow agencies to strengthen their relationships with the schools that the children attending their after-school programs attend. The purpose of the "mini-grant" was to give agencies the support to reach their goals as well as to encourage innovation in this area and build sustainability so that relationships continue to grow in future years. The one-time mini-grant was designed to be an incentive for action without creating an expensive process that would be difficult to sustain in future years.
Since June, ten after-school programs (at 8 agencies) from the Connecting Schools and After-school initiative have strengthened their relationships with schools by working on projects specifically to enhance communication systems, facilitate joint decision making, increase curricular alignment, and share information about students and learning. In addition to the individual projects, the grantees are compiling valuable best practices that will benefit the out-of-school time field at large.
Here is a list of the schools and after-school programs who received grants and some of their encouraging accomplishments to date.
