An After-School Place for Kids

Children left home alone after school represent major casualties of welfare reform and the critical shortage of affordable child care in Los Angeles. Parents reentering the work force, or in job training, often are forced to leave small children with inadequate or even no supervision. A new L.A. County after-school enrichment program is aimed at this void. Promising supervision and help with homework in a safe environment, it is scheduled to start this year on 225 elementary school campuses that have large numbers of students who are on public assistance.

This major child care effort was approved Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors and will be paid for with a surplus resulting from the drop in welfare cases and with federal and state welfare dollars earmarked for child care. It is structured to emphasize learning rather than baby-sitting, in the manner of the widely praised L.A.’s Best program, operating in some city schools. Children will get extra instruction, tutoring, mentoring and access to computers.

So far, the county Department of Public Social Services has committed $74 million over three years to the new after-school program. This is a creative and welcome use of the county welfare windfall resulting from recipients’ transition from welfare to work.

An estimated 16,000 children will benefit when the programs start in July, in time for the new year-round calendar, and in September at the beginning of the traditional school year. Each campus will be limited initially to aiding 50 to 100 students, although the need is greater. The capacity should grow as Gov. Gray Davis and Sacramento make more after-school and child care money available. School officials should also seek help from and partnerships with businesses and philanthropies.

In Orange County, some school districts have been forming their own partnerships to bolster after-school activities. The Anaheim City School District plans to expand a pilot after-school program with the Anaheim Family YMCA to a large number of elementary schools. Santa Ana Unified recently received a federal grant to work with care providers to put programs at several schools.

In L.A. County, details on how children will be selected are being worked out by the Los Angeles school district and by the county Office of Education, which will oversee the after-school enrichment in 34 other school districts. The youngest children, those in the primary grades, should be targeted first.

This timely program, assuming it can be carried out quickly, answers a serious need.