Law Funds Before-School Programs

It’s 6 a.m. and already some students are waiting on the front stoop of Fair Avenue Elementary School in North Hollywood, hours before the doors will open.

For a growing number of children whose parents work an early shift, the school day often begins here or on the school’s unsupervised playground.

Aiming to ensure that children have a safe place to go outside of school hours, a new state law provides funding to create before-school programs and expand after-school programs.

Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar), Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Roy Romer, school board President Caprice Young and other school officials gathered at Fair Avenue school Wednesday to tout the law’s benefits.

“If you drive by this school in the early morning, you will see students waiting outside for the door to open,” said Cardenas, who chairs the Assembly Budget Conference Committee. “This legislation will stop that from happening, so our children will have a safe place.”

The Before and After School Learning and Safe Neighborhoods Partnership Program sets aside $15 million in state funds for before-school homework help, supervised recreation and enrichment programs, said John Liechty, LAUSD assistant superintendent of extended-day programs. Of that amount, $6 million has been allocated to LAUSD elementary and middle schools.

Before-school programs, to be administered by the state education department, are expected to begin in January at 45 district elementary schools--including Fair Avenue--and 15 middle schools, Liechty said.