Archived: The Educational System in the United States: Case Study Findings

After-School Activities
For many students the school day ends by 2:30 p.m., but students vary widely
as to when they actually leave school, as well as in the degree to which the
remaining hours of the day are structured and planned. How they spend their
time after school depends on the availability of community activities, personal as-
pirations, family finances, the encouragement and involvement of parents, and
peer influence. Some lead remarkably complex lives and may appear as harried
as their corporate parents; others may focus on just one or two activities, while
others seldom engage in organized activities outside of school. Here are two por-
traits from our interviews, describing the use of after-school time:
I spend about 2 hours hanging out with my friends. If I get home about 3
p.m., I eat—you know, anything I can find, then watch TV, cartoons mostly,
till about 5 o’clock. Then I go outside for a little while and play ball with
friends, then I play video games and then go to sleep. (Male student, South
Central)
I stay in school until about 4 or 4:30 p.m. because I have to study for the
academic decathlon, or I go to the computer lab to finish a project. I also take
classes at the university, so I have projects I have to complete. Other days I
might have to go to pom-pom practice or swimming practice. I usually get
home after 4:30 p.m. I relax a little by listening to classical or soft rock music

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or looking at TV for about an hour . . . . At about 6 p.m. I start my home-
work, and I finish about 9 p.m. (Female student, Uptown)
For parents of adolescents, knowing that a child’s after-school time is spent in
planned school or community activities serves multiple purposes. In addition to
providing worthwhile activities for their adolescents, working parents, likely to ar-
rive home after 5 or 6 p.m., hope that organized after-school activities will keep
children ‘‘off the streets.’’ As one mother of children in Springdale said, ‘‘I’ve tried
to have my kids in different activities, to keep them out of trouble.’’ Many parents
expressed fears about adolescent use of unsupervised leisure time. Recent studies
from the National Center for Juvenile Justice show that the peak hours for juve-
nile crime are 3 to 6 p.m., the period between school closing and parents’ arrival
home.
Custodial daycare programs that provide supervision for students during this pe-
riod of time are most common at the elementary level in the United States, exist
in some middle schools, and disappear by high school. By early adolescence most
after-school programs, both in the schools and those in the community, are inter-
est based. The hope is to engage student participation. One middle school parent
described an array of after-school programs in her community from 2:30 to 4:00
p.m. that included ‘‘a homework program for math and reading, computer class,
science class, music, and tap dance. And if they don’t participate in the things
here at the school, then at 4:00 p.m. there are park district programs.’’
For students in wealthier neighborhoods, after-school activities often include a
range of private lessons, from ballet to violin to figure skating. Again, a strategic
focus on the future rather than strong interest on the part of the student may
drive the choice of after-school activities, and parents in affluent neighborhoods
initiate this process for their children at quite young ages. Middle school teachers
in these communities spoke of students missing school for activities that parents
felt took precedence and of the pressure students experience not only to keep
up with demanding schedules but also to meet parental expectations that they
will distinguish themselves in areas of individual talent and interest. A mother de-
scribes her seventh-grade son’s time after school:
On Mondays he takes guitar lessons. He is a member of a traveling ice hockey
team and has been on the team for 4 years. They have practices during the
week, generally in the evenings, anywhere from 6:30 to 10:00 p.m. Then on
weekends they have ice hockey games. He also has a paper route on Wednes-
days. I help him get his papers delivered. With my husband he’s gotten into
biking and is competing in different events. He sets his own goals. He’s trying
to do century rides-bike 100 miles and you earn a badge . . . He’s building
his own bike . . . . He has a lot of friends over after school . . . . He just
did a video with a friend for his social studies class that took about 4 days

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to script. It was the story of the Lewis and Clark adventure . . . . On Thurs-
days he stays for math club. He was one of the competitors at the state math
and science academy and he placed . . . . Sundays we go to church together,
and Wednesday nights I teach a group of seventh-graders from our church,
who come to our home. (Mother, King Junior High)
Another area of after-school time is additional coursework, and several advanced
high school students spoke of courses taken at nearby colleges, either on their
own or through special programs. A number of minority students spoke of orga-
nized supplementary programs aimed at encouraging their path toward college.
A 16-year-old Hispanic student in West City described his after-school time, this
way:
After school, I am taking another class at (the state university), calculus 3. So
that is 2 hours, and then I come home and do the same thing. That is only
on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays after school I have
to go to (another university) for another program, Upward Bound . . . . It is
a program for minorities. We get helped a lot. We can take field trips to a
lot of universities . . . . We go to other places, like Washington, DC and Ha-
waii. Tuesdays and Thursdays, we get a tutor, mostly math.
An African-American freshman from Metro City described a similar program at a
nearby university, where he took classes on weekends and spent 6 weeks in the
summer. Students involved in these activities seemed highly enthusiastic, but ex-
pressed concern that not all students had such opportunities nor took advantage
of them when they were available. Enrollment processes seem somewhat hap-
hazard or at least not obvious to all eligible adolescents, and students spoke
largely of having been given individual encouragement by teachers, who identified
those who might benefit and provided the information necessary for registration.