On October 7, the House approved, by voice vote, a resolution (H. Res. 809) supporting the goals and ideals of “Lights On Afterschool!”, a national celebration of after-school programs on October 14, 2004. Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI) sponsored the resolution.
According to the resolution, “High-quality after-school programs support working families by ensuring that their children are safe and productive after the regular school day ends.” The resolution notes that more than 28 million children in the United States have parents who work outside the home, and 14.3 million children have no place to go after school. The resolution states that “Lights On Afterschool!” is a celebration that “promotes the critical importance of high-quality after-school programs in the lives of children, their families, and their communities.”
Explaining that “Lights On Afterschool!” brings attention to the need for “high-quality after-school programs,” Rep. Jon Porter (R-NV) said that these programs “are an important part of many American students’ lives. High-quality after-school programs provide safe, challenging, and fun learning experiences that help children and youth develop their social, emotional, physical, cultural, and academic skills.”
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) agreed. “Most of us think of these programs, first, as offering children critical opportunities to develop their social, emotional, physical, cultural, and academic skills. And good programs do. But after-school programs are especially indispensable to the majority of families in which parents are in the workforce. For these families, after-school programs mean that they will not have to worry nearly as much about where their children are and what their children are doing between the school bell and the dinner bell. That is the time when most teenagers…are involved in crime or when pregnancy occurs because there is nothing for these children to do after school.”
