Weekly Media Roundup -- September 3, 2014

AT&T Gives $1 Million to Girls Who Code (The Daily Beast, National)

Late last month, AT&T donated $1 million to Girls Who Code, a nonprofit organization dedicated to inspire, educate, and equip girls with computing skills. Founder and CEO Reshma Saujani told the Daily Beast, “These are girls who are facing bullying or obesity, or depression, and they’re building apps to conquer that social ill that they’re seeing in society. That’s powerful to see.” In the program, girls learn the basics of computer science, including learning the programming languages of Python and JavaScript, robot programming, JavaScript library jQuery, and have even dabbled with HTML and CSS. “I definitely want to go into computer science now,” 16 year-old student Trinity Lawrence told the Daily Beast. She continued, “After this, I’m going to try to get into iOS programming and learn how to make apps mostly for Apple and Android. But not to make money or to create the next Flappybird; I just want to lean more.”

Back to School With Lots More After (Downtown Express, New York)

Starting in September, 78,000 middle schoolers will have access to afterschool activities in 562 schools across the city, from 3  to 6 p.m., five days a week, thanks to the mayor’s $145 million afterschool expansion. “This year, what this mayor is doing – nobody has done this before, anywhere, ever,” Manhattan Youth afterschool program director Theseus Roche told the Downtown Express. Manhattan Youth is receiving six new contracts for additional afterschool programs for middle school students thanks to the influx of funding. Manhattan Youth’s afterschool programs include literacy, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), physical activity and leadership development tracks for students.

The Detroit Bus Company integrates With Detroit Public Schools to Help Bus Kids to After-School Programs (Metro Times, Michigan)

The Detroit Bus Company, a business started by buying old school buses from Ferndale Public Schools, is getting ready to launch a new venture—transporting kids in Southwest Detroit to afterschool programs. Detroit Bus Company founder Andy Didorosi told the Metro Times, “We're acting as both a ride home and a new opportunity for kids to get to these after-school programs and then get home safely. Before, you basically had to choose between your after-school program or your ride home.”  This is first year that the program is integrated with Detroit Public Schools.

Students Prep for School Year at Easton’s Chesapeake Multicultural Resource Center (Easton Star Democrat, Maryland)

Last week some 100 afterschool students “shopped” for school supplies at the Chesapeake Multicultural Resource Center’s Back to School Night.  Students honed both financial literacy and reading skills by choosing and purchasing their own school supplies. In addition to shopping for school supplies, representatives from the local Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Talbot Community Center’s ice skating programs, the YMCA and Chesapeake College’s English as a Second Language classes gave parents additional information. “By the end of the evening, students had new friends in the wings, new hobbies to try, opportunities to test aptitude and skill, along with plenty of stuff to take to the first day of school,” the Easton Star Democrat reports.