Weekly Media Roundup: March 20, 2024

Matthew McConaughey and ASU Are Helping an Arizona School District. Here's How, Arizona Republic (Arizona)

Matthew McConaughey and Arizona State University (ASU) have teamed up to help a Phoenix-area school district apply for federal afterschool funding included in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The actor created the Greenlights Grant Initiative to help connect school districts with grant writing support so they can secure the new funds, especially rural districts with fewer dedicated resources for grant writing. ASU Professor Sarah Lindstrom Johnson is leading a team of students to write grant applications to create afterschool programs at five campuses in the Glendale Elementary School District. “I thought I was addressing a really important gap in making sure the access to these funds — even access to the competition for these funds — is equitable,” Lindstrom Johnson told the Arizona Republic.

Durham Public Schools Opens Applications Monday For New After-School Care Program 'Lottery' Amid Staffing Shortages, WRAL (North Carolina)

Parents in Durham, North Carolina now must enter a lottery system to enroll their children in the Durham Public Schools afterschool program. “Durham aftercare going to a lottery, to me, feels like the white flag of surrender of actually fixing the problem that has been going on for years now,” parent Katherine Goldstein told WRAL. The afterschool program increased in popularity after the public school system changed the elementary school schedule to an earlier release time of 2:15 pm. Nearly 300 students are on the current wait list.

California Schools Face Funding Uncertainty as COVID-19 Relief Expires, KQED (California)

In addition to federal COVID relief funding ending in September, many school districts across California are also grappling with staffing issues, declining enrollment, absenteeism, and budget constraints and need to find new funding sources for popular programs. “It’s not like the [2008] Great Recession, but I think the challenges are greater now,” Julien Lafortune, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California told KQED. “A lot of the academic progress we made was erased by the pandemic.” The San Bernardino City Unified School District in California used COVID relief funding to support free afterschool programming at each of its schools and plans to utilize state block grant money to offset funding cuts to the successful afterschool programs that have improved students’ grades and attendance.                       

New Esports Lounge Opens at Boys & Girls Club in Eastpointe, Roseville-Eastepointe Eastsider (Michigan)

Thanks to a partnership with the Detroit Red Wings hockey team and the Children’s Foundation, students at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan’s (BGCSM) Eastpointe Club now have access to an e-sports and gaming lounge. Two Detroit Red Wings players joined the ribbon cutting for the lounge, where students will learn to run tournaments through EliteGamingLIVE, a league that leverages e-sports to spark student interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). “This partnership will absolutely bring about positive changes, creating new opportunities and pathways for the youth not only in sports and technology, but with any career path they decide to take,” BGCSM President and CEO Shawn H. Wilson told the Roseville-Eastpointe Eastsider.