A selfless partnership makes an after-school program soar

With 37 libraries and more than 9 million individual visits a year, the Broward County Library system in South Florida has met and overcome more than its share of challenges. A few years ago, when I was the system’s planning coordinator, small neighborhood branches found themselves facing a unique test. They were victims of their own success.

The infusion of computers was the culprit. After school, the libraries’ staffs were overwhelmed by the press of children clamoring to get their hands on a keyboard. “When’s my turn?” the children would chant, only to play games once they got it. With a patron-staff ratio of 30:1, frustrated staffers tried—and failed—to introduce the kids to Web sites that offer homework help.

Fast-forward to 2005. After school, children still fill these neighborhood libraries. The computer remains the carrot, but now the children are engaged in a purposeful education program. An activity coordinator greets them, groups them by grade level (K–5), takes attendance, and distributes snacks. Teachers supervise and provide homework assistance, reading practice, and—yes—computer skill building. Children now settle down to do their homework, access Internet sites for help, read and discuss books, and present book reviews on PowerPoint. Waiting time has been transformed into learning time. “When’s my turn?” has become, “What are we going to learn today?”

What happened? Plenty. The road from chaos to order began with a focused discussion among branch heads and youth services librarians in the spring of 2000. They described the challenges and brainstormed solutions. One thing everyone agreed on was the need for additional staff to cope with the after-school surge. We identified potential partners and invited them to join the effort, and they willingly responded.

The director of the school district’s after-school program, Mary Johnson, designed a special curriculum. She promoted it to school principals, trained teachers, and agreed to evaluate the project. The public schools were soon our strongest allies. Administrators and teachers applauded a free program that offered time to practice reading and opportunities to learn beyond the school day.

A nonprofit drop-out prevention agency recruited and screened prospective staff members, hired a project director, procured supplies, and administered the payroll. Broward County Library provided sites, learning resources, and workshops on library resources for the new team. Three generous foundations provided start-up funding.

Broward County Library launched Afterschool @ your library, as the program is called, in January 2001. Initially it served 90 children at three libraries. A state grant let us expand the program to five libraries during the next school year. Since then, funding for the project has been provided by the tax-based Children’s Services Council of Broward County (CSC). CSC’s support enabled us to bring the program to 10 libraries and serve as many as 300 at-risk children a day. Under the energetic leadership of Sandra Doubleday, a former school media specialist and English teacher, the program is healthier than ever.

Making the program work involved a real paradigm shift for the public library staff. “I feel like the principal of a school!” says Simone Primus, head of a small, 4,000-square-foot branch. Thirty to 50 children race to her library after the dismissal bell rings at an elementary school down the street. The children, Primus attests, are not only involved, but they are happy, too—proud of their reading, their computer expertise, and their library.

To our surprise, honors began to flow our way. Florida’s Division of Library and Information Services named the program one of three Exemplary Projects. The National Association of Counties gave it an achievement award.

What’s the take-home lesson here? For me, it was the realization that it “takes a village” to make a project of this sort work. Its simplicity is its strength: all the partners are doing what they already do well. The libraries provide administration and free learning resources, experienced educators design the curriculum, a well-managed nonprofit tackled administrative tasks before handing them off to the library, and an independent government agency funds the program. In one form or another, resources like these exist in every community. All it takes to bring them together is a shared vision—the success of our children, our future.