An apparent victim of their own success, the after-school program will not be returning to Middleburgh Central School in the fall and will be scaled back in Sharon Springs.
The programs have been at both schools for four and a half years but officials at Cornell Cooperative Extension, which oversee the after-school programs, found out in late May that the programs would not receive funding for the fall.
Decreased funding for the Cobleskill-Richmondville program will cause program cutbacks in the fall.
The loss in funding in Middleburgh will leave 160 children without a program, said Deborah Colfer, Cooperative Extension after-school program director.
There were 100 children in grades kindergarten through ninth grade in the Sharon program.
Sharon has budgeted $20,000 for a scaled-back after-school program to be done “in house” and are still working on the details, according to school officials.
Middleburgh officials had budgeted some funds for the program early in the 2008-09 budget process but the monies were cut.
Because of personnel, supplies and transportation, the program costs about $1,400 a child, Ms. Colfer said. Transportation costs about $84,000 for the two schools.
Cooperative Extension officials will apply for monies in another round of funding in November, Ms. Colfer said.
While hopeful that some funding can be secured in the future for some sort of a program, Ms. Colfer is disappointed that there will be an interruption in two programs that have been very successful.
“We were extremely successful. Our programs did very well,” she said.
“It’s very much needed in our community,” she said, noting that the program helped students and parents.
The programs at MCS and Sharon ran from 3 to 6pm and helped parents until they got home from work, Ms. Colfer said. Now, parents will have to find avenues for childcare.
“It puts an extra burden on our working families,” she said.
The programs were originally approved to provide academic and enrichment in English language arts and math in both schools, Ms. Colfer said.
The original grant ran through June 30, 2008 and funding was available through the No Child Left Behind Act but the criteria changed and both schools came up short, she said.
She said that 281 schools applied for $143 million in funding.
There were three levels for funding. The top level was for schools on the failing list because of students not completing high school; the next level was for schools on the failing list because of failures in elementary schools and the bottom level was for all other schools.
Middleburgh and Sharon were in the bottom level in the highly competitive funding round, Ms. Colfer said.
She said that 60 percent of the funds went to schools in New York City, 10 percent went to schools in the cities of Buffalo, Syracuse, Yonkers and Rochester and the 30 percent went to schools through the rest of the state including Long Island.
In addition to the 160 students in grades kindergarten through eighth who were in the MCS program, there were 100 in the Sharon program, Ms. Colfer said.
Also affected by the loss in funding are 27 employees in both schools who will probably lose the part-time jobs, she said.
MCS Middle School Principal Maura Green was very “concerned and disappointed” with the loss of the program.
“It was a phenomenal resource,” she said. “I think it’s been a fantastic addition to the community.”
The program provided child care and academic assistance, she said. Every student in the middle school program had at least one hour of homework reinforcement a day from classroom teachers.
There were also clubs and other activities, Ms. Green said.
Now that the program is canceled, “there will be more kids with nothing to do” after school,” she said.
At C-R, Golding Elementary Principal Bonnie Tryon, who has helped coordinate that district’s after-school program since it was proposed eight years ago, said C-R can expect a cut of about 2.5 percent in state funding and also a decrease in federal funding.
Because of the cut in federal funds, C-R will not go ahead with a planned literacy and math program, she said.
There will probably also be a cutback in a program in which high school interns work in the after-school program. Cuts will also probably be made in equipment purchases.
There are about 140 children in the C-R program, which does not provide transportation.
The district, she said, has depended heavily on federal funding in the past and its funding was just a different blend this year.
The program, she added, would have been in jeopardy, like MCS and Sharon, if the funding mix was the same as in past years.
“It’s very distressing that our sister districts are caught in this situation,” Ms. Tryon said.
“Many students and staff come to depend on the after-school program to expand the learning day.”