Local Brookline luminaries, educators, and concerned citizens met on Thursday, April 30 at the Brookline Teen Center to discuss the results of National Institute on Out-of-School Time’s latest report, presented by Brookline Community Foundation. A culmination of a multi-year effort, the report shed light on discrepancies in educational access in Brookline and prompted a conversation for solutions among the town’s education change makers.
Out-of-School Time refers to educational and personal growth opportunities students have (or don’t have) outside of the classroom. This might be an academic camp over the summer or a sports program in the hours before school begins every morning. Often these experiences are held in school buildings or community settings and provide not just intellectual stimulation but social connections, community contacts and exposure to new experiences as well. These opportunities are crucial for student growth, but many Brookline children face obstacles such as economic access, transportation, and language barriers.
According to the report, by sixth grade, middle-class children spend 6,000 more hours learning than kids born into poverty. “For many young people and families in Brookline, the opportunities look very different depending on where they live in town,” said Daniel Michaud Weinstock, the primary author of the NIOST report, during his debriefing. “Cost is the number one deterrent for families in selecting an out of school program.” And the barriers don’t end there. Food, transportation, cultural competency, and safety also factor into these decisions.
Tuesday’s event began with Brookline Community Foundation executive director Jenny Amory, who introduced a video produced by ADW Video Productions for BCF. The video features Brookline High School students giving personal accounts of how Out-of-School Time benefited them. Video excerpts were taken from interviews for the 9th Brookline Youth Awards and featured BHS students Satchel Tsai, Harris Sheikh, Saya Ameli Hajebi, Allison Switalski and Richard Desir. Desir was awarded the 2019 Brookline Youth of the Year in April.
The luncheon meeting included a panel discussion moderated by Alicia Hsu of the Brookline Community Foundation Board of Trustees. She spoke with Matt Cooney, executive director of the Brookline Teen Center; Shoma Haque, executive director of Steps to Success; Leigh Jackson, acting director of Brookline Recreational Department, and Daniel Michaud Weinstock, the primary author of the NIOST report.
During the panel, these education trailblazers discussed the disparities they notice in Brookline daily and the ways they feel would best address them. Cooney mentioned that special needs students aren’t receiving special programming in most Out-of-School platforms, which makes it challenging for them to participate. Jackson pledged to make the application process for scholarships more straightforward and more coherent for non-English speakers. Weinstock said NIOST would continue working directly with low-income Brookline residents to identify their needs.
Despite the challenges in creating an equitable playing field, the atmosphere in the NIOST meeting was energetic and positive. Many believe that Brookline is good at coming together to support its own.
“We’re a very lucky community to have not just money but people. The people we have and the way they approach their jobs” says Julie Marcus, president of the Brookline Community Foundation Board of Trustees. “You can always raise more money, but I think that as a community we have the intellectual, the social, and the community resources.”
