21st Century Community Learning Center

Program Description:

The 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) After School Program Grant serves as a supplementary program that can enhance state or local reform efforts to improve student academic achievement and support overall student development. According to the U.S. Department of Education (USDE), the purpose of the program is to create community learning centers that provide academic enrichment opportunities for children. A community learning center is an entity that assists students outside school hours or when school is not in session to complement the student’s regular academic program. The 21st CCLC funds will create and expand out-of-school-time programs that offer extended learning opportunities for children and their families.

Title IV, Part B, specifies that 21st CCLC funds are to be used to provide opportunities for communities to establish or expand activities in community learning centers that do the following:

• Provide opportunities for academic enrichment, including intervention services to help students to meet state and local student academic achievement standards in the core academic subjects of mathematics, reading, science, and social studies.
• Offer students a broad array of additional services, programs, and activities, such as youth development activities; art, music, and recreation programs; technology education programs; and character education programs, all designed to reinforce and complement the regular academic program of participating students.
• Offer families of students served by community learning centers opportunities for literacy and related educational development.

Description of Allowable Activities:

Activities provided by the After School Programs may include but are not limited to the following types of activities, which must be offered in each of the four components, as listed below:

• Academic assistance: These are services and activities that support all educational areas, as needed, to promote student achievement and success in their school experiences. Programs should create exciting intrinsic motivation to sustain constant student participation.
• Enrichment: These are services and activities that provide positive social, cultural, recreational, interpersonal skills, health and wellness, and experiences to enrich and expand students’ understanding of life and involvement in community.
• Family and parental support services: These are services and activities that support and help to increase the participation of parents in the students’ educational experience.
• College and workforce readiness: These are services and activities that promote workforce awareness, job and/or college readiness, skills training, preparation for the workforce, and assistance in the attainment of employment and/or funding for college.