Policy Description
In order to provide access to out of school time programs for all students who are at-risk in DC, the District needed at least $25 million in the budget for programs. PAVE brought together parents, providers, and community advocates to advocate for this increase. This included meeting with elected officials, testifying at public hearings, signing and sharing petitions, social media campaigns and blog posts. Because the office that would spend these funds was new, we also needed to ensure that we had a plan for how to implement the funding. We successfully secured $20.25 million in funding, and surveyed over 1,000 families in DC about what types of programs they wanted to see and what barriers existed in accessing programs.
Policy / Coalition Partners
DC Alliance for Youth Advocates, DC Fiscal Policy Insitute, Education Reform Now, DC SCORES, Kid Power, and many other OST program providers.
Key Lessons Learned
Bringing diverse perspectives to advocate together was extremely powerful in influencing elected officials. In the future, PAVE will create plans for different scenarios, do more role mapping in the initial parts of the campaign for various partners, and be more clear about how they arrived at budget numbers.
Resources
OST Programs one-pagerKerry Savage's budget hearing testimony
Maya Martin's budget hearing testimony
Contact
Kerry Savage, Policy AnalystMembers
Parents Amplifying Voices in Education
Year
2018
