Of the 380,000 children between the ages of 5 and 14 in Dallas County, 84,900 attend an afterschool program. While many children are in the care of a guardian or family member, there are still over 100,000 children without adult supervision between 3 and 6 pm. Across Texas, the lack of access to quality afterschool programming has direct negative consequences for economic growth, academic success, food security, and public safety.
Objective
To improve access to afterschool programs across Dallas County, Dallas Afterschool seeks to understand both where current programs are located and where additional seats are needed. The tools on this website are a follow on to the Afterschool Access Map we developed in 2017; they enable the community to see where progress has been made and where work remains to be done. Equipped with this information, Dallas Afterschool can work with afterschool providers, public officials, schools, and funders to address gaps in afterschool availability and build on the strength of existing programs.
Key Findings
The mapping tools here have a wealth of information. Our core findings are described below:
There are 381,376 children in Dallas eligible for an afterschool program (eligibility is defined as being between the ages of 5 - 14). Only 22% of these children are enrolled in an afterschool program.
Program supply is not equitably distributed across Dallas County. Just over half (379) of all census tracts account for 97% of all afterschool programs. The remaining 266 census tracts account for only 3% of programs. Over 140,000 children live in those low supply areas.
A large number of children are living in areas where demand for programs is greater than supply. These areas experience higher poverty rates, lower median household incomes, and fewer afterschool programs compared to areas where the supply of available programs equals demand. These results are more striking in areas identified as high priority. The average household income in high priority neighborhoods is $46,728 compared to $97,075 in high supply areas. The child poverty rate is 33.7% compared to the city’s child poverty rate of 19%. Additionally, there are no programs for the 38,400 eligible children living in these priority census tracts.
In Dallas County only 5% of afterschool programs are free.
The average weekly cost of paid programs is $82 a week per child. In high supply areas, the average weekly cost of a program is $75 a week per child. In contrast, the average weekly cost of a program in high priority areas, which experience higher poverty rates, is $95 a week per child.
When we work together as a community, we can concentrate our efforts and resources in areas with high need. Using Dallas Afterschool’s 2017 Access Map, Dallas ISD and the City of Dallas made a concentrated effort to place programs where the need was the greatest. This has resulted in improvements in many neighborhoods. Further, Covid-19 relief funds have been used in many of the former priority neighborhoods to create new afterschool programs.