UPDATE: House votes to increase funding for afterschool!

SPETEMBER 14TH 2017:

From the Afterschool Alliance:

“The House of Representatives voted yesterday evening to increase funding for afterschool programs by $100 million next year….This vote is a resounding, meaningful victory for America’s children and families, and a clear repudiation by Congress of President Trump’s unwise and short-sighted budget proposal, which would have zeroed out federal funding for afterschool and summer learning programs.

Last night’s vote brings the House appropriation for 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) to $1.1 billion, the level authorized in the Every Student Succeeds Act for Fiscal Year 2018. It is an increase over what the House Appropriations Committee included in its Labor, Health and Human Services appropriation
and further proof of the strong congressional support for afterschool and summer learning programs, which keep kids safe, inspire them to learn and help working families…

Even with this increase, the House appropriation is less than the $1.192 billion the Senate Appropriations Committee passed for 21st CCLC next year, which is equal to Fiscal Year 2017 funding for 21st CCLC. The afterschool community will work with budget negotiators on both sides of the aisle to convince them to adopt
the Senate Appropriations Committee’s funding for 21st CCLC in Fiscal Year 2018.”

Thank you to the Arizona Representatives who voted in support of the Lowey amendment:

• Representative Tom O’Halleran, District 1
• Representative Raúl Grijalva, District 3
• Representative Ruben Gallego, District 7
• Representative Kyrsten Sinema, District 9

And thank you to everyone who called and wrote their members of Congress and asked them to save afterschool! You did it!