Program History: Discovery Center Museum has provided after school activities within the Rockford School District #205 for the past 10 years. The After School Achievement Program is provided to schools within the Rockford School District that are defined as Title One schools. These schools are all located in predominately low-income neighborhoods and have a high number of children on the free or reduced lunch program, and have been placed on a statewide Watch List due to their low academic test scores. This program runs from September-May each year. Currently Discovery Center serves as Lead Agency in five schools bringing our total involvement of providing mentoring, snacks, math, reading and science lessons to five schools within our district. We are serving more than 500 at-risk children on a weekly basis. 94.8% of the school’s student body are eligible for the free or reduced lunch program.
Program Goals: A basic guiding principle of our program is to provide a stable, safe environment, positive mentoring and lessons that foster success in school and the community at large. Our program helps children succeed, develop a positive self-image and stay in school by improving their English language, reading, math, science and creative skills. Our program also teaches social and personal life skills, team building, and exposes children to a wide variety of cultural experiences. An important aspect of our After School Achievement Program is the daily stable environment and positive mentoring provided by the teachers, program director and group leaders.
Funding: These after school programs are partially funded by the state of Illinois. Discovery Center provides approximately $100,000 of in-kind services for the five schools in which we serve as Lead Agency. This support is in the form of donated staff salaries, a free Family Nights at the museum for participating children and their families, materials, food, student incentives, contractual costs to other participating organizations, free admission to the museum for a field trip one time each year and free family memberships to the museum to all lead agency schools (approximately 500 families).
