DETROIT — A fleet of vans and a bus picked up dozens of students and dropped them off at the Downtown Boxing Gym here on a chilly Monday afternoon in March. Inside the spacious facility, students learn more than just how to throw a jab or perform pushups and plank exercises. From athletics and academics to enrichment classes in other fields like cooking and graphic design, the programming is primarily driven by student interests, and staffers say that’s the big draw for kids to come — and keep coming back.
Just ask Christian, a sixth grader who attends the local charter school Detroit Prep. He’s been attending this after-school program for the last three years. Early on, Christian says, he was a little reserved and shy, but participating at the gym helped improve his communication skills. Working with one of the program’s tutors also boosted his skills in math, a subject he doesn’t enjoy very much.
Lately, he’s in good spirits, in part because he feels ownership over how he spends his time after school. He’s writing a speech about gang violence for a youth public speaking competition called Project Soapbox and recently got elected to the gym program’s student council.
Being given a space to explore keeps Christian engaged.
“I like the choice to do what I want to do here,” he says.
Christian’s positive enrichment experience is exactly what federal education officials and advocates for after-school programs are hoping to replicate across the country. The Engage Every Student Initiative is a national campaign, started in 2022, that calls for communities to provide high-quality, out-of-school-time learning opportunities for all interested students by using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.