Every afternoon in Texas, the end of the school day creates a daily scramble for families. Five out of six parents say they want after-school care, but cannot access it.
The demand for after-school programs is not theoretical.
In about 70% of Texas families with children ages 6 to 17, all available parents are working. This forces painful trade-offs between employment, supervision, and student safety at the very hours when children are most vulnerable to learning loss and disengagement.
At the same time, parents who secure a spot overwhelmingly say the programs work. Three in four parents rate their child’s after-school program as “excellent” or “very good," reflecting the support these programs provide in improving attendance, supporting academic growth, and offering stability during after-school hours. Lack of this support system is reflected in juvenile crime risk, which rises to 18% between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on school days.
If families need and value after-school programs and evidence supports their impact, the question facing Texas is why access remains so limited.
The answer is capacity, driven primarily by unstable funding and workforce shortages.
For years, after-school programs in Texas have relied heavily on federal 21st Century Community Learning Centers funding, administered through the Texas Afterschool Centers on Education (ACE). In parallel, Texas also used $125 million in COVID recovery funds over roughly three years, averaging over $40 million annually, to expand after-school access.
That funding structure has tightened significantly.
COVID recovery funds expired in September 2024. At the same time, Texas ACE dollars have fallen from $97 million in 2020-21 to $57 million in 2023-24, resulting in a 40% reduction in the size of the funding pot.
What now remains is $5 million for the biennium by the state for community-based or nonprofit-run after-school programs and $57 million for districts through ACE.
As district-run programs scale back or shut down, nonprofit providers and districts are expected to absorb growing demand with just $59 million annually, a pale substitute for the roughly $140 million annually, once provided through ACE and COVID recovery funds. The result: programs close and families are turned away.
But money does not cut itself. Programs are run by people, and when funding tightens, staffing is the first thing to break.
Across the after-school sector, 87% of program leaders report serious concern about staffing shortages, driven by staff burnout, competition with higher wages in other industries, and the inability to offer more hours. When programs cannot retain staff, they cap enrollment, shorten schedules, or suspend services entirely.
Texas has reached a point where after-school can no longer be treated as an optional add-on. The state has shown it can invest at scale when priorities are clear, including recent multibillion-dollar investments in public education.
Extending that commitment beyond the final bell is not a conceptual leap. It is the next logical step if Texas wants learning, attendance, and family stability to hold through the full day.
The first requirement is funding stability beyond a single grant window, through multi-year grant cycles with predictable renewals that allow districts and community partners to plan, hire, and retain staff.
But funding alone will not solve the capacity gap. So the second requirement is an intentional staffing strategy that reflects how after-school programs actually operate.
One part of that strategy is organizing the pre-existing civic capacity of Texas. College students, retirees, and community members are willing to contribute, and a statewide volunteer corps designed specifically for K–12 and after-school settings could channel this capacity into tutoring, mentoring, and enrichment roles under professional supervision.
Nonprofits already operate this way at a smaller scale, and programs such as ASPIRE show that when volunteers are intentionally placed and supported by educators, programs can expand without sacrificing quality.
A second part of the staffing strategy is better aligning after-school programs with the pipeline of future educators.
Each year, thousands of teacher candidates complete clinical placements or paid internships in K-12 as part of certification requirements. Allowing these candidates to contribute to supervised after-school education would strengthen staffing during the hours of greatest need, while giving future teachers structured practice in after-school settings.
The choice before Texas is straightforward. After-school programs can remain secondary supports, or they can be treated as essential educational infrastructure, backed by the funding and workforce required to sustain them. For hundreds of thousands of students, that choice will shape what happens after the final bell.
Kusuma Buddhiraju is an economic policy and analytics leader with over a decade of experience in public education finance and institutional reform. She has advised policymakers and authored widely read research on civic literacy and education finance.
