As the United States Congress gears up to buckle-down on negotiating a proposed $2.57 trillion 2006 federal budget, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) promised Mundelein students that he would fight for their interest in after-school programs.

“The pressure (to cut funding) is coming down on the programs that benefit the most needy and the most vulnerable. That’s where the battle lines are going to have to be drawn,” Durbin said during a round-table discussion with the Mundelein students and the Lake County After-School Coalition. “Your life is much more than drugs and gangs.

“It’s your family, it’s your friends, it’s your church, it’s your band and musicals. It’s your over-hand serve. It’s having positive activities and making sure we have those opportunities.”

Durbin met with the coalitions, made up of a combination of Lake County civil organizations and Mundelein students of all ages, Feb. 22 at the Mundelein Police Station. He heard, direct from the consumers themselves, how important funding for after-school programming really was.

“Our purpose is to keep kids off the street,” said Mundelein High junior Sandra Reyes. “What we want is a place to have fun, a safe place to go, a place where we are all welcome. “Once we have that, we’ll be off the streets.”

President Bush’s proposed budget, presented in part during his Feb. 2 State of the Union Address, suggests allocating $991 million for 21st Century Community Learning Centers, which provides grants to after-school programs serving about 1.4 million children nationwide. That’s less than half the $2.25 billion authorized for fiscal year 2006 in the No Child Left Behind Act.

On the other hand, Bush also requested a $603 million increase in Title 1 funding for the nation’s neediest schools, which reparation under the act.

Some $41 million of the $991 million has been recommended for the state of Illinois, half of the $82 million that had been set aside under No Child Left Behind, Durbin reported.

“We know that you could do some creative things” with the full funding, Durbin told the group. “When we identify the needs, the question becomes what can we do? The answer is ‘Not enough.’

“In the name of dealing with the deficit, we’ll have to answer some very difficult questions.”

When asked what sort of programming could be sliced to increase funding for 21st Century and after-school programming, Durbin said only time would tell. Whether it’s reducing cuts to the federal income tax or rethinking a portion of foreign finances, Durbin vowed he would take the students’ needs back to the Senate floor.

“I’ll do my best to try to restore some of these funds,” he said.

Some of the county’s leading after-school advocates were pleased to hear that.

Chief Raymond Rose of the Mundelein Police Department said there was a financial advantage to having children active and engaged after school. Juvenile crime peaks between the hours of 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. when children are out of the direct supervision of their teachers and not under the guidance of working parents, Rose said.

The chief suggested that it was time for citizens, governments and organizations to rethink their attitudes on juvenile crime.

“When we are tolerate and we’ve adjusted our tolerance where it’s O.K. for a 16-yaer-old to be getting shot and killed on the street corner … that is not O.K,” Rose said. “Federal cuts to after-school programs have a very important impact on our municipalities.

“Who wants to live in a community where there’s gangs, drugs and kids are getting killed? Nobody. … This is an investment in our community on all sides.”

Patti Leppala-Bardell, the northern region coordinator of the state Board of Education’s Emotional-Behavioral Disorder Network, said the children who most needed after school programs were those who were least likely to benefit.

Cuts in funding would mean cuts in the ability to train educators to provide after-school programs for students with emotional and behavioral issues, she said.

“There aren’t a lot of programs for these kids,” Leppala-Bardell said.

“These are the children that end up the statistics. It has become a primary goal of mine to make sure that the children I touch are destined to never become those statistics,” added JoAnn Carpenter, a representative of the Lake County YWCA.

The students said it was much more simple than even that. From an all-active volleyball player/student council member to a self-described “Band and theater geek,” the youth representatives of the Mundelein After School Coalition said after-school programming helped kids find themselves.

“I hold myself with such high respect because of the things that I do after school,” said Maddie Martini, an eighth-grader at Fremont School. “These things mean everything to us.”

“It offers a safe environment for children outside of a school setting when those children are most at risk,” noted Emily Sanscrainte, a 14-year-old from West Oak School.

Sanscrainte said she was highly active in her school, since she was: A volleyball player, a cheerleader, a member of the student council, and a member of the school’s community-building club. The eighth-grader said after-school activities taught her the importance of good decision-making.“I don’t know where I would be without an after school activity,” she said
rfoster@lakelandmedia.com