(WITHDRAWN) Afterschool Programming: Recentering Academic Performance of Students in the Post-COVID-19 Era

Background: Afterschool programming (ASP) provides students and families in under-resourced areas with academic support and extracurricular activities. The 21^st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) Act funds afterschool programs in low-performing schools nationwide. CCLC programs have proven effective in increasing academic success. During the COVID pandemic, maintaining ASP quality was challenging due to low student participation. This study evaluates a 21^st CCLC program delivered to students in ten elementary schools in a southwestern U.S. city, comparing pre- and post-COVID-19 data.

Objectives: This study compared students’ academic performance after participating in a 21^st CCLC ASP from Fall 2019 (Pre-COVID) to Fall 2022 (post-COVID) to account for the effect of the pandemic. Our research question was: Do afterschool programs produce significant differences in students’ grade improvement pre- and post-COVID?

Methods: A student survey was designed for online participation. Consented schools sent the survey link to 317 students before ASP implementation in 2019 and 171 students in 2022. The survey asked for demographic information such as age, gender, and race/ethnicity. These students rated their agreement on a five-point Likert scale with statements regarding the afterschool program (e.g., ‘The ASP helps me get better grades in math at school’).

Results: We conducted a linear regression analysis with academic performance (measured by grades) as the dependent variable. All assumptions were met for further analyses. We chose the ‘enter’ method to select variables and build a linear regression model for prediction analysis. This model showed statistical significance in academic improvement comparing students’ average grade points between pre and post-COVID, F(2, 455) = 25.510, p < .001, R² = .101, accounted for 10.1% of the variance. Afterschool programming significantly predicted a 0.47 point decrease in grades from 2019 to 2022 (t=-4.368, p=.001). However, students’ belief in “getting a good grade in school is important to me” significantly predicted better grades (t=5.467, p=.001). For every point increase in believing the importance of achieving better grades, students gained a 2.39-point rise in their 2022 performance.

Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant academic challenges for the youth and their families. School-delivered ASP aimed to help students achieve higher grades, but the result did not support this aim during COVID. This result was not surprising as many students needed assistance to deal with their academic challenges to fulfill online education expectations. With more research in ASP for academic and social development, school performance in the next 30 years will not solely be measured by school exams but also by interactive learning with observational data provided by students and their teachers. Future studies must also focus on enhancing students’ positive thinking toward a child-engaged grading system. Afterschool program leaders and social workers will plan various teaching approaches to engaging students in learner achievement learning.