Aspire’s Middle School Program: Evolving to Meet Community Needs

By Dakota Yoon, Aspire Middle School Program Instructor and Data Coordinator

This year has already been defined by renewal and intentional growth at Aspire Afterschool Learning. After starting this school year with one empty classroom, due to federal funding cuts to AmeriCorps, we are proud to share that our fourth classroom, at the Arlington Mill site, has officially reopened! This classroom now serves as our second middle school classroom, expanding our Middle School Program to serve more families continuously. Aspire is now serving the same number of students as before last year’s funding cuts and is able to better meet the demand for programming for this often-overlooked age group.

As a quick history, Aspire was established in direct response to a need in the Arlington community. Back in 1994, local community and church members came together to create an afterschool program in response to a large number of immigrant and underserved children in the South Arlington area who needed support but weren’t able to access it. 

Since then, Aspire has continued to grow and adapt to the needs of our families. Displayed in Aspire’s emergency response to the COVID pandemic, where rather than halting service to families in the midst of the pandemic, Aspire took the opportunity to expand our impact. Aspire launched an ‘emergency middle school classroom’, in an effort to support then-graduated Aspire students and their families during the shutdown by assisting in online learning and providing students with additional academic support. This was particularly helpful for our parents and caregivers who remained in the workforce during the pandemic. Aspire’s expansion provided strong academic support, working to bridge the education gap, as well as, free and dependable childcare that enabled families to maintain employment. The following school year, Aspire officially launched its Middle School Pilot program, welcoming 25 middle schoolers to the program. 

Just like the original elementary exclusive program, the Middle School Program consistently has had strong enrollment each year with an ever-growing waitlist. The demand for spots in the Middle School Program has only reinforced for us the core reasons Aspire originally expanded: the students that were graduating from our Elementary Program were still in need of structured academic support, mentorship, and perhaps most importantly, a safe space during a transformative and challenging period in their development. Many of our families have told us that the continuous programming from elementary through middle school has helped create a stability for their students as they navigate this sometimes challenging period. We understand that when students are able to remain in a familiar environment with trusted adults who understand their learning styles, strengths, and growth areas, they build a deeper confidence in themselves as learners. 

As proof of this, the Middle School Program demonstrated incredible academic growth through their increase in testing scores last year. This is a great reflection of the time and energy spent on individual targeted support, daily homework help, and consistent supplemental academic support that reinforces students’ school-day learning. 

Besides academics, our middle schoolers have been able to benefit from social-emotional lessons that support them at an age where they’re experiencing a lot of big feelings, adjusting to a new school and harder classwork, and dealing with mental health struggles. As the Youth Mental Health Corps Fellow for Aspire, I’ve seen firsthand how this support helps students grow both socially and emotionally. Over the past year, I have witnessed how our students become more confident in themselves and their abilities as they are learning and practicing how to advocate for their needs, manage challenges, and really support one another. I see the impacts on many of our middle schoolers as they are developing into thoughtful leaders, encouraging their peers, creating a positive and supportive classroom community. 

For instance, one of the students that I’ve worked with over the past year often struggled with self-control and emotional regulation, making it difficult for him to fully engage with the program. Through consistent mentorship, social-emotional learning lessons, and daily check-ins with staff, we have seen remarkable progress. Over the past year, he has developed stronger coping strategies, improved his ability to manage frustration, and grown more confident in himself. Today, he is more engaged in activities, more supportive of his peers, and continues to demonstrate the powerful impact that consistent mentorship and social-emotional support can have on a student’s development. 

Much has already been written about the impact of federal funding cuts on organizations across the country, including Aspire. Even after 30% of our funding was cut, we were able to honor our commitment to every student who had signed up for summer camp and maintain the number of students we were serving through the end of the school year. 

However, at the beginning of this school year, Aspire was forced to make some extremely hard decisions regarding staffing and ultimately closing one of our classrooms temporarily. Leaving us to start the school year with only two elementary classrooms and one middle school at the Arlington Mill site (as well as our two classes each at Drew and Randolph Elementary). Then, in January, we were able to re-open the empty classroom to serve middle school students. Through a grant with Arlington County, in partnership with Phoenix Bikes, Aspire is creating pathways for middle and high school students to have beneficial and safe spaces to go after school. Today, with our two middle school classrooms open and our increased capacity to serve students through 8th grade, we’re proud to be serving our students even more deeply and providing them with support in critical transition years.

Now, we’re rallying the community to help us advocate for the importance of these programs in Arlington. We want to make sure that every child in Arlington has access to high-quality afterschool programs, no matter their age, family’s ability to pay, access to transportation, or any other barrier. On March 27th at 7pm, Aspire and seven other partners are coming together at Kenmore Middle School for an event where students will be speaking, a live student band will be performing, and our whole community will come together to show their support for student success. We hope that you’ll sign up today and advocate for students in our community!