MS 118 students play a game of chess during the after-school programs called College Town, now in its fourth year.

BY JESS WISLOSKI
Posted Tuesday, June 12th 2007, 4:00 AM

Five Bronx schools are shutting the doors to their after-school programs because federal funds dried up.

“The effect is going to be dramatic,” said David Neering, principal at Middle School 206 in Morris Heights.

His is one of 18 Bronx schools on the list to lose state-distributed funds designated for after-school programming that kept hundreds of elementary and middle-school children in the borough’s poorest neighborhoods from being latchkey kids.

Four other schools announced the certain demise of their programs last week. Citywide, the loss of funds will cripple 118 schools, affecting 20,000 children. Some 62 schools across the city face losing their programs.

“We serve them dinner, there’s tutoring, we run an athletic program, we have an arts program, there’s a chess club,” and video and robotics courses at a nearby college, said Neering. “Studies show … if middle-school age kids are not engaged in something positive, they’re engaged in at-risk behaviors.

“It’s going to be traumatic for the community, and for the school.”

Here is the full article.

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