Policy Updates: February 7th, 2025

Hello Afterschool Advocates!  

I hope you are all hanging in there. So many of you have expressed interest in our advocacy this year, and we’ve seen more engagement than ever! Since we all can’t be on an advocacy webinar together every single week, we wanted to look for ways to keep you updated with what’s going on in the policy world, week to week, both in Springfield and in Washington D.C.  

Moving forward, over these next few busy months, we’re going to be publishing weekly policy and advocacy blogs and videos to keep you informed and empower you to take action! We would love your feedback on what you want to see and what is or is not helpful. So, please, give us feedback in the comments!  

On the state level, we had advocates down in Springfield this week (February 3rd) continuing to work on three major issues.  

  • Release the FY25 $50 million for Afterschool: First, we are continuing to advocate that the $50 million appropriated for afterschool in the FY25 budget be released. We’ve gotten mixed messages from the Governor’s office, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), and the General Assembly. We know the money is there, but it remains unclear what the holdup is in the administration to disseminate the funds. This issue also has also gotten a lot of press coverage lately. Further, in Springfield, many legislators have told us that this issue is being brought up in meetings, and there will hopefully be movement soon. Let’s keep the pressure on! 
  • FY26 State Budget: The second issue we’ve been talking with folks about is our FY26 state budget priorities. We want to make sure that this $50 million is an annual appropriation and that afterschool is fully funded across different state agencies. The Governor’s budget address is coming up in a few weeks (February 19th) so it’s really important that the Governor and the General Assembly hear these asks now.  
  • Out-of-School Time (OST) Council: The third issue surrounds working with Sen. Villanueva and Rep. Ortiz to introduce a bill to create an OST Council. This would be a forum for legislators, state agency leaders, community-based organizations, school district leaders, researchers, private philanthropy, and others to gather to share best practices for afterschool and provide transparency around grant management. We are hearing excellent feedback on this idea from legislators! We hope that something like this will help demystify some of the confusion that happens around funding competitions and grant management.  

At the federal level, I know things have been incredibly confusing.  

  • Funding Pause: Many of you were on our community call last week where we focused heavily on the White House’s executive orders and the ongoing legal challenges with the White House’s memorandum instructing federal agencies to pause certain funding streams. Our understanding is that these challenges are still active in court. It is unclear whether pausing funds is legal and whether this review is legal. We know that 21st Century and Full-Service Community Schools are two of the grant programs being reviewed. However, we haven’t heard of any interruptions in funding for those.  
  • Supporting Immigrant Families: We also know that many programs remain concerned about how to best advise and support immigrant families. The executive orders that affect immigrant families were discussed at our community call last week. To further provide support, ACT Now will be having a special webinar on how to support immigrant families in OST. We will be sharing lots of resources and suggestions from your peers. We hope you join us and that you will find this opportunity helpful.  
  • U.S. Department of Education: Many of you have heard of the Executive Order we are expecting from the President to take action towards dismantling the U.S. Department of Education.  We don’t know what this will entail yet, but we do not that the U.S. Department of Education can’t be demolished without an act of Congress and 60 votes in the Senate, requiring Democratic support.  

As you can tell, there’s a lot going on in Illinois, and around the country, that affects your programs. We hope you will continue to stand with us in taking action. Some things you can do this week are to  

  • Call and message your state legislators and tell them we need this $50 million in funding released today! Legislators need to ask the General Assembly budgeteers, the Governor’s Office, and ISBE what we can do to get these funds rolling!  
  • In advance of the Governor’s budget address, everyone needs to hear that these are our budget priorities for FY26. You can send an action alert with this message in this link here.  
  • At the federal level it’s also important that our legislators hear about how high-quality your programs are. We encourage you to make relationships with the district staff for your congressional representatives. Inviting them out for site visits can be just as impactful as having the member there themselves. You can also send our federal action alert here! 
  • Don’t forget about our ongoing advocacy training series this spring, as well as our many advocacy days coming up. When we are in Springfield, it’s so much more fun and so much more inspiring when you all stand with us to echo this message (and share directly from experience).  

We’ve said this time and time again, but we know your days are long and you have a lot on your to-do list. The fact that you’re still standing up to champion the needs of your children and families is absolutely amazing to see. Thank you for all that you do and please continue to reach out to let us know how we can support you! 

In Solidarity,