The Problem

Currently, Wythe County does NOT offer After School Programs. Wythe County does NOT have a Big Brothers/Big Sisters Organization, YWCA, or YMCA. Learn Today Lead Tomorrow has recognized this issue and dedicated itself to providing what parents and children need and are unable to locate in our county.

With the parents of 28 million school children working outside of the home and only 9% of     (K-12) children participating in after school programs, what are the remaining 91% of children doing after school?
 

31% of Virginia's Children are Latch Key Children

 In 1998, the average tuition at a public university in Virginia was $4,160. In Roanoke, tuition for a single child enrolled at a Child Care Center averaged $4,857 per year. This is nearly half of what a full-time minimum wage earner makes within a year. With this high cost of after school child care, these working parents will often have to allow children to be alone at home until they arrive from work.

We believe too many children spend their evenings in a non-structured environment. Time which could be spent developing our future leaders is being wasted by watching television, playing video games, engaging in chat room conversations, or browsing websites which contain inappropriate content for our children.
 

According to the CDC, 62% of children ages 9-13 engage in NO organized physical activity outside of school. Without quality after school activities, many children are wandering the streets of our towns, becoming involved in crimes, drug and alcohol abuse, and sexual activities. In Wythe Co,, in 2003, 5.25% of crimes were committed by juveniles and 29.6 of every 1000 pregnancies were teen pregnancies. In 2005, only 70.5% of Wythe Co. 8th graders passed the SOL test for English and 70.61% passed the Math SOL test.

Please view the Virginia Childcare Crisis Report for valuable information.

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