Resources

“Out-of-school time (OST) programs operate ten hours or more per week on an on-going basis serving school-age (K-12) children. OST programs provide regularly scheduled, structured and supervised activities where learning opportunities take place outside the typical school day. OST programs may occur before school, after school, weekends, or during seasonal and track breaks.”

Contacting Media

Media Outreach Ideas and Tips

Afterschool advocates can generate local news coverage of the challenges afterschool programs face at the local, state and federal levels. Following are ideas, along with some how-to information, for getting out your message about afterschool. At a minimum, you will want to send a news release and/or a letter to the editor about your visit. You will also find in this toolkit some other ways to generate media coverage.

On the following pages are some tips and sample materials for you to:

Messages that Work

The Afterschool Alliance finds the following messages are most effective with media:

Newspapers

Write an Opinion Article for Your Local Newspaper

Do some research on your newspaper's opinion page: Check every day for several days to see if they take local articles called op-eds, (short for OPposite the EDitorial page) or guest editorials. Some papers only use staff or syndicated columnists.

If your paper does accept op-eds, call and ask for the opinion page editor's office and say you are thinking about writing an op-ed on the funding challenges facing afterschool programs in the community and what it means to families. Then ask what the procedure is: word count, who to send it to and how and any other guidelines the paper observes. Write it and submit it, following the paper's instructions and then call the next day to verify it arrived.

Four Tips for Writing an Op-Ed Piece:

If you are not successful placing your op-ed piece in a local newspaper, look for a website (the school system, an ally or your own program) that will publish it.

How to write an Opinion Article (Op-Ed)

Talk with the Editorial Writers of Your Local Newspaper

There is nothing quite like having an editorial on your side to help generate support from policymakers. Editorial writers are often looking for topics, so if you think your newspaper's general editorial disposition might favor full funding for afterschool; see if you can spark an editorial. Call the newspaper, ask for the editorial page, and ask who writes editorials on local education issues. Depending on the size of the paper, it could be the editorial page editor, a columnist or even a reporter. Ask to be connected with that person, and then request a meeting to talk about the funding challenges facing afterschool programs. If he/she agrees to meet, bring whatever fact sheets or other material you may have, as well as information on the impact of budget shortfalls. For this information, check the Afterschool Alliance's website at www.afterschoolalliance.org.

Send a Letter to the Editor of Your Local Newspaper

Look at your newspaper's letters page. Scan the page itself, and the newspaper's website letters section, for instructions on word counts and where to send your letter. If you can't find instructions, count the number of words in a given day's letters. Also, see whether published letters all refer to stories or editorials the newspaper recently ran; some newspapers insist on it, some don't. Then write a letter that reflects what you have learned: length, tone, keyed to something already in the paper or not, etc. If you are responding to something in the paper, remember not to bury your own message by spending all of your space refuting the other message. Be sure your letter addresses that afterschool is the key to inspiring students to learn, keeping them safe and helping working families. Also mention that afterschool programs are facing funding shortfalls. Follow the newspaper's instructions on how to submit the letter, and be sure to include a phone number (not for publication), where the paper can call to confirm that it is actually from you.

You will find a sample letter on the next page. Modify the content of the letter, so that if the newspaper asks if the letter is being submitted to other papers around the state and nation; you can honestly answer that the letter is unique. Newspapers are increasingly sensitive to this issue.

Sample Letter to Editor

List of Media