The Critical Need for Afterschool Programs:

• 60% of school-age children in Texas do not have access to quality, affordable after-school care.
• 35% of twelve-year-olds are left alone regularly while their parents are at work.
• Juvenile crime triples when the school bell rings at the end of the day.
• Children have 7 times greater risk of being the victim of a violent crime (including murder, violent sex offense, robbery, and assault) during the hours after school. For young people, ages 6 to 17, this risk peaks at 3:00 p.m.
• Eighth graders unsupervised for 11 or more hours a week experience twice the risk of substance abuse as those who are under some form of adult supervision.
• In a Louis Harris poll, half of the teachers questioned said that "children left on their own after school" is the primary cause of school failure.
• Absent a meaningful attachment to a group, many kids are drawn to gangs. Children, especially adolescents, crave excitement and group activity. If they can't find it in programs organized by responsible adults and positive role models, they are far more likely to find it in gangs.

• While the work day grows longer for working parents, the school day has not. The gap is as much as 25 hours per week for some families.

Afterschool programs keep our children safe and provide them with much needed supervised and structured activity. Studies around the nation have concrete support that children in afterschool programs:

• Are two times less likely to use drugs.
• Are one-third less likely to become teen parents.
• Have improved school attendance and do their homework more often and better.
• Show better achievement in math, reading and other subjects.
• Learn to respect people who are different from themselves and develop better conflict resolution and social skills.

Given what afterschool programs can do for our nation’s youth, a person might think that afterschool programs exist in every community. They don’t! Nearly two-thirds of voters report difficulty in finding quality, affordable programs, and twice as many elementary and middle school parents want afterschool programs as are currently available.

It is because of this great need that The BeHive was created. The BeHive is a non-profit agency providing afterschool programs dedicated to raising academic achievement levels for low-income and at-risk children and to encouraging them to become active, involved members of society, while protecting them from the dangers and negative influences they encounter in their daily lives.