Hawaiʻi families love after-school care programs and need more of them. Those are the bottom lines from a new report titled “America After 3PM.”
Paula Adams is the executive director of the Hawaiʻi Afterschool Alliance. She spoke to The Conversation to break down the details in the report and what it all means for families trying to make ends meet.
Interview highlights
On Hawaiʻi families that use after-school care
PAULA ADAMS: In Hawaiʻi, we are second in the nation of after-school participation, which is a huge win for us, and we feel very proud of the fact that our state is able to offer after-school programs to as many families as we can. Right now, we have around 44,000 students participating in after-school programs, and the sad news is that another 74,000-plus would like to participate in an after-school program if there was an after-school program available for them.
On how after-school programs provide opportunities to youth
ADAMS: One thing that I always wonder is, if our kids, our youth, are not in an after-school program, where are they? You can say some of them are doing sports, some of them are home alone, some of them are on the phone. But where are they? So that's the point of offering as many opportunities for after-school programs, because we want the kids to be engaged, to have fun, to be learning. And also, if the kids are not in after-school, we cannot let the street raise them. We have the responsibility to take care of them. After-school programs give them an opportunity to move away from the screen, to move away from a computer and participate in sports, participate in hands-on activities, interact with other youths, have fun with other youth, socialize, build those social skills that so many of our youth lost during the whole year of the pandemic that they were inside a room in our home. So that's the beauty of after-school, these opportunities for these kids that are available and for them if they want.
On barriers that keep families from accessing after-school programs
ADAMS: I wish I could say it's one problem or one barrier, but it's multiple factors. One thing is transportation. We know, especially in rural schools, that transportation is key for the kids to go from school to home, and vice versa. And if the school bus ends at the end of the school day, at maybe 2 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., the kids have to take the bus home, and they cannot stay in an after-school program, even if they want to. ... For some families, the availability of programs. One thing that we are working on is to make sure that we have enough programs in at least in all public schools in Hawaiʻi. It’s happening slowly, but I know the Department of Education is committed to make that happen, but that's another barrier for families to access after-school programs. Fees is also a barrier for some families. The ALICE (Asset Limited Income Constrained Employed) families are these families who are living check by check and have enough money to cover the basic needs, but also their income is not high enough to receive subsidies. So those families have the fees for the after-school program. When there is a fee associated to the after-school programs might be also a challenge. In some programs, there is a waitlist. Some programs and providers are having a hard time recruiting staff, and are having a hard time with retention of the staff. So those are some of the factors that are making challenges for some families to find an after-school program.
On possible solutions to improve access to after-school programs
ADAMS: So our public schools can run programs themselves, meaning that they can hire their own teachers or their own staff to run the after-school programs, or they can partner with a community-based organization. They can contract them to run the after-school programs, or they can have a mixed system, where some of the activities are being offered by the teachers and some of the activities are being offered by the community-based organization. … We could work together with our legislators to allocate more funding for after-school programs, so the cost of the programs is reduced so families don't have to pay as much, or it could be free for all families that need an after-school program.
This story aired on The Conversation on Oct. 28, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this interview for the web.
