Sibling discount victory, Youth Center price hike, afterschool needed in East Cambridge

And a request for pools to open in early June!

Sibling discounts — 🎉 Finally!

Community Schools' siblings King Open Extended Day and Childcare Afterschool have always offered a 50% discount for the second (or more) child in the household. Now, finally, Community Schools and Youth Centers will also offer sibling discounts! See pricing here.

As we noted last newsletter, DHSP only recently admitted they did, in fact, offer sibling discounts in some programs. We’re so happy to find that this admission was the first step to offering these discounts everywhere, which seems much more fair.

Afterschool Lottery Reminder: 

Don’t forget to enter your child in the lottery by Sunday, May 11. This includes incumbent students — you must re-register to hold your spot. Alas, you won’t find out about placement until late June.

🤑 Extreme Youth Center price hike slated for fall:

Youth Center prices for 4th and 5th graders will rise drastically, to be on par with afterschools. In the 2023-24 school year, the max price a family would pay was $55. For 2025-26, it will be $762 for a family of four. (This school year, it went up to half of 2025-26 pricing — due to your complaints.) Pricing here.

We still think this is an utterly unreasonable price hike — Youth Centers are chill places for kids to play sports, do homework, or even be on YouTube, supervised in-part by CRLS students and interns. Not to mention that these same Youth Centers are then free for 6th-8th graders. See our full summary of the issue here.

New interactive map — almost great!

DHSP new interactive map is wonderful — it shows where you can attend afterschool based on school dismissal time and other factors.

But: this STILL does not include some of the options to which DHSP and CPS have agreed to transport children that are under a mile. (Examples include from Amigos to MLK Childcare Afterschool.) We’d also love to see this map include nonprofits, of which there are only six: Agassiz Baldwin, Cambridge Community Center, Community Art Center, East End House, Phillips Brooks House, and YMCA.

🏝️ Without K-Lo, East Cambridge is an afterschool desert:

With the upcoming closing of the Kennedy Longfellow school, there’s no afterschool option in East Cambridge other than King Open Extended Day, which is only open to King Open students. See interactive map. Families who live in East Cambridge and send their children to schools other than King Open now have to trek out for pickup. We hope that DHSP addresses this by the 2026-27 school year, after CPS determines the best use for the K-Lo building.

Finally, we’re still 😕 about the lack of spots.

As of last November 2024, there were still ~250 kids on the waitlist. (Data here.) Of course many families gave up before November, so that the true need is likely higher. DHSP still doesn’t offer enough spots for afterschool across the City. We still advocate that every child who needs/wants a spot should get one. Afterschool should not be a scarce resource.

Thoughts, questions, corrections, suggestions, insights? Please email me at amanda.beatty@gmail.com

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PS: Pools!

☀️ Last summer, we pushed DHSP to open its pools earlier in June and keep them open later in September, as our summers get increasingly hotter. Sadly, DHSP wasn’t able to deliver.

Please write in to City Councilors and the City Manager to ask DHSP to open Gold Star Pool earlier in June, when we know it will be hot. Write to: citycouncil@cambridgema.gov, citymanager@cambridgema.gov