Update: Exorbitant rise in Youth Center costs makes headlines; DHSP will answer questions this Monday (6/10)
Cambridge Day: "Huge leap in youth center fees shock families, leading to call for phased approach – or no rise"
Dear families,
👏 What an impact we made! Thank you to everyone who wrote in before last Monday’s City Council meeting. (Original email here.)
Outcome:
Pretty much every councilor expressed concern about the size of the leap in costs + asked excellent basic questions about problems in how the policy reads at the moment.
🤔 Choice quotes below.
Sadly, DHSP wasn’t prepared to answer these questions, so, to give them time, they will present this coming Monday, 6/10 (after 5:30pm).
The Cambridge Day covered the controversy, saying “A jump in youth center fees … have parents in an uproar and city councillors calling for a justification, and maybe for the pain to be phased in over years.”
Actions: If you weren’t able to write in earlier, this could be your chance!
Email the City Manager, City Council & City Clerk: citymanager@cambridgema.gov, CityCouncil@cambridgema.gov, cityclerk@cambridgema.gov
Optionally CC Amanda amanda.beatty@gmail.com and Laura laurahazardowen@gmail.com
Template to use or edit: I’m writing to express my concern over the sudden leap in pricing for Youth Centers grades 4&5 next year. The fact that the Head of DHSP wasn’t prepared last Monday to answer basic questions about this raise was itself concerning. Please consider (1) ensuring that the cost is commensurate with the program’s expense; (2) providing a rationale for why the same service might cost up to $760 per month for grade 5 while being free starting in the very next grade.
Choice quotes (see video here, starts ~2:24:00):
On communicating with families:
“Did [families] wake up one morning and find that they were about to get a price increase? Or did you [DHSP] bring them along?” — Mayor E. Denise Simmons.
“It was very surprising to many of us to hear the scale of the increase. Such a dramatic increase should not surprise people.” — Councillor Patty Nolan, adding that the program is going up to $7,500 a year from $500.
Questioning why the cost is the same as that for younger children:
“I would be curious about the breakdown of the cost for the after school programs versus the youth centers. My sense is that youth centers would probably be … less expensive to staff.” — Councilor Burhan Azeem.
“I would love to figure out a way to maintain a lower cost program, rather than just assuming the costs are going to go up.” — Councilor Paul Toner.
Answers from the City and DHSP (Our feeling is that these ideas are hard to understand and we hope DHSP will make their points with more clarity and support next week.)
“If you were attending the third [sic], fourth or fifth grade in our community schools or our after-school programs, you would be paying the rates that have been in effect for quite a long time, rates that are very much skewed by income … as the face of who’s in our youth center programs changed significantly, we did not do anything to change to the same kind of graduated-income program. All of a sudden, a program that had very low rates because it had primarily low-income children now is a program where about 50% of the families are much higher-income. We are moving to make the charges for our programs the same.” — Head of DHSP Ellen Semenoff.
“Some of the increase is really about certain programs which are essentially equivalent having been priced much, much lower. This increase is very substantial in terms of the difference for that that specific program, but it's actually coming into alignment with essentially other afterschool programs.” — City Manager Yi-An Huang (to whom Ms. Semenoff reports).
Got a different take, question, or comment? Email Amanda amanda.beatty@gmail.com and Laura laurahazardowen@gmail.com
Thank you,
Amanda Beatty & Laura Hazard Owen
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