Mark your calendars: October 26, 2017, is the 18th annual Lights On Afterschool. Launched in October 2000, Lights On Afterschool is the only nationwide event celebrating afterschool programs and their important role in keeping kids safe, inspiring them to learn and helping working families.

It's back to school (and afterschool) for most of the United States, but in Texas, Hurricane Harvey has shuttered hundreds of school districts.

The Afterschool Alliance, in partnership with Dollar General Literacy Foundation, recently honored Mighty Writers El Futuro for the program's demonstrated excellence in helping develop English Language Learner students' literacy skills.

Since 2003, underage drinking has declined 50 percent (Monitoring the Future, 2016) and conversations about alcohol between parents and their kids have increased 73 percent (Responsibility.org, 2016). These statistics are an outstanding testament to prevention specialists, educators and community members who work so hard to keep kids healthy and safe.

Students learn new skills and concepts every day in school—but learning comes with an extra set of challenges for more than 4 million English language learner (ELL) students who attend public schools nationwide.

A couple of weeks ago, I set out to do something that I have been putting off for a long time—driving over to Alexandria, Virginia, to go through all of the old NAA files that have been in storage since we moved offices from Boston, Massachusetts, to Washington, D.C., around 2008.

The Alliance for a Healthier Generation has received a cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) School Health Branch to provide technical assistance and training to school districts and school buildings, to support healthy eating and physical activity in out-of-school time (OST) settings.

Thinking about how to support middle school out-of-school time?

Yesterday, my daughter came home from school and told me they were getting a new student in class today and that he doesn't speak any English at all. As a parent trying to encourage—and practice!—inclusion, I asked "How do you think he must be feeling? How can you make him feel included?"