The troubles regarding the Boys and Girls Club and Bright Futures do not surprise me in the least (“Boys and Girls Club loses after-school programs,” Jan. 31). While I would not like to see it go away entirely, there’s definitely room for improvement in the management. My kids were enrolled in the Grover Heights program up until this year, but we finally pulled them out when we realized it was doing them more harm than good. Bright Futures (which my husband and I began to call “Dim Futures” for reasons I will get to) announced loud and clear that it was an academic program—not a day care—and then did just about everything possible to defeat that objective.

The last straw for us was a new policy of moving homework time to 5 p.m. What on earth were they thinking? Staff told us this move would help the hyper kids who were supposedly more calmed down by 5 p.m. Unfortunately, for the majority of kids (including ours) without that issue, this torpedoed any hope of energy or focus on academic work. (Think: If you’ve been up since 6 or 7 a.m., how much energy do you have by 5 p.m.?).

I’ve now lost about 15 hours of work time a week, but I’d rather do that than see my kids flounder.

Ed. note: As reported in the Jan. 31 story “Boys and Girls Club loses after-school programs,” the Bright Futures program offered at Grover Heights is now run by the YMCA.