The After-School All-Stars (aka Inner-City Games) began as a summer athletic program for inner city kids in 1994.  Capitalizing on the approaching 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, various tournament play was conducted all over the city of Atlanta.  Organizers used these events to teach kids about fair play, sportsmanship, and the negative consequences of bad behavior, gangs, and drugs.  

In 1999 the emphasis shifted to a program that had a longer and more sustaining message of "hope, learning, and life."  The After-School All-Stars was born.  The After-School All-Stars began by developing significant enhancements to existing after-school programs in elementary schools.  Realizing some great initial success by 2002, a decision was made to develop (with the help of principals, teachers, parents, students and community leaders) a comprehensive and sustainable after-school program that included all of the positive messages of the Inner-City Games.  

A second decision was made - to offer these programs in inner city middle schools (as opposed to elementary schools or high schools that were already gaining attention by other community groups).  A third decision was made, in part, because the targeted middle schools were attended by students in the poorest inner city neighborhoods (as reflected by the 95% "free or reduced lunch" status reported by the Atlanta Public Schools) and simply could not afford a first-rate after school program.  Today, more than 2,000 inner city middle school children participate in the program every day after school during the school year and during our summer camps.

Following five years as the predecessor organization, the Greater Atlanta Inner-City Games (founded in 1994) After-School All-Stars is now ten years old and has increased the number of schools from one in 1999 to nine in 2009 (most located in the inner city of Atlanta).  The After-School All-Stars Atlanta program was a great success by many measures as this report will reveal.  Recent large grants received from the Marcus Foundation and from the Georgia Department of Human Resources (now Department of Human Services) allowed After-School All-Stars in Atlanta to exponentially increase the number of middle schools served.  Soon after the Marcus Foundation grant was awarded (funding two schools - Carson Middle School and Harper-Archer Middle School), Atlanta Public Schools announced the developmend of two single-gender academies, both of which would eventually be grades 6 through 12 and the consequential closing of Carson Middle School.  These programs would be phased in over a 3-year period of time starting in the Fall, 2007.  A strategic decision was made - After-School All-Stars would stretch the Marcus Foundation dollars and with other sources to fund FOUR middle school programs with a strategic eye toward impacting hundreds of students long-term attending the single gender academies.  This strategy seems to have worked as 240 students enrolled at those two schools this past year with an average daily attendance of 73% at the B.E.S.T. Academy for Boys and 66% at the Coretta Scott King Young Women's Leadership Academy (the national average is 30% enrollment and less than 60% average daily attendance).  Another 241 students enrolled at the After-School All-Stars program at Carson Middle School (8th grade only this year) and Harper-Archer Middle School for a total enrollment of 481 students in four schools.  Other After-School All-Stars programs not funded by the Marcus Foundation include King Middle School, Parks Middle School, Brown Middle School, Turner Middle School, and Long Middle School.  Turner Middle School and Long Middle School were added as a result of the state grant.  The total number of students enrolled at all nine sites was 1,686 for the five days a week, 2 1/2 hours per day after school program.   

Outcomes from the program have been developed around student achievement and success.  These outcomes were determined to reflect the work done by the staff of After-School All-Stars and to guide them to develop programs that were academically challenging and would also enrich the lives of the students living in the city of Atlanta.  Several of the anticipated outcomes included comparing results from the Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) which was given in April 2009.  Other outcome measures required a comparison between students participating in the program and those that do with measures taken at the end of the school year (final grade point average and attendance).