The Beacons Initiative aimed to transform eight public schools (five middle schools and three high schools) into youth and family centers in low-income neighborhoods in San Francisco, California. Using a coalition of local partners and funding from public agencies and foundations, the centers served 7,500 youth and adults between July 1, 1999, and June 30, 2000. The centers provided a broad array of before- and after-school and some evening and weekend activities, including classes in English as a Second Language, sports, art, music, and leadership development. An evaluation of fiscal year 2000 (July-June) was conducted, using enrollment, attendance, activity, and participation data from the centers as well as biannual evaluation visits; surveys in three middle schools on how youth spend their time outside school; records from the San Francisco Unified School District on gender and ethnicity, grade point averages, standardized test scores, and attendance; and project documents. Results were reported in terms of participation, the centers and their programs, organizational innovation and partnerships, and funding and sustainability. The study concludes that the Beacons Initiative has made considerable progress toward creating youth development centers that attract the funding and community support needed to help them thrive. The evaluation suggested that the Beacon Centers model serve as an example to other cities in how to create broad-based support for youth development activities in low-income areas. Five of the Beacon Centers are profiled in an appendix to the evaluation report. (Contains 47 references.) (KC)
