In recent years, growing numbers of policymakers, city officials, and educators have been eyeing the expanse of time outside the education prime time and asking a simple question: What can communities do to help children grow and learn after the school bell rings? The concern is that too many children and teens, especially the poor, are left to their own devices after school and over the summer. The result is long hours filled, at best, with idleness and boredom, and at worst with risky behavior. What's needed, say those focusing on out-of-school time, is a way to allow poor children to occupy these hours with the types of learning opportunities and wholesome experiences that other children take for granted, from the arts to sports to extra academic help. In short, there is a movement in the United States to make good after-school and summer programs available to those who need them most. Public schools, as the sites of much out-of-school time programming, have a central part to play if out-of-school time systems are to develop successfully. The after-school planners interviewed by RAND stressed that they needed buy-in from the schools to make sure that school buildings would house programs, "that facilities would be open, and that responsibility for maintenance, heating, cooling, and insurance would rest with the schools."