In September 2007, the New York City Department of Youth and Community
Development (DYCD) launched the Beacon Middle School Initiative to increase Beacon services targeted to youth in grades 5-8. Through this initiative, DYCD charged the Beacon Centers with providing middle-grades youth with ongoing, structured programming in academics, life skills, career awareness, civic engagement, physical health, arts, and culture.
This initiative represented a new emphasis for the 80 Beacon Community Centers, which had previously delivered mainly after-school activities for children and drop-in programming for older youth and adults. DYCD set an enrollment target of 200 middle-grades youth per Beacon, out of 1,200 total participants at the typical Beacon Center. DYCD asked Beacons to
accommodate the Middle School Initiative within annual DYCD operating budgets that declined from $400,000 per Beacon Center in 2006-07 to $365,000 in 2010-11 because of city-wide fiscal stringencies.