Economic inclusivity.
We are committed to the principle that no student be excluded from our programs due to their family’s economic circumstances. As an organization, we have prioritized inclusion over profit and focused on nurturing our students' potential rather than maximizing our financial gain. We strongly believe that all children deserve equal opportunities for extra education.
What this means, in practical terms, is that we have removed economic restrictions to those who cannot afford the full cost of our programs. Our Lunch and After-School Clubs are participant-paid, and so, we have addressed this at the individual registration level.
We are proud to offer our clubs with the option for families to pay less than the asking price (or even nothing at all) with no questions asked.
This policy has an impact on our bottom line, yes, but more importantly it has provided greater educational opportunities to numerous children—with over 10,000 registrants making use of this payment option over the years.
For all registrants who are able to pay full price for our programs, thank you for:
✅ Supporting a living wage for our wonderful instructors.
✅ Contributing to our Tree Program wherein we plant a tree with every registration–including those that paid less or nothing at all.
✅ Supporting kids and families that can’t afford to pay full price for our programs, be that at your school or at another school where the support is needed more.
Highlights.
As of 2024, students from 94% of our participant schools have utilized the option of paying less than the full price for our programs.
During the past two school years alone, over 8,000 participants have paid less than our asking price, bringing program costs within their economic means.
During that same timeframe over 2,000 participants have paid nothing at all—participants who most certainly would not have been otherwise able to take part in our programs.
Post-COVID, the number of families requiring support has been sharply on the rise. Enrolments at a subsidized rate have climbed from 38% in 2021 to 52% in 2024.
“I want to pay more” option.
In 2023 we received some interesting feedback from parents: since there is an option during club registration to pay less than the asking price, why not add an option to pay more for those families who want to support our goal of inclusivity?
We have done just that. We now offer registrants the option to pay more than our asking price, helping us extend programming to as many families as possible. 100% of the funds collected through this option are allocated to participants in schools where programs are in jeopardy of not running. These funds are helping us run those programs that otherwise would not, extending opportunities to hundreds of children since the inclusion of this payment option last year.
Please note that tax receipts are not available for these “pay more” contributions. If you require tax receipts please contribute through Extra Ed’s own charitable entity, which does provide them. Visit our donate page to learn more about this fund.
Subsidized In-Class Enrichment programs.
Unlike our clubs, our in-class programming is paid for out of dwindling school budgets, rather than the participant level. While this relieves the financial obstacle for individual participants, there are institutions whose budgets are stretched so thin that they cannot afford extracurricular programming at all. In select cases, therefore, we have made the decision to reduce our rates in order that the students in these schools get their fair share of extra education as well.
To date we have subsidized over $100,000 in programming in 43 different institutions, enabling more than 4,500 students to enjoy our programming.
In the 2023/2024 school year alone we were able to subsidize over 13% of our programs fees, targeting those schools which required discounts to be able to run our programs. The result is that over 1,000 students were able to take part in chess, financial literacy and other programs that they would otherwise not have had access to.
