May 7, 2010
Contact:
Elizabeth Klipp, 404-413-1356
University Relations
ATLANTA - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will visit a local middle school to promote the After-School All-Stars program Monday, May 10 which is run in Atlanta by Georgia State University.
Schwarzenegger is expected to talk to the school's students about the accomplishments of the After-School All-Stars program from 10:30 a.m. to noon at Joseph E. Brown Middle School, located at 765 Peeples St. in southwest Atlanta.
Georgia Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and several other elected officials will join Schwarzenegger at the event. A press conference will begin at about 11:30 a.m.
In 1992, Schwarzenegger launched the Inner City Games Foundation; a nationwide program that was later renamed the After-School All-Stars.
The Atlanta After-School All-Stars program is run out of the GSU College of Education's Department of Kinesiology and Health. It currently provides more than 2,000 at-risk students in nine middle schools in metro Atlanta with tutoring, recreation, technology instruction and club activities. The partnership between Georgia State and the After-School All-Stars program began in 1999.
"Governor Schwarzenegger's visit brings the visibility of the After-School All-Stars to a higher level," said Walter Thompson, executive director of the Atlanta program and GSU Regents' Professor of exercise physiology.
The After-School All-Stars Atlanta program has been shown to improve student achievement, Thompson said. Students who participated in the after-school program have higher test scores in all three categories of the Georgia Criterion Referenced Competency Test, better attendance rates and higher grade point averages, sometimes as much as a letter grade.
"We're sure the program is effective," Thompson said. "We have a model we think is scalable and cost effective enough for us to expand into all the middle schools in and around Atlanta."
For more information, visit www.atlafterschoolallstars.org.
Gov. Schwarzenegger's media contact for the event, Tony Wilbert of Wilbert News Strategies, can be reached at 404-405-3656 or twilbert@wilbertnewsstrategies.com.