A place to play.
A sport to discover.
A school to represent.
WHAT IT IS
beyondSPORTS introduces Tacoma Public Schools students to sports through Beyond the Bell, then gives them a school-based league to play, compete, and belong. A program of beyondCONNECTIONS, a local community intermediary focusing on out-of-school time for Tacoma students.
HOW IT WORKS
Students start with Skills & Drills clubs in Beyond the Bell; learning the basics, understanding the rules, and playing with friends after school. In the next session, they represent their grade, school, and neighborhood in a school-based recreational league. Families coach, with training grounded in a Whole Child support curriculum before each of the four seasons.
WHY NOW
19%
of Pierce County youth get the 60 minutes of daily activity the CDC recommends, against the 23% statewide. For girls here it is 15%.
The Aspen Institute's State of Play Tacoma-Pierce County, produced with the Names Family Foundation, tied that number to happier and more motivated, inactive youth more anxious and hopeless.
THE TARGET
100 students at every school, every season.
Six teams of ten and two clubs at each of the 36 TPS elementary schools - 3,600 seats a session, 14,400 across the four sessions. Roughly one in four Tacoma elementary students in a beyondSPORTS club or team.
Source: Aspen Institute Project Play, State of Play Tacoma-Pierce County, 2023.
