DHSP Afterschool Programs Lottery

If your child was offered a seat at a DHSP afterschool program, you must take action within 2 weeks to accept or decline their seat.

Accept Your Child's Offer

DHSP uses an online enrollment system called TraxSolutions. You will need a Trax account to accept your child's offer and enroll in the DHSP afterschool program where they were offered a seat.

Follow the directions and Trax link included in your child’s Offer Letter to accept your seat and complete enrollment. 

Decline Your Child's Offer  

If you do not want to accept your child’s offer, you can opt to go into the Waiting Pool for another afterschool choice or withdraw from the lottery.

To decline your child’s offer, email askdhsp@cambridgema.gov or call 617-349-6200. 

Families who apply and are accepted to DHSP's Childcare Afterschool programs must enroll their child for five days per week.

Families who apply to Community Schools, King Open Extended Day, or Cambridge Youth Programs' afterschool programs have the option of selecting 2, 3, or 5 days per week on their application.

Please note: If your child is offered a placement at an afterschool program for 2 days per week, they must enroll in the program on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If your child is offered a placement in an afterschool program for 3 days per week, they must enroll in the program on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. 

Log onto Trax through the link in your child's offer letter. In the "History" section under "My Account," review the enrollments.  A successful enrollment will display 2 items for each child enrolled:

1. The Activity (icon of a person running) with the correct amount of days you accepted for your child (2 Days 3 Days, or 5 Days), the child's program (Childcare Afterschool, Community School, KOED or Cambridge Youth Program / Youth Center), and location of the program. 
   
   
2. A DHSP Membership (head and should icon)

The "Pending" status is the activity status (not your child's enrollment status). This will change to "Active" closer to the start of the school year.  

Example of a Successful Trax Enrollment

Below is a successful enrollment for a family with two children: Child 1 (Joshua) accepted 3 days at Cambridge Youth Programs' Frisoli Youth Center. Child 2 (Cinderella) accepted 5 Days at KOED, King Open School. There is an Activity and Membership listed correctly for both children. 

Example of an Incorrect Trax Enrollment

Child 1 (Joshua) is successfully enrolled at Cambridge Youth Programs' Frisoli Youth Center for 3 days a week (note Activity and Membership icons). Child 2 (Cinderella) is missing the Activity. The KOED Activity needs to be added to the cart and check out process must be completed to enroll successfully. 

If seats become available at an afterschool program site, children who were offered less days of the week than they applied for will be placed for the remaining days before the seats are offered to a child in the Waiting Pool.  

Every year, there are more applicants to the DHSP Afterschool Lottery than we have seats available in our programs. Children who do not receive a placement offer are placed in the Waiting Pool.

We expect that there will be some movement out of the Waiting Pool before the first week of August, when afterschool program enrollment will be finalized for the 2025-2026 school year. If a seat becomes available for your child, we will contact you immediately and share the next steps in the enrollment process.

If you would no longer like your child to be in the Waiting Pool, you can fill out the Opt out of Waiting Pool Form to remove your child from it.

If you are interested in other local afterschool programs, Find It Cambridge is a great resource.

Some families will receive an offer letter saying that their child was selected for placement at a DHSP afterschool program, but that additional review is needed for them to successfully participate in the program.

Families who receive this letter will work with DHSP's Inclusion Initiative. Inclusion Initiative staff are responsible for providing supports or accommodations to students who may have an identified need or disability. If you receive this letter, your child cannot enroll or attend programming until their assessment is complete and needed supports are in place. 

Your letter will include information about the next steps for the assessment process. You can also contact the Inclusion Initiative at DHSPInclusion@cambridgema.gov or 617-349-6274. 

The DHSP Afterschool Programs Lottery process is designed to prioritize equitable access and takes several factors into consideration including but not limited to: family income, preferred site, grade of child, and sibling preference. Openings also vary by grade level and session length (2, 3, and 5-day).

When there is an opening in a program, these factors are weighed before we offer a seat to a child. Because of this, your child’s position in the Waiting Pool might not correlate directly with their assigned lottery number and we cannot share where children sit in the Waiting Pool.

• Example: Suppose your child is next in the overall Waiting Pool. You selected a program site that currently has no openings in your child's grade group. A family behind you might have chosen a different site where a seat becomes available. They would receive that offer before you because openings vary by site.

Yes, please use the same application to apply for each child in your household. You can apply for up to 5 children who live in the same household through one application.

View the DHSP Afterschool Program Comparison Chart to compare our four afterschool program models.

Yes. DHSP afterschool programs operate during early release days. They also operate during February and April vacation weeks (excluding holidays).

Only children enrolled in an afterschool program are eligible to sign up for vacations weeks at their program site. More information will be communicated to enrolled families by program directors.

Children can apply to afterschool programs at different locations than the school they attend except for the following three programs:

• Children who apply to the King Open Extended Day afterschool program must be enrolled at the King Open School.
• Children who apply to the Fletcher-Maynard Academy Community School must be enrolled at Fletcher-Maynard Academy.
• Children who apply to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community School must be enrolled at the Martin Luther King, Jr. School. 

Your child must arrive at their afterschool program at the program's start time or after.

Cambridge Public Schools (CPS) provides transportation between schools and some sites. If your child chooses to attend an afterschool site and CPS does not provide transportation between your child’s school and the afterschool site, you will be responsible for transporting your child to the afterschool program.

Yes. Children who are currently enrolled in a DHSP afterschool program can re-enroll in the same program for the upcoming school year if they are still age-eligible.

Families who are re-enrolling must complete and submit an application by the Afterschool Lottery application deadline.

Steps for re-enrolling on the DHSP Afterschool Lottery application: 

1. On your child's application, answer "Yes" when asked if your child is currently enrolled in a DHSP afterschool program. 
   
   
2. In the dropdown menu that asks which program your child is enrolled in, select your child's program. 
    
3. Select "Yes" when asked if you are choosing to re-enroll your child in the same program and location.
   
   
4. In the "First Choice" dropdown, select the program location that your child is currently enrolled in. This will guarantee them a spot in the same program / location for the next school year. 
   
   
5. Complete and submit your application.  

If you are interested in applying to a different DHSP afterschool program or location for the upcoming school year, you can select different programs for your First, Second and Third choices. Your child will not be guaranteed a seat at these programs or at their current afterschool placement. They will be entered into the lottery for the choices you selected.

Families who apply and are accepted to DHSP's Childcare Afterschool programs must enroll their child for five days per week.

Families who apply to Community Schools, King Open Extended Day, or Cambridge Youth Programs' afterschool programs have the option of selecting 2, 3, or 5 days per week on their application.

Please note: families cannot customize the days of the week if they select 2 or 3 days on their application.

• Children who enroll in a program for 2 days per week must commit to Tuesdays and Thursdays
• Children who enroll in a program for 3 days per week must commit to Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. 

To learn more about DHSP afterschool programs, view our comparison chart. 

Yes. Siblings are grouped together and share the same lottery number. When one child’s lottery number is selected and they are placed at an afterschool site, their sibling(s) get preference to be placed at the same site (provided that the family indicated the same sites for all children).

Sibling placement depends on seat availability at each site for each child's age group and is not guaranteed.

Families pay tuition for an entire year of programming, broken into monthly payments.

Monthly tuition rates are based on household size, family income and the number of days your child(ren) will attend programming. View tuition charts.

Yes. If a family has more than one child in grades K-5 enrolled in a DHSP afterschool program, we offer a sibling discount. Through the sibling discount, the household’s highest tuition fee is be paid in full each month. Additional tuition fees of equal or lesser value are 50% off.

This discount does not apply to youth enrolled in CYP’s Pre-Teen / Middle School programs, as tuition is free for 6 –8th graders.

Cambridge Public Schools (CPS) provides transportation between schools and some DHSP afterschool program sites. Bus transportation is drop-off only. Caregivers are responsible for picking their children up at the end of their program.

Whether CPS provides transportation to a DHSP afterschool program depends on the end time of your child’s school and the start time of the DHSP afterschool program.

If your child chooses to attend an afterschool site and CPS does not provide transportation between your child’s school and the afterschool site, you will be responsible for transporting your child to the afterschool program.

No. Children must be entering Kindergarten in September to be eligible to apply.

Afterschool programs that are run by the Department of Human Service Programs operate consistent with the state’s Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) licensure standards. Prior to the launch of the Cambridge Preschool Program (CPP), Cambridge children who were 4.5 years of age and older were eligible to enroll in Junior Kindergarten and were considered school-aged by the state’s Department of Early Education and Care. With the implementation of CPP in the 2024-2025 school year, which replacds Junior Kindergarten, children who are 4.5 years old are no longer considered school-aged.

All applications that are received by the application deadline are assigned a random lottery number.  Siblings are grouped together and share the same lottery number. The applications are then divided into 2 groups, Priority Applicants (from households with an income of 65% or less of HUD AMI) and General Applicants. 30% of seats in each afterschool program are designated for priority applicants.

Children who are currently enrolled in a DHSP afterschool program can re-enroll at the same site by completing the application. Children who are re-enrolling will be guaranteed a seat at that site if they do not have any past due tuition balances. If children are currently enrolled in a DHSP afterschool program and would like to enroll at a different site, they will not get a seat preference and will be re-entered into the lottery.

There are six community afterschool programs in Cambridge that offer afterschool programming five days a week. Please visit their websites for program and registration information: 

• Agassiz Baldwin Community
• Cambridge Community Center
• Community Art Center
• Dragon Fly Afterschool
• East End House
• Cambridge YMCA.

You can also find afterschool options and many other resources for families at www.finditcambridge.org.