Neutral Zone FAQ

What is the Neutral Zone?
The Neutral Zone, Ann Arbor Teen Center, was founded by teens to provide a unique, youth-centered venue for needed social, cultural, educational, leadership, and creative opportunities for Ann Arbor area high school teens. We are a nationally recognized model as one of a few successful teen centers in the country in which youth decision-making and involvement permeates all levels of the organization. The mission statement of the center was written by teens and continues to be the voice and heart which drives the center’s creative programs:

The Neutral Zone is a diverse, youth-driven teen center dedicated to personal growth through artistic expression, community leadership and the exchange of ideas.

Supported by 6 full time, 16 part time staff, three full time AmeriCorps volunteers and 100+ volunteers, Neutral Zone features an after school drop-in program, 21 weekly offerings across five program areas-Music, Literary Arts, Visual Arts, Education, and Leadership, and weekend concerts and special events

Who does the Neutral Zone serve?
The Neutral Zone is open to any high school age teen. A nearly equal proportion of high school freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors participates in Neutral Zone programs.

• How Many Teens does Neutral Zone serve? During the 2008-09 academic year just under 475 teens registered for Drop-in, weekly and summer programs — about the same level as the previous academic year. Neutral Zone documented approximately 17,500 teen visits during the after school programs, special events and summer institutes.
• What % of teens are from Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Outlying areas? Over 80% of the registered teens come from the Ann Arbor schools, with a majority of those from the three major high schools – Pioneer, Huron and Community High School. A large proportion (about 7%) of these Ann Arbor teens come from other Ann Arbor schools, including Clemente, Stone and area private schools. Last year nearly 15% of registered teens came from other parts of Washtenaw County, with a majority from Ypsilanti.

What are some statistics concerning diversity or identity of teen participants?
The Neutral Zone has a nearly equal percentage of male and female participants. During the 2009-10 programmatic year, Neutral Zone documented the following ethnic backgrounds of teens: African- American (29%); Caucasian (51%); mixed (9%); Latino (5%); Asian-American (5%); Native American (1%); and the remainder unknown or not identified. Additionally, this program year (09-10) 34 teens identified in the LGBTQ community.

Is there a cost to teens?
Neutral Zone offers free to low cost programming to ensure all teens have opportunities to participate. The Drop-in after school space and tutoring are free, weekend concerts are generally $5 with student IDs, and there is a voluntary $100 yearlong program fee to help offset costs for weekly programs in Music Performance and Technology, Literary Arts, Visual Arts, and Community Leadership. Scholarships are available to any teen that applies; during the 09-10 program year, out of 501 registered teens, 67 teens received scholarships and about 200 teens participated in the free tutoring and drop-in program. This means over 50% of teens paid nothing to participate in Neutral Zone programs.

Is the NZ for troubled or disadvantaged kids?
The Neutral Zone is for all high school age teens, regardless of school, socio-economic status, race, sexual identity, etc…. We serve a diverse range of economic backgrounds. Neutral Zone does not keep statistics on socio-economic status or other ‘risk categories’. We do, however, estimate family income of teens by extracting neighborhood data from US Census Data. Out of the teens we were able to track, during the 07-08 program year, 46 youth participants in the after school drop-in program identified as having a extremely low income, very low income, or low income. We were unable to identify neighborhood economic data from a majority (66%) of these teens.

Additionally, nearly 10% of the teens who enrolled at Neutral Zone during the 07-08 academic year came from alternative high schools (Clemente and Stone); many of these students are identified as “atrisk” of educational failure.

As a teen, how can I best use NZ?
In any way that suits your interests! We offer over 21 weekly programs in music, literary arts, education, visual arts and community leadership. Come record a track in the music recording studio, learn Photoshop in the digital arts class, write and perform slam poetry, design a t-shirt to silk screen or attend a weekend concert. If none of that suits you, come up with your own program! Teens are encouraged to pursue their creative and leadership interests at the Neutral Zone, and staff mentorship and organizational support always try to make that happen.

As a teen, what is so important about NZ?
Teen voice, teen direction and teen support are our mainstays! From the Board of Directors, the very top policy making body at the Zone, to what happens on a day to day basis within every program, teen voice and involvement are crucial and fundamental. We believe that in order to create a space that is inviting and engaging for teens, it must honor their interests, desires and values. Moreover, Neutral Zone has tremendous staff mentorship and program resources. These resources are focused on helping any high school age teen pursue a creative or leadership interest or passion.

What is the teen to staff ratio?
Neutral Zone is supported by 7 full-time, 16 part-time staff, three full time AmeriCorps volunteers and 100+ volunteers. Each day there are between 10-12 program staff and volunteers working with approximately 100-150 teens creating approximately a 1 to 15 youth to adult ratio.

What is unique about the Board?
Neutral Zone by-laws allow up to 35 Board members. What is unique about the Neutral Zone is that half of those members are teens or teen-elect members. Currently there are 32 members on the Board and 13 of those members are teens or teen-elect members.

What is the cost of running NZ? What is the Organization’s total budget?
Operational expenses for FY 2009 (audited figures) were approximately $822,000. This means that Neutral Zone invests approximately $1,700 per teen, on average, to run its high quality programs. This is less than the average annual cost of other teen programs, recently estimated at nearly $1,900 in a study by Public/Private Ventures ¹. Additionally building costs for FY 2008, which includes interest and building depreciation ran approximately $120,000.

How is NZ funded?
For operations, approximately 36% of our funding comes from individual donors, 28% from grants, 21% from special events, 8% from earned revenues (program fees, rentals, etc…), 3% from other revenues and 4% in-kind.

Currently the Neutral Zone does NOT receive any direct state or federal funding. We do, however, receive some local municipal (county) grant and contract funding, which in calendar year 2010 will total $20,000.

For the 2009 calendar year, the Neutral Zone had 837 individual donors and 91 organizational donors (which includes foundations, corporations and businesses).

For the fiscal year 2009, 61% of expenses were for programs, 26% for fundraising and 13% for administrative costs.

How has NZ grown?
For the 08-09 program year Neutral Zone had 476 unduplicated teen registrants. This total represents a 27% increase from the 2006-07 school year (376 registered teens) and a two-fold increase as compared to the 2005-06 school year (237 registered teens).

Based on youth interests, Neutral Zone programs continue to grow. Each year the Teen Advisory Council approves new programs and projects to host at Neutral Zone. Through a deliberate process teens assess new ideas based on their priorities and select new program ideas to support. This past year, Neutral Zone has established a Youth Owned Recording Studio, the Orpheum and a teen initiated break dancing program.

What are NZ relationships with area schools?
The NZ has a close working relationship with Ann Arbor schools, with which we in partnership on many initiatives. For the past three years, NZ has hosted SEED, Students Educating Each other about Diversity (S.E.E.D.) S.E.E.D. facilitates teens from diverse identities to participate in weekly dialogues about the cycles of privilege and oppression, the history of discrimination and workshops on – sexism, classism, racism, and religious persecution. Following their dialogues and community building opportunities, teens host day long dialogues and activities at Scarlett, Clague, and Ann Arbor Open Middle Schools.

The NZ also works with teachers, counselors and student groups across the Ann Arbor high schools. In the past we have provided professional development for teachers at Community High School and held leadership training for Skyline’s Student Senate. We also host school events at the Zone including the County collaborative of school counselors as well as special student events for Community High School.

The Neutral Zone has wonderful support from Ann Arbor Schools, which allow us access to each of the high schools to post notices and program information, distribute materials with student mailings and other outreach through email and school announcements. Ann Arbor Schools, as well as a few other local high schools, allow us to do special outreach to students through visits to classrooms.

How can I learn about what former NZ teens are doing?
The Neutral Zone’s web page has an “alumni” link where we’ve reached out and asked former participants to keep in touch with us. Additionally a Facebook page of NZ alumni was recently created to try to connect with former NZ teens and to learn what former NZ teens are doing. Additionally, Neutral Zone shares what teens are doing through a monthly e-newsletter.

How do I learn about NZ hosted/sponsored events?
The Neutral Zone website is updated several times weekly for regular and special events programs. Additionally, several program groups (i.e. B-Side promoters) conduct their outreach for concerts and other events through Facebook and MySpace.

——-
¹ Grossman, J.B., Lind, C., Hayes, C., McMaken, J., Gersick, A. (2009). The Cost of Quality Out-of-School-Time Programs. Public/Private Ventures, Philadelphia, PA.