Some Philly schools aren’t able to offer kids much to do after school. At Steel Elementary, kids dream of playing on a team.

It was a question Mark Macyk didn’t really know how to answer. His sixth grade students at Steel Elementary, in Nicetown, were forever asking: Can we have a basketball team? What about volleyball?

Some schools have an embarrassment of riches: drama and coding, lacrosse and robotics, and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has underscored the importance of offering programming after the bell rings. Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. and the school board have said one of their priorities is guaranteeing “every student will have a well-rounded education with cocurricular opportunities, including arts and athletics, integrated into the school experience.”

But while 20 Philadelphia School District schools and five city charters now offer free before- and after-school programming, some have few opportunities after school, if any.

Steel is a small K-8 that doesn’t have families who can pay for extras, or find and apply for grants. It has a few clubs, but others have disappeared.

Steel’s bumpy path to getting a team, and the roadblocks staff face making things happen for their students, are a glimpse into some of the challenges faced at under-resourced Philadelphia schools.

To Khori Smallwood, now an eighth grader, it just isn’t fair.

“For a while, there was nothing to do after school,” said Smallwood, 14.

Last school year, Macyk, a middle grades English teacher, and Claire Sitarz, a behavioral health counselor at the school, made the call: They were making some kind of team happen, no matter what.

“These are good kids, and they need something to do,” said Macyk. “A school this small and this challenging, they don’t have the room to take on different identities here, but a team gives them that.”

Sitarz tried her best to get approval from the district for a middle grades basketball, volleyball, or soccer team, but faced roadblocks. To field teams that compete against other schools, schools have to have a facility, or a permit to play elsewhere, uniforms for students, and coaches with the proper coursework and certifications.

“There’s a lot more interest than we have funds for,” said Jimmy Lynch, the Philadelphia School District’s executive director of athletics.

There are 115 schools in the district with middle grades — K-8s, middle schools, or schools with middle and high school grades — and, according to district records, 20 such schools have no district-run teams. (A few schools have 10 or more middle grades teams.) Intramural teams are also offered at some elementary schools.

“One thing that we’ve been working to do is being very conscious and intentional about expanding programs where schools either don’t have anything currently, or they have very limited offerings, just because we want to make sure we’re equitable across the district as we look to engage more students and offer more opportunities,” said Lynch.

(Lynch said basketball was a no-go for Steel because its gym lacked a full-size court, but Sitarz said the court is full-sized.)

So Steel staff made a DIY team, with no uniforms at first and a few games cobbled together with schools in similar situations, with the kids maneuvering around a cone covering a hole in the Steel gym floor caused by a dripping air-conditioning unit. There was no formal league, every adult involved volunteered their time.

“We spent a whole year not getting paid because it’s what the kids needed, a team,” said Sitarz, who became one of the coaches.

In a city where gun violence and trauma are too common in kids’ lives, Sam McCullough, a Steel climate liaison and another team coach, said students need an outlet — especially those who struggle with academics or behavior.

“We can provide a safe space for a lot of young people, can teach them some values,” McCullough said. “They need social skills.”

Sitarz and her colleagues are used to going to bat for resources for her students, so she kept at it. When this school year started, she was determined to try for basketball again. The district again didn’t give the green light, but Sitarz made a connection with the nonprofit Philadelphia Youth Basketball, which stepped up, guaranteeing games, practices, and paying two coaches a stipend. (Another coach is paid for with Steel extracurricular funds, and another volunteers, with staff rotating who gets paid.)

This year, the Steel Parliament, named for a group of Owls, played more than 20 games.

“It was different, a real team,” said Zory Feliz-Diaz, an eighth grader. “We had vibes, more energy. It was really cool — we had our own uniforms.”

The Smallwood twins, Khori and Khari, were on the basketball team. They said the experience was transformative.

“It helped me feel not stressed out,” said Khari. “It helped me clear my mind, get out all my energy. And it helps build character, it’s a better environment for a community.”

Basketball players have to sign a contract, Khari noted — no fighting, no breaking school rules.

“You have to think about what you’re going to do before you do it, how it’s going to affect you and your teammates,” said Khari.

Feliz-Diaz has been tempted to fight, she said.

“But then I think, ‘I’m not trying to get kicked off the team, I’ve got basketball,’” she said. “It’s cool to say I’m on the basketball team.”

Sitarz has found the sport helped convince some students who need mental health help to accept it. They might balk at the idea of counseling, but are willing to talk to Coach Claire.

“A lot of the kids on our basketball team, that’s their path into therapy,” said Sitarz. “I say, ‘You’re having a hard time, you’re really angry, do you need somebody to talk to?’”

Melanie Kerrin, a Steel fifth grade teacher, said it’s made a world of difference.

“A lot of these kids struggle behaviorally, and it shows in the classroom, and then you see how they show up in practice and it’s a different kid,” Kerrin said. “They want to be proud of something they’re doing outside of academics.”

Kerrin was an athlete herself, and her own kids have benefited enormously from sports, she said, but she raised them in a neighborhood with more opportunities and had more resources than many Steel parents.

“But here, we’re never first on the list,” Kerrin said. “For a team to come to this school, it’s huge. It brings about a cohesiveness, and it kills the stuff that happens outside the school.”

Tosha Taylor, a Steel parent, wants to expand opportunities for Steel students, full stop. There are community programs, including a Boys and Girls’ Club, but not every family can participate.

“Because of lack of activities within the schools, there are lack of opportunities when they get out of school,” said Taylor, who’s president of the Steel Home and School Association and the mother of a basketball player. “In this city, in this district, they do a lot of putting things off, but we have to do a better job of demanding things in our schools, in our communities.”

Spurred by success — not measured in wins and losses, but by how kids felt — Sitarz made another go at an officially sanctioned district team. She finally got the tentative green light for a Philadelphia School District middle grades track team to compete this spring season. Macyk and Kerrin are two of the coaches.

Two days a week, roughly a dozen students practice in the gym, run steps inside the building, or walk with their coaches to nearby Gratz High School, where they vie with other teams for time on the track.

But there’s a big if.

To field a team, 10 students need to get sports physicals, and that’s a major ask for Steel families. Some schools are able to bring medical staff in to screen kids on site, but Steel doesn’t have those connections. And there’s most often a cost involved, especially for families without insurance.

“It’s another barrier,” said Macyk. “The biggest thing is the little barriers — can we get enough physicals? Where can we run?”

Equipment can be another barrier: The staff are gathering donated sports bras, and items like batons and water bottles. The district just informed coaches that it will provide track spikes for all middle school athletes.

But with less than a week left until the deadline to guarantee a team, Steel just has five of 10 needed physicals returned. (There was only one until last weekend, when Sitarz, with parents’ permission, took four students to a clinic offering free sports physicals at another North Philadelphia school.)

The coaches have promised the kids ice cream if they’re able to get their forms turned in, but there are no guarantees.

“You don’t want to do something and disappoint the kids, because they’re used to being disappointed,” said Kerrin. “We’re telling the kids, ‘Invite your friends because if we don’t have 10 kids, it’s not happening.’”

A single banner hangs in the Steel gym, commemorating a 2011 double Dutch championship. Macyk sometimes points it out to the team.

“We say, ‘That’s going to be you guys,’” he said. “That sense of ownership, of being at the beginning of something — it’s so rare, and so great. Those opportunities are so few and far between in these neighborhood schools.”