The newly-released School Improvement Grants (SIG) analysis and assessment data shows that schools receiving such grants have increased proficiency rates in math and reading since the program was implemented two years ago. The SIG Program is a major component of the Department of Education’s game plan to help turn around the nation’s lowest performing schools. SIG funds are awarded by state education agencies to local education agencies to close, transform, restart or turn around low performing schools. Afterschool is mentioned in Department of Education guidance as part of turnaround and transformational strategies.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan commented on the progress and said “To build on this success in our disadvantaged communities, we must expand the most effective practices to accelerate progress for students and prepare them for success in college and careers.”
So what are some of these effective practices? Of the three programs highlighted in the department’s press release two weeks ago, two grantees used expanded learning time within school and/or afterschool programs within their turnaround plans. Using SIG funds for expanded learning time ensures other funding streams like the 21st Century Community Learning Centers initiative can support afterschool, summer learning and before-school programs.
Oak Hill Elementary School in Guilford County, North Carolina, extended the school day by 45 minutes and added 10 extra days into the school calendar. In return, students are given 1 on 1 time with teachers. Kindergarten teachers conduct home visits and teachers are in contact with parents monthly, creating a strong parent-teacher community. Math performance jumped from 59 percent during the 2009-2010 school year to 86 percent in 2011-2012. In reading, student performance is up to 85 percent for the 2011-2012 school year in comparison to 34 percent the prior year. The elementary school has been a part of the SIG program since its inception, and statistically is one of the most successful turnaround stories.
In Baltimore, Frederick Douglas High School was able to slash its dropout rate in half and raise the student population’s English proficiency from 41 percent in 2011 to 53 percent in 2012 after its first year of receiving the grant. Frederick Douglas High initiated a night school program that allows students who are struggling academically to use their afterschool time for tutoring and taking credit recovery classes so that they could graduate on time. According to the Department of Education blog, the principal also expanded a media and production studio, created a law program where career and technical students can train, and launched a dual enrollment program with Baltimore City Community College.
Oak Hill Elementary and Frederick Douglas High School are just two of nearly 1,500 schools implementing turnaround plans. Although it is still relatively early within the program, the new SIG analysis and data demonstrate that grant-receivers have increased in proficiency in math and English, giving much hope to the future of our schools.
More than 11,000 votes were cast in this year’sLights On Afterschool Facebook photo contest, and we think you did a great job picking some awesome winning photos. We were really impressed with the quality of photos we received this year and amazed at your ability to activate your networks and get out the vote—it was great to see entire communities band together to support their local programs!
There were lots of ways to win this year. The top vote-getter from Bright House Networks’ service area received $2,000. The next top three photos (from anywhere) each won $1,000. We even teamed up with five state afterschool networks to offer prizes for the top vote-getter in their state!
Here are the 2013 photo contest winners:
$2,000 Grand Prize:
Caption: Timber Lakes Extended Day celebrating Lights On 2013 with a Family Game Night!
Timber Lakes Extended Day
Orlando, FL
$1,000 Winners:
Caption: On October 17th, 2013 Booker T. Washington Beacon 54 (A program of Harlem Children's Zone) celebrated the positive impact our program has had on this diverse community. Keep the lights on afterschool in Harlem!
Booker T. Washington Beacon 54
Harlem, NY
Caption: We have a lot of bright ideas for after school!
Mt. Pleasant Kids Plus
Concord, NC
Caption: Let's Serve!!
Cache Valley Volunteer Center TEAM Club
Logan, UT
State network prize winners:
This Arkansas program won free registration, up to a $500 value, to a national afterschool or summer learning conference for program staff.
This Illinois program won a Staples gift card valued at $150 and ACT Now Coalition swag including a t-shirt, pen and reusable bag.
This Maryland program won free registration for a program staff member to participate in the MOST regional conference series.
Caption: This is a picture of two kids in the photo booth we had at our Lights on Afterschool block party.
Boys & Girls Club of Fayetteville
Fayetteville, AR
Caption: Stars in the Sun
Midway Youth Center
Chicago, IL
Caption: YMCA Benchmarks students experience the thrill of their remote control STEM projects!
YMCA Benchmarks
Silver Spring, MD
This New Mexico program won a Family Math Kit, sponsored by Sandia National Laboratories, that contains $450 worth of resources to engage parents by hosting a family math night!
This Texas program won a 2-4 hour on-site workshop/staff training on advocacy, communications and strategies for promoting their program.
Caption: Help us keep the Lights on Afterschool at Kirtland Air Force Base Youth Programs!!!
Kirtland Air Force Base Youth Programs
Albuquerque, NM
Caption: ACFT (Sean Nguyen) Graphic Design After-school class\nGiving kids confidence, and unleashing their superhero, to do anything.
Aspire at Academy at C. F. Thomas Elementary
Fort Worth, TX
I’m not much of a Black Friday or Cyber Monday shopper. But the one purchase I did make over the Thanksgiving weekend was putting a deposit down toward my daughter’s summer program. Her afterschool program heeded the advice of the National Summer Learning Association, the Wallace Foundation and others by starting their summer planning early and offering parents an incentive to sign up now so that the program can effectively continue to plan and be ready when school lets out for the summer.
A report released by the Wallace Foundation earlier this year, Getting to Work on Summer Learning: Recommended Practices for Success, provides summer learning programs with research-based strategies to help them effectively meet the needs of kids and families. A key practice in the report is that summer learning programs should start planning at least six months early—for most programs that means planning should be underway right about now. The recommended practices—which were covered in a previous Afterschool Snack post—focus on:
Planning
Curriculum
Hiring and training staff
Integrating enrichment and academics
Promoting regular attendance and sufficient dosage
Controlling costs
This report is a follow-up to the 2011 Making Summer Count report, which presented the research on summer learning loss and the promise of summer learning programs. Making Summer Count highlighted the important role that summer learning programs can play to bridge the achievement gap between low-income and upper-income students and prevent the summer slide.
Effective summer planning starts early. Let’s put a spin on Christmas in July and think summer NOW. And, as an added bonus, you’ll get a warm feeling inside from all those thoughts of summer while the temps outside are chilly.
The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities—in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services—is pleased to invite applications for the 2014 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards.
The 12 award-winning programs this year will receive $10,000 and an invitation to accept their award from the President’s Committee’s Honorary Chairman, First Lady Michelle Obama, at a ceremony at the White House. In addition, winners will receive an award plaque, the opportunity to attend the Annual Awardee Conference in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2014, and will be featured on the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award website.
Afterschool and out-of-school-time arts and humanities programs sponsored by museums, libraries, performing arts organizations, educational institutions (e.g., preschools; elementary, middle, and high schools; universities; and colleges), arts centers, community service organizations, businesses, and eligible government entities are encouraged to consider submitting an application. Programs applying for the award must meet all of the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award’s eligibility criteria.
Completed applications will only be accepted via the online process. The deadline for application submissions is Monday, Feb. 10, 2014, 5 p.m. PST.
Please click the following link to access the online National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Awards Application: http://www.nahyp.org/how-to-apply/
More than 300 students from 11 New Orleans area schools will perform African and Brazilian drum and dance, modern and hip-hop dance, ballet, steel pan, and creative movement at the sixth annual Young Audiences’ Winter Spotlight next week. “Our programs provide a safe haven for students and an affirmative way of expression, surrounding and engaging them in positive arts education. The Winter Spotlight allows our city to see the amazing things our children are doing,” Young Audiences Director of After School and Summer Programs Jon Cosper told The Times-Picayune.
In Roanoke, afterschool students are participating in three NASA challenges, including a recent “Parachuting onto Mars” mission where students designed a parachute, picked out materials, constructed and troubleshooted the mission. The challenges are part of the U.S. Department of Education’s 21st Century Community Learning Center pilot program, STEM Challenges. Students from Virginia, Michigan and Colorado are participating, The Roanoke Times reports. The Roanoke middle school is 1 of 8 Virginia schools in the program.
Horton’s Kids, a nonprofit group that provides one-on-one tutoring and educational support to student’s from the District’s Ward 8, helps more than 500 students each year with literacy and math skills. Students are tutored in U.S. House of Representatives office spaces, which are donated to Horton’s Kids for use on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons by the chairmen of the Judiciary, Appropriations, and Education and the Workforce committees. The tutors receive no compensation but say the rewards they get during the afterschool tutoring sessions are their own form of compensation. Volunteer tutor Alyssa Przybyl, who works at the Department of Veteran Affairs, told the Washington Post, “It just feels good at the end of the day.”
A recent report from Rhode Island KidsCount found that high school graduation rates in the state’s poorest cities improved at more than twice the rate of the rest of the state during the last five years. The graduation rate in Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence and Woonsocket increased 10% since 2007, to 66% in 2012. During the same five-year period in the rest of the state, the graduation rate increased 4% to 83% in 2012. At the Providence Grad National Summit discussing the report, “state Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist emphasized efforts to raise the state’s graduation rate, including improving literacy in the early grades and afterschool and summer math programs for high school students,” the Providence Journal reports.
Local housing authorities represent ideal partners for community-based afterschool providers. Often, housing authorities can provide on-site facilities for afterschool programs, while community-based afterschool providers can offer trained staff and curriculum. A Boys & Girls Club and housing authority in Southern California recently entered into a partnership that continues to reap rewards for the local community.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Monica (BGCSM) has created a sustainable partnership model intended to strengthen communities and meet the needs of local students. In 2011, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) reached out to BGCSM to gauge their interest in taking over out-of-school-time programming at a public housing community—Mar Vista Gardens (MVG)—when a lack of sustainable funding meant that the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks and HACLA could no longer offer programming to resident families. MVG is the third-largest public housing site in the city of Los Angeles and struggles with high crime and poverty rates. The community includes more than 600 students who, before BGCSM’s arrival, did not have access to engaging learning opportunities in the hours after school.
According to Aaron Young, president of BGCSM, the partnership with HACLA and MVG appeared to offer an exciting new opportunity for the club, but BGCSM needed to ask the following questions before accepting HACLA’s proposal:
Does the proposed partnership fit BGCSM’s mission?
Can BGCSM afford to undertake this partnership?
Does BGCSM currently have the necessary resources? If no, where could they obtain them?
Do the families in the MVG community even want a Boys & Girls Club?
After reaching out to youth, parents and residents in the MVG community, in addition to extensive discussions with HACLA, BGCSM decided to move forward. One BGCSM board member had previously expressed interest in opening a new afterschool site in an underserved area, and after a tour of the MVG facility he was ready to make a significant commitment toward launching the partnership. BGCSM then managed to leverage that initial private support and secure additional foundation, government and HACLA funding to sustain the new venture.
Two of the greatest challenges facing this new partnership included the presence of gangs and some initial apprehension felt by MVG residents. In response, BGCSM redoubled their community outreach efforts and engaged in listening to residents’ concerns without judgment. States Young, “we sat down with the gangs, and with mothers, children and other local service providers to discover what was working for them and what wasn’t, what hours of operation would fit their lifestyles, and their hopes and dreams for the community.”
Nearly one year after the new facility at MVG opened its doors, BGCSM’s outreach efforts have paid off. More than 500 young people have registered as members at the program, and the spirit of community has blossomed. Many ingredients went into the success of the MVG public-private partnership, with the most important elements being:
The Right Partners: HACLA and the Community Corporation of Santa Monica (CCSM), a nonprofit, community-based corporation that owns and manages affordable housing, were the perfect partners for building a sustainable model. Each party brought unique skills and resources to the table that, when combined, created a working whole.
The Right Executive Director: BGCSM conducted a nationwide search for an executive director to lead the MVG branch. The individual chosen came from a Boys & Girls Club in Boston and has the confidence and ability to deal with all of MVG’s different constituencies, including its gang members. She then hired staff from within the MVG community and set club hours that work for children, families and residents.
The Right Facility: The MVG building was the appropriate size and has excellent amenities, including two baseball fields. In addition, the building has an ideal location within walking distance of two elementary schools, a middle school and a high school.
The Right Preparation: A large part of building a sustainable model was doing the necessary research and then laying the groundwork, including getting buy-in from both the public and private sectors. It is essential to forge relationships with city officials, school districts and other local youth-serving agencies and then strategically position the new program as filling a resource gap.
Do these factors mirror the traits of your program’s own successful partnerships? Share your experience partnering with housing authorities in the comments section below.
The 2014 Visitor Studies Association Conference is to be held July 15-19, 2014, in Albuquerque, NM, around the theme Building Capacity for Evaluation: Individuals, Institutions, the Field.
For their 2014 conference, VSA invites the informal learning community to join them in creating a conference program that pushes the field of visitor studies forward by addressing the increasing interest in evaluation and the growing demand for evidence. This year, VSA will think strategically about how to continually build capacity for evaluation.
The deadline for submissions is: Monday, Dec. 16, 2013.
The Hour of Code is next week. If you haven’t heard already, we’re supporting this unprecedented movement to help 10 million students try computer science this Dec. 9-15. We’re asking you to join us.
Please host an Hour of Code for your students. For details, see this handout or check out the video below for details. Get started athttp://hourofcode.com
Why computer science? Technology is everywhere today. But only a tiny fraction of students are learning how to create technology. The Hour of Code is a campaign to prove that every child can start learning the basics. Code.org will provide tutorials with options for every age, every device, and even “unplugged.” No prep from teachers needed.
While tutorials are still under construction, we invite you to check them out - featuring Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Angry Birds.
2,000,000 students and growing
More than 2 million students are already planning to participate in the Hour of Code across 144 countries! See schools participating in your area here.
This amazing milestone proves that the demand to catch up to the 21st century with relevant computer science education knows no boundaries.
Let’s open up a new world of opportunity for today’s generation of students. Join us now.
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