Afterschool STEM Hub year in review

As 2024 comes to a close, the Afterschool STEM Hub is reflecting on the past year and looking forward to the year ahead. In working toward our vision of a STEM learning ecosystem where high-quality afterschool programs are well-resourced and accessible for all youth, we leveraged collaborative partnerships in making the case for afterschool STEM. We also continued nurturing relationships with legislative offices in our advocacy efforts. Internally, we established our inaugural Practitioners Advisory Group to help inform our advocacy, and we welcomed new members, such as the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, the Student Association for STEM Advocacy, and the Institute for Learning Innovation.

Looking back

This past spring, we were delighted to host a congressional briefing on the importance of afterschool STEM programs for older youth. The briefing was attended by industry, business leaders of STEM talent, congressional offices, non-profit STEM and afterschool organizations, and STEM funders, among others.

In collaboration with our sister initiative at the Afterschool Alliance, the Collective for Youth Empowerment in STEM and Society, we convened a focus group of young people engaged in afterschool STEM programs to ask for their thoughts on the future of STEM education. As their perspectives help shape our policy agenda's development, we share their perspectives in meetings with legislators, funders, and programs. We also coordinated an opportunity for young people to weigh in directly on proposed federal legislation. Working with Senator Chris Murphy’s (D-Conn.) office, we invited youth to meet with his staff working on the Summer for All Act so they could provide recommendations for enhancing the potential impact of the legislation on older youth.

In addition to highlighting ways of supporting older youth, one of our key policy priorities for this year was to begin understanding the unique needs of afterschool educators who facilitate STEM programming and how those needs differ across age groups. In doing so, we convened a group of 13 afterschool STEM program practitioners as the inaugural cohort of our Practitioners Advisory Group. They represent a variety of afterschool STEM programs across the nation, such as Together Friends Organization, STEMarts Lab, STEM from Dance, Chaos Learning Lab, FirstHand, and The STEM Connection. Through focus group discussions and knowledge exchange, they ensure multiple voices are at the table and that our advocacy and policy recommendations are ground-truthed. They also have the opportunity to provide insights on relevant federal policies and discuss how federal programs are helping or hindering their work.

We also began drafting proposed federal legislation supporting the afterschool STEM workforce, focusing on sustaining professional development and peer support. In addition to information gleaned from our Practitioners Advisory Group, we convened a Professional Development Working Group, consisting of individuals from organizations that either curate or deliver STEM professional development for afterschool and informal STEM programs, to help inform the bill's language.

Working with our Research Working Group, we launched the Afterschool STEM Quarterly Research Review Newsletter, which aims to provide the afterschool field and policymakers with the latest and most relevant findings and implications from afterschool STEM education. The newsletter has been well-received with subscribers from the afterschool field, school systems, research institutions, funders, and more. Our most recently released edition focuses on how afterschool STEM programs impact their communities through youth-led initiatives.

Looking ahead

Moving into 2025, we feel hopeful and inspired. The updated Federal STEM Strategic Plan showcases the prominent role that informal and afterschool STEM plays in enhancing STEM education. The recently released National Academies’ report, Scaling and Sustaining PreK-12 STEM Education Innovations, highlights how informal and afterschool STEM opportunities are valuable spaces for innovation development. The STEMM Opportunity Alliance’s National Strategy for Progress and Prosperity fully integrates the role of afterschool STEM in inspiring more youth. Each of these high-level reports validates the importance of increasing investment in afterschool STEM, and we are thankful and awed by the clear value that afterschool STEM plays in our society.

The Afterschool STEM Hub will continue to be a voice that advocates for this issue at the federal level so we can all build on this momentum and energy. We will continue building upon our work supporting the needs of afterschool STEM educators and programs while building a policy agenda supportive of older youth. Supporting the needs of older youth dovetails with efforts to support afterschool STEM educators because, if provided the right incentives and support, youth can fulfill program staffing needs, be near-peer mentors for younger youth served by programs, and help facilitate STEM activities. It also ties into young people’s desire to be changemakers who can support more young people to access STEM learning in afterschool programs.

We look forward to continuing engagement with our Practitioners Advisory Group, hearing from more young people, and working with the new federal administration and legislators to continue advocating for increased investments in afterschool STEM programs. We also look forward to collaborating with all of you to raise your voice of support for afterschool STEM!

We want to continue learning from you and to be a resource for you - please follow us on LinkedIn, email us with any questions stemhub@afterschoolalliance.org, and be on the lookout for our next research review newsletter in the new year.

Happy New Year, everyone!