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How Equity-Minded School Districts Run Afterschool and Summer Programs

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Wallace has some 50 active research studies across the foundation’s areas of arts, education leadership, and youth development. This blog is the second in an occasional series of conversations that Bronwyn Bevan, vice president of research, has been having with researchers Wallace has commissioned or awarded grants to. She recently talked with professors Valerie Adams-Bass, from Rutgers University, and Nancy Deutsch, from the University of Virginia, about a study they led for Wallace to understand how school districts that were taking strong steps to address equity during the school day were thinking about equity with respect to their afterschool and summer programs. Wallace has posted <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/expanding-equity-afterschool-summer-learning-lessons-from-school-districts.aspx">a brief</a> describing key points from their study. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Bronwyn: Before you talk about what your study found, can you please share how you defined equity in your research? <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-equity-minded-school-districts-run-afterschool-and-summer-programs/Valerie%20Adams-Bass.jpg" alt="Valerie Adams-Bass.jpg" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;width:190px;height:253px;" />Valerie: We define equity as ensuring that every person has access to what they need to thrive. This is different from ensuring that every person has equal access to resources. Instead, it means that when making decisions about resources, you need to consider how existing disparities affect people's needs differentially. For example, designing programs for “all students” without attending to who has access to transportation to the programs and who doesn’t would not be an equitable approach. This way of thinking about recognizing and responding to disparities formed the backbone for <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/expanding-equity-afterschool-summer-learning-lessons-from-school-districts.aspx">the set of equity indicators</a> we developed that then guided the selection of districts in our study. <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-equity-minded-school-districts-run-afterschool-and-summer-programs/Bronwyn%20Bevan%20-15.jpg" alt="Bronwyn Bevan -15.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;color:#555555;font-size:14px;width:200px;height:301px;" />Bronwyn: That's a great concrete example. I could also imagine, on a social dimension, it might involve recognizing, for example, who might feel “welcomed” in a space, and who might not.  Addressing that disparity might require more than a handshake to make a person who perhaps has felt excluded from a space, perhaps excluded across generations, to truly feel not only welcomed but as if they have what researchers Angie Calabrese Barton and Edna Tan call “a rightful presence” to be in and to make up that space. Equity would mean taking extra steps, providing meaningful social supports to ensure that a person truly experiences a sense of belonging. <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-equity-minded-school-districts-run-afterschool-and-summer-programs/NancyDeutsch.jpg" alt="NancyDeutsch.jpg" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;width:227px;height:227px;" />Nancy: We undertook this study because how districts operationalize equity in out-of-school-time spaces—logistically as well as socially—is so important. How do they ensure that all young people have an opportunity to thrive in and through the out-of-school-time space? Afterschool and summer programs clearly have the potential to increase equity and opportunity for young people, but unless districts are intentional about it, their out-of-school-time programs can end up replicating structures of inequity. “What was exciting about this study was documenting concrete actions that administrators and teachers could take to advance equity.” Bronwyn: Could you say more about that? Valerie: Particularly for young people who are not thriving in school, what happens in afterschool and summer may need to be different. What was exciting about this study was the opportunity to document concrete actions that administrators as well as teachers could take to advance equity—how they recognize disparities and provide resources and supports that address those disparities for full and meaningful student participation. Bronwyn: What are the kinds of things you look for when you are looking for equity in the district’s out-of-school-time space?  Valerie: I want to see a notable number of the afterschool staff members reflecting and knowing the community they're serving. Sometimes you see programs build pipelines by hiring students who have come through the district. Those districts are intentional and purposeful about who they hire. This can help young people feel welcome, recognized, and supported. Nancy: I want to see programs that celebrate and amplify students’ cultures. This can mean drawing on the strengths of the young people's families and community members. This can help young people feel that who they are and where they come from makes a contribution. “You look to see how programs listen to the community and to young people themselves and use what they hear to develop their programs.” Valerie: You look to see how programs listen to the community and to young people themselves and use what they hear to develop their programs. That can look like creating spaces to engage with families outside of the normal school day hours. Parents are working during those hours.  That can look like children’s circles, where students are invited to speak up about what they want more of.  Nancy: Equity also looks like opportunity. Do districts have positive, fun, and meaningful options in the summer? Some kids have parents who can afford to pay for summer camps and other enrichment activities. They're not sitting around doing remedial math. It’s by definition inequitable when some students get to choose how they spend their summers, and therefore how they grow and develop when school is out, while other students have no choice. We saw a mix in the districts we studied. Some were very focused on equalizing summer opportunities for particular sub-populations of students.  Bronwyn: So I am hearing you define equity practices in two ways.  One is where districts are identifying sub-populations of youth to provide them with enriching growth experiences like those their more affluent peers might be getting through their family and neighborhood resources.  The other is attention to the program experience so that they are affirming of young people’s identity—through staffing, through listening and program offerings.  It reminds me of education scholar Rochelle Gutierrez’s dominant and critical axes of equity—one axis is about access and achievement and the other about identity and power, and you need both. Were there differences in how districts thought about these two opportunity axes?  Valerie: It really varied by district; but I believe equity-rich districts that were doing the work did a little bit of both.  The key thing is that they were very aware of who needed what in their communities.  We had one large district that was focused on psychological and social services for all young people. We had another district that was offering the services, and they were providing multiple kinds of programs and thinking about how to make sure that young people were coming, and that the parents were okay with the program menu. Nancy: There was a lot of focus on access, including transportation issues and figuring out which schools should be providing [programming] and how to get kids there. There was a universal sense of “Okay, we can't be doing equity if we're not having equity of access.” Bronwyn: I hear you saying that you might have to start with access, which Gutiérrez would call part of the dominant axis of equity (“welcome to our space”), but the other axis, the critical one, would focus on providing meaningful experiences, where issues of power and identity may be salient (“this space is yours”).  In other words there may be logistical barriers, but what about social ones, the cultural ones? There’s a bus to the program, why is it that some students choose not to get on it? Valerie: We saw that it was important to know the community.  One district leader described how she tapped a staff person who deeply knew what the community wanted and excelled at the cultural translation.  She leaned on that person.  I would say bilingual or multilingualism also came up a lot in terms of communicating with the parents about the programming, especially when it was new. Nancy: In some districts, schools thought about what is missing in their standard offerings.  So, for example, in schools where arts programs had been cut, they offered them in afterschool or summer.  That led to something else that our study found to be crucial: partnering with community-based organizations. Bronwyn: Can you say more about that? Nancy: We saw some districts recognize that they didn’t have the expertise on staff to do culturally specific or responsive or advanced programming in a particular area.  But they recognized that there was an organization in the community that did it really well.  So they contracted with those organizations to provide programs. Bronwyn: I’m aware of other research that talks about the importance of partnerships with community-based organizations. Did you see the equity concerns of the districts get picked up by the partners? Valerie: Typically I think that the partners were aware of district equity efforts. But it really depended on how long the partnership had existed.  Nancy: Partnerships bring really important things to the table. But you don't always have that communication between the districts and the partners in terms of what's happening in the school building, what the expectations are out of the school building, or priorities of the district versus the program. So you often have decision-making happening at the district without necessarily the knowledge or input of the partners. Valerie: We also saw differences in terms of what was being measured. For example, a school district may have its own metrics for equity, for student achievement, and student mental health while the community partner has different metrics. They didn’t always speak the same language, and they didn’t refer to the same data or data dashboard. We kept thinking wow, this is such an opportunity to really, you know, tighten up equity if they could come together around measurement or indicators. Nancy: There was also silo-ing within districts. Even when districts had offices that ran the OST programming, it was usually separate from the office of DEI. So the person in the office of diversity equity, inclusion couldn’t answer questions about OST, and vice versa. There’s a huge opportunity for coherence there. Photos from top to bottom: Valerie Adams-Bass, Bronwyn Bevan, and Nancy Deutsch

Bronwyn Bevan

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2023-09-12T04:00:00Z

How Equity-Minded School Districts Run Afterschool and Summer Programs

9/12/2023 2:14:07 PM

The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / How Equity-Minded School Districts Run Afterschool and Summer Programs Providing access and the right experiences are two

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Two New Tools for Your Summer Learning Toolbox

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Spring is in bloom across the country and summer learning providers are gearing up for their time in the sun. Planning may have been happening for months, but there’s plenty more to do. To help with this, Wallace pulled together eight key summer learning practices from RAND’s <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/getting-to-work-on-summer-learning-2nd-ed.aspx?_ga=2.204750421.473140566.1685978141-148854607.1683739404">Getting to Work on Summer Learning (2</a><a href="/knowledge-center/pages/getting-to-work-on-summer-learning-2nd-ed.aspx">nd</a><a href="/knowledge-center/pages/getting-to-work-on-summer-learning-2nd-ed.aspx"> edition)</a> report. The report distills lessons from the National Summer Learning Project, a multiyear effort to understand whether and how voluntary district-run summer learning programs can help promote success in school. These eight key summer learning practices for elementary school districts cover best practices for fostering a positive climate, academic instruction, maximizing attendance and more. Check out the one-pager below as a reference guide or share the infographic with your colleagues on social media. <a href="/knowledge-center/Documents/key-practices-for-summer-learning-implementation.pdf"><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/two-new-tools-for-your-summer-learning-toolbox/key-practices-for-summer-learning-implementation-hd.jpg" alt="key-practices-for-summer-learning-implementation-hd.jpg" style="margin:5px;" /></a> <a href="/knowledge-center/Documents/key-practices-for-summer-learning-implementation.pdf">See the One Pager</a> <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/two-new-tools-for-your-summer-learning-toolbox/2023-wallace_summer-learning-infographic-hd.jpg" alt="2023-wallace_summer-learning-infographic-hd.jpg" style="margin:5px;" /> <a href="/knowledge-center/Documents/2023-wallace_summer-learning-infographic.pdf"> See the Infographic</a> And don’t forget to check out our <a href="/knowledge-center/summer-learning/toolkit/pages/default.aspx">Summer Learning Toolkit</a> for other resources to help you get your program off to a strong start.

Andrea Ruggirello

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2023-06-07T04:00:00Z

Your source for research and ideas to expand high quality learning and enrichment opportunities. Supporting: School Leadership, After School, Summer and Extended Learning Time, Arts Education and Building Audiences for the Arts.

6/7/2023 2:10:20 PM

The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Two New Tools for Your Summer Learning Toolbox New Infographic and One-Pager Highlight Key Summer Learning Practices for

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Ensuring Access to Out-of-School-Time Programs and Using Federal Funds to Pay for It

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Ask people about the book they remember most clearly, a movie script they could recite, or the weirdest song they can sing along to, and chances are they’ll name something from their adolescence. The tween and early teen years, for better or worse, can stick with us throughout our lives, determining who we are, where we feel we belong and where we want to be when we grow up.How can today’s adults help young people use these crucial years to become healthy, productive, and empathetic adults of tomorrow? One way is to offer meaningful and enriching out-of-school activities that provide safe spaces to experiment with new experiences, new interests, and new ways of relating to the world. Unfortunately, many young people lack access to such activities. <a href="http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/AA3PM/">A 2020 survey conducted by the Afterschool Alliance</a> found that there were 24.6 million children in the U.S. who were not enrolled in out-of-school-time programs but would be if such programs were available to them. For every child enrolled in out-of-school programs, according to the same survey, there were three who would attend if they could. Access is especially limited for youth from low-income backgrounds, many of whom may most need afterschool support while parents or guardians work multiple jobs to make ends meet. <a href="https://www.childtrends.org/publications/participation-in-out-of-school-time-activities-and-programs">According to a 2014 Child Trends survey</a>, 72.7 percent of households with incomes more than twice the federal poverty level enrolled children in out-of-school activities. For households making less than that, the number fell to just 43.9 percent, a 29-point difference. <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/ensuring-access-to-out-of-school-time-programs-and-using-federal-funds-to-pay-for-it/Federal-funds-for-OST-ch.jpg" alt="Federal-funds-for-OST-ch.jpg" style="margin:5px;" /> Decades of Wallace experience suggest that a focus on systems—the coordinated efforts of entities such as departments of education, school boards, philanthropies, nonprofit groups, and intermediary organizations—could help change this picture and expand access to quality out-of-school-time programs. Efforts in cities around the country, including <a href="/knowledge-center/Pages/building-an-effective-social-and-emotional-learning-committe-dallas-vol2-pt3.aspx">Dallas</a>, <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/expanding-social-and-emotional-learning-boston-vol2-pt2.aspx">Boston</a> and <a href="/knowledge-center/Pages/learning-to-focus-on-adult-sel-first-tulsa-vol2-pt7.aspx">Tulsa</a>, point to elements of systems that could help more young people access the programs they need, including:<div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">An entity to coordinate the work of different groups and the resources available to them </div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Clear standards of quality</div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Data systems that keep track of who has access to out-of-school-time programs, populations that may be excluded from them, the quality of services these programs provide, and opportunities to improve them</div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Committed leadership from prominent officials such as mayors and county executives</div>Wallace has <a href="/knowledge-center/after-school/pages/default.aspx">several resources available</a> to help cities develop such systems. Among them are guides to:<div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Help <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/from-access-to-equity-making-out-of-school-time-spaces-meaningful-for-teens-from-marginalized-communities.aspx">ensure equity</a> in out-of-school-time programs </div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Use <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/framework-for-measurement-continuous-improvement-and-equitable-systems.aspx">data to assess their effectiveness</a></div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Identify<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/federal-funding-guide-for-summer-and-afterschool.aspx"> federal funding opportunities</a>, made available through the American Rescue Plan of 2021, that could help pay for the development of these systems</div>

Wallace editorial team

2023-03-21T04:00:00Z

3/21/2023 4:40:28 PM

The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Ensuring Access to Out-of-School-Time Programs and Using Federal Funds to Pay for It Resources to help develop and cover

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How Seven Foundations Bolstered Afterschool, Summer Programming as COVID Raged

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In the frantic early days of the pandemic, afterschool program providers went into overdrive. While schools shut, many programs stayed open, delivering meals, helping families meet basic needs, moving youth programs online, or launching all-day learning centers for the children of essential workers. <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/Cover_EmergingVoicesSeries_Brief.png" alt="Cover_EmergingVoicesSeries_Brief.png" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:212px;height:275px;" />For seven philanthropies, the heavy load shouldered by youth programs was a crisis to address. It also presented an opportunity—to heighten awareness among policymakers and others of the importance of the out-of-school-time (OST) sector, which includes afterschool, summer and other beyond-the-school-bell programs. Their response, organized through Grantmakers for Education, was to pool $1.5 million to invest in a range of projects to help national organizations both advocate for OST programs and provide guidance to their members and affiliates scrambling to meet pandemic-created needs. <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/jodi-grant.jpg" alt="jodi-grant.jpg" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;width:161px;height:201px;" />It was a move perhaps unprecedented for OST donors. “In 18 years, this is the first time I’ve seen this kind of collaboration with funders,” said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance, one of the first four of the eight Afterschool and Summer Recovery and Opportunity Fund grantees in 2020 and 2021.Personal stories can be influential with policymakers, Grant noted, and so her group used a portion of its grant to fund its Afterschool Ambassadors and Youth Ambassadors programs, which train providers and young people to speak publicly about their experiences with afterschool programs. Ambassadors are of diverse races and ethnicities and represent all regions of the country and communities in urban, rural, and suburban areas, Grant said. “Getting all those people to be seen and heard is key.”She thinks similar communications efforts by a number of grantees helped lay the groundwork for the approval in federal pandemic relief packages of significant funding to bolster out-of-school-time efforts. “To date, we believe about $5 billion in federal COVID dollars have been used to support afterschool and summer learning programs,” she said. “Normally the federal budget is $1.3 billion for afterschool, so we’re talking about more than tripling that.” <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/GinaWarner.jpg" alt="GinaWarner.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:125px;height:167px;" />Amid the protests surrounding George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, social justice became a focus for the fund. The National AfterSchool Association, for one, used its grant in part to develop the <a href="https://naaweb.org/all-documents/41-the-ost-leaders-guide-to-equitable-hiring-and-staff-development-practices/file">OST Leader’s Guide to Equitable Hiring and Staff Development</a>, a resource to help its 32,000 members establish more equitable workplace practices. While many nonprofits post equity statements and have good intentions, they often lack needed plans of action, such as strategies for attracting a more diverse applicant pool and reducing bias in interviews, according to Gina Warner, the association’s president and CEO. “I don’t think it’s a lack of interest,” she said. “It’s a lack of awareness and understanding, and access to resources for how to do it.” In partnership with another grantee—Every Hour Counts, a coalition of organizations that coordinate communitywide out-of-school-time efforts—the group also led “equity strategy sessions” for more than 500 afterschool leaders, including those heading statewide or citywide program networks.<h3 class="wf-Element-H3">More Diverse Perspectives Needed</h3>The first four grantees, which included the National Summer Learning Association, met through video conferences with the philanthropies to share information from the sector and discuss how funders could most effectively respond, especially in communities of color hardest hit by the pandemic. Yet it was evident that more diverse perspectives were needed, recalled Grant. “We were all very aware that we were four organizations led by white people even though the communities we serve are much more diverse.”The second group of grantees—the National Urban League, the National Indian Education Association, UnidosUS, and the Coalition for Community Schools—had deep expertise with K-12 education in communities of color as well as experience supporting OST initiatives. <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/EmergingVoicesBrief_Graphic3.png" alt="EmergingVoicesBrief_Graphic3.png" style="color:#555555;font-size:14px;margin:5px;" /> <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/Claudia-DeMegret.jpg" alt="Claudia-DeMegret.jpg" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;width:194px;height:217px;" />“The idea was to diversify and strengthen the national out-of-school-time community,” said Claudia DeMegret, a senior program officer at Wallace, one of the funders. “We laid the groundwork for that to happen.”Like the first four grantees, the members of the next cohort were given flexibility to spend their grant dollars on projects they believed would have the most impact.The National Urban League wanted to spotlight a problem raised by its local affiliates—the number of young people who pulled back from school during the pandemic. In a powerful series of 13 short films titled <a href="https://nul.org/event/emerging-voices-pandemic-students-speak-out" target="_blank">Emerging Voices from the Pandemic: Students Speak Out</a>, teens interviewed peers about the circumstances that had led to their disengagement and solicited ideas for improving learning and student well-being in schools. The need for more emotional support emerged as a theme. <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/EmergingVoicesBrief_Graphic4.png" alt="EmergingVoicesBrief_Graphic4.png" style="margin:5px;" /> <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/Horatio-Blackmanv1-Headshot.png" alt="Horatio-Blackmanv1-Headshot.png" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:200px;height:200px;" />“In our conversations with national policy tables, staffers on the Hill, and local advocates and our affiliates, people have told us that they’ve seen those videos and that they impacted their thinking on how to support youth,” said Horatio Blackman, vice president of education policy, advocacy, and engagement at the National Urban League. “I think it helped push the national conversation on social-emotional learning and whole child support.” <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/Diana-Cournoyer.jpg" alt="Diana-Cournoyer.jpg" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;width:175px;height:175px;" />The National Indian Education Association used its grant to conduct a study of the characteristics and availability of afterschool programs in Native American communities nationwide. “I wanted to shine a light on these issues that don’t always get talked about in afterschool learning,” said Executive Director Diana Cournoyer.Among other findings, nearly 36 percent of native parents surveyed did not enroll their child in an afterschool program because of lack of program availability or accessibility. For many Native American students in rural communities, commuting to and from school can take 90 minutes to four hours a day, Cournoyer explained. Running extra buses for afterschool programs, she said, is an expense rural school districts often can’t afford and grantmakers typically don’t cover.<h3 class="wf-Element-H3">A New Direction for Wallace</h3> <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/GrantmakingPracticesOSTRecoveryOpportunityFund10-7-22-1.jpg" alt="GrantmakingPracticesOSTRecoveryOpportunityFund10-7-22-1.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:195px;height:252px;" />As a culminating activity, the eight grantees <a href="https://www.edfunders.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GrantmakingPracticesOSTRecoveryOpportunityFund10-7-22.pdf" target="_blank">wrote a report</a> with recommendations to out-of-school-time funders. Suggestions included allowing nonprofits more flexibility in defining grant outcomes that meet their own priorities, getting community input into foundation initiatives, and putting longer grant cycles into place.Gigi Antoni, director of learning and enrichment at Wallace, said that the foundation is using what it learned from the grantees’ feedback and its experience with the pooled fund to rethink its approach to out-of-school-time grant making.For example, instead of soliciting grant proposals only from selected national nonprofits, which is typical for a national foundation, she said, Wallace recently put out a broad call for first-round applicants to a forthcoming, one-year venture. The hope is that this will lead to a more diverse applicant pool from which to draw finalists. <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-seven-foundations-bolstered-afterschool-summer-programming-as-covid-raged/Gigi-Antoni.jpg" alt="Gigi-Antoni.jpg" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;width:158px;height:167px;" />“We’ve talked to hundreds of communities in the last couple of months,” Antoni said, “and now have 1,700 applications from rural, suburban, and urban communities in every state in the country.”The other contributors to the Afterschool and Summer Recovery and Opportunity Fund were the Bezos Family Foundation, S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, New York Life Foundation, Overdeck Family Foundation, and Susan Crown Exchange.

Elizabeth Duffrin

2023-01-24T05:00:00Z

Novel fund supported pandemic guidance for youth programs and efforts to raise awareness of their importance

1/26/2023 5:04:11 PM

The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / How Seven Foundations Bolstered Afterschool, Summer Programming as COVID Raged Novel fund supported pandemic guidance for

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Report Examines How School Districts Ramped Up Summer Learning in Response to Pandemic

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For all of the talk about “moving the needle” in K-12 public education, it’s actually quite hard to do. There are any number of academic interventions and programs launched each year that hold significant promise, but ultimately they don’t stand up to the scrutiny of evaluation.  Summer learning programming, however, is one intervention that does, depending on how it is carried out. Research on the <a href="/how-we-work/our-work/pages/summer-learning.aspx?_ga=2.73386203.990642777.1673471938-1960687172.1666029165">National Summer Learning Project</a> showed that high-quality, well-attended school district–run summer learning programs offering a mix of academics and enrichment <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/every-summer-counts-a-longitudinal-analysis-of-outcomes-from-the-national-summer-learning-project.aspx?_ga=2.73386203.990642777.1673471938-1960687172.1666029165">can help</a> students academically and in other ways. The challenge for the field? Figuring out how strong summer learning programming can be rolled out for students in a range of geographic contexts—and at a much larger scale.  An ongoing study of how schools, districts and states nationwide embraced summer learning—as a strategy to mitigate the effects of school closures and other pandemic-related harms—could offer clues for communities that want to meet the challenge, both now and when COVID is in the rearview mirror.   Pandemic summer learning offers important lessons now, and for the future   The <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/national-call-to-action-for-summer-learning-how-did-school-districts-respond.aspx?_ga=2.73386203.990642777.1673471938-1960687172.1666029165">National Summer Learning and Enrichment Study</a>, funded by Wallace, is being conducted by the Westat research organization. Last month, in the first publication to emerge from the research—National Call to Action: How Did School Districts Respond? –Westat began to document how, exactly, school districts across the country took action. Understanding districts’ responses at this extraordinary moment—across a range of different geographic contexts and within a relatively quick time frame—is important over the next two years as remaining federal relief funds for education are spent. It also has the potential to inform policy, practice and research on summer learning and enrichment post-pandemic. <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/report-examines-how-school-districts-ramped-up-summer-learning-response-to-pandemic/Ann_5766.jpg" alt="Ann_5766.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:154px;height:216px;" />“We believe the Westat study can help district and state leaders as they seek to strengthen their summer programming in the years to come,” says Ann Stone, senior research officer at Wallace. “Support for this project is an outgrowth of Wallace’s long-term commitment to summer learning, and our evidence-based belief that high-quality, well-attended summer learning programs provide significant benefits for students.” How did districts respond?Through a survey of school districts that yielded nationally representative results, Westat found that fully 94 percent implemented summer learning programming in summer 2021, reaching, on average, approximately one-fifth (18 percent) of their students. Children K-6 were the largest population served. Other findings about the districts that had summer programming included: <div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Cities  and rural areas served the greatest proportion of their students (22 percent and 18 percent, respectively) with school districts in suburbs serving the smallest proportion (13 percent). </div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Supporting students in pursuing learning disrupted by the pandemic was the most common programming approach, used by 75 percent of districts.  </div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">More than half of districts (57 percent) supplemented academic programming with social-emotional learning. </div> The report also yielded insights about implementation patterns and common characteristics of typical 2021 summer programming. For example:<div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet"> Two-thirds of districts with programs (67 percent) prioritized serving students with special needs.</div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet">Student data was the most common source of information used to determine whom to prioritize.</div><div class="wf-Element-BlueBullet"> 41 percent of districts with programs engaged partners to plan for and/or deliver summer programming.</div> <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/report-examines-how-school-districts-ramped-up-summer-learning-response-to-pandemic/blog-westat-national-call-to-action-for-summer-learning-12.jpg" alt="blog-westat-national-call-to-action-for-summer-learning-12.jpg" style="margin:5px;" /> Future reports from the study will examine how states lent their support to summer efforts and dig deeper, through interviews and other analysis, into the districts’ efforts. So, stay tuned to learn more as we publish these reports later this year.  P.S. Yes, it may be sub-zero outside, but for those who intend to carry out a summer 2023 program, it is not too early to start planning. This<a href="/knowledge-center/summer-learning/toolkit/pages/default.aspx"> toolkit</a>, a product of the National Summer Learning Project, can help. So can this <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/federal-funding-guide-for-summer-and-afterschool.aspx?_ga=2.161918196.990642777.1673471938-1960687172.1666029165">recent guide</a> to federal funding sources. The Westat report  also offers recommendations for summer learning. Finally, <a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/two-summer-programs-inch-towards-normal-as-covid-subsides.aspx?_ga=2.161918196.990642777.1673471938-1960687172.1666029165">this article</a> describes how two longtime summer programs relied on “creativity, flexibility and self-reflection” as they carried out their efforts in 2021.

Rebecca Haessig

131

2023-01-17T05:00:00Z

COVID-spurred summer learning push could offer lessons for improved summer experiences beyond the crisis

1/17/2023 4:58:55 PM

The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Report Examines How School Districts Ramped Up Summer Learning in Response to Pandemic For all of the talk about

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Let’s Make Summer a Season of Opportunity for Students

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We’ve always known that disparities exist in education, but the COVID pandemic has shined an even brighter light on gaps in opportunities for America’s students. We see evidence of these gaps in the latest National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) scores, which <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1130629135/naep-test-covid" target="_blank">show unprecedented declines</a>, including an eight-point drop in eighth grade math—the largest in almost two decades—with historically marginalized students suffering the <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2022/" target="_blank">greatest losses</a>. Additionally, more than a quarter of a million students <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/07/24/1110916298/losing-a-parent-can-derail-teens-lives-a-high-school-grief-club-aims-to-help" target="_blank">lost a parent</a> during the pandemic, adding to the <a href="https://www.nami.org/Blogs/From-the-CEO/April-2022/The-Crisis-of-Youth-Mental-Health" target="_blank">mental health crisis</a> among young people. While there has been a consistent and urgent call from parents, educators and politicians to do something different to help stem these losses, there’s not a lot of specificity about what should be done. One place to start would be to radically reconceptualize an often under-appreciated component of the U.S. education system: summer learning programs. <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/lets-make-summer-a-season-of-opportunity-for-students/NSLA3.jpg" alt="NSLA3.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:374px;height:281px;" />To that end, FHI 360, a nonprofit human development and research organization, has gathered more than a hundred school districts from across the country, all of which are committed to maximizing summer learning opportunities, particularly for underserved youth. The goal of this group, called the District Summer Learning Network (DSLN), is to help districts repurpose summertime and use it as a starting point to improve outcomes for young people as they strive to recover from the last three years. The Wallace Foundation provides funding for DSLN. <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/lets-make-summer-a-season-of-opportunity-for-students/-Primary_DSLN-Color.png" alt="-Primary_DSLN-Color.png" class="wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;width:254px;height:278px;" />Over the course of the project, those of us involved have come to see summer as a season of opportunity not just for children, but also for rethinking how schools look and feel for young people. Here’s why.<ol><li>Summer is a great time for districts to experiment. Freed from the pressures of the academic year calendar, state assessments and standards, and curriculum constraints, summer can be the perfect time to try new strategies. It can offer opportunities to pilot new instructional practices and test curriculum in ways that improve student engagement and learning, while building system-wide capacity. For example, last summer, one of our DSLN districts in the Midwest tested several new ideas: a new curriculum, outdoor classrooms and teachers assigned by passion rather than grade. Young people’s attendance soared, and teachers are eager to return in summer 2023. Another Midwestern DSLN district changed their approach to academic instruction. Community partners led full-day enrichment programming, and academic teachers provided small group tutoring in math and literacy. Summer provided districts the time and space to pilot new kinds of learning and collect data about what works. </li><li>High-quality programs can help re-ignite students’ passion to learn. Through three consecutive rounds of funding during the pandemic, Congress dedicated billions of extra dollars to the states to fund additional services for students. Many of the districts we worked with used those funds to jettison strategies that did not work in the past for new ideas that better addressed students’ needs and interests. For instance, one Northeast district that had previously focused students on recovering credits for classes they’d failed, instead started providing the students opportunities to take new classes around topics that excited them. They are now planning to expand this approach. Another Midwestern district deepened its partnerships with local cultural institutions to bring students into museums and explore the city’s rich cultural diversity. The program saw vast increases in student retention throughout the summer. </li><li><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/lets-make-summer-a-season-of-opportunity-for-students/Summer1.jpg" alt="Summer1.jpg" class="ms-rte-paste-setimagesize wf-Image-Right" style="margin:5px;height:256px;color:#555555;font-size:14px;width:227px;" /><div>Young people are ready for additional challenges and opportunities. All young people deserve to experience the feeling of coming back to school in the fall with a fresh outlook, a new set of skills and newfound confidence. But too often students from historically marginalized communities have been left out of opportunities for growth during the summer months. Our project set out to address this inequity, and we heard from many DSLN districts that their students were ready to dive in over the summer. Some took accelerated courses, while others engaged in hands-on projects and connected to career learning. Some of the students even took on the role of lead teachers in summer learning classes for younger students. We saw over and over again that, given the chance, students welcomed opportunities to learn and grow and build confidence. </div></li></ol>Summer is a time to address opportunity gaps. Let’s not let this valuable resource pass us by. If we start now, we have a runway to rethink the way we approach summer learning. We can take advantage of the time and the resources available to plan an extraordinary summer for young people across the nation—a summer where we can engage them, nurture them and connect with them in ways that maximize their potential.

Nancy Gannon

130

2023-01-10T05:00:00Z

Academic loss and mental health issues continue in the wake of the pandemic—can summer programs help turn the tide?

1/10/2023 8:16:53 PM

The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Let’s Make Summer a Season of Opportunity for Students Academic loss and mental health issues continue in the wake of the

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Resources to Help Guide Your Summer Learning Program

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The school bell may have stopped ringing, but summer is a great time for all kinds of learning opportunities for kids. In honor of this year’s National Summer Learning Week, here are some helpful reports, tools and articles to guide your summer program. And don’t forget to check out the <a href="https://www.summerlearning.org/summer-learning-week/" target="_blank">National Summer Learning Association</a> to discover summer programs, additional resources and more during this week-long celebration. <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/supporting-quality-in-summer-learning-how-districts-plan-develop-and-implement-programs.aspx?_ga=2.130479439.1378018415.1657643438-504352793.1654185536"> <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/resources-to-help-guide-your-summer-learning-program/supporting-quality-in-summer-learning-full-report-a.jpg" alt="supporting-quality-in-summer-learning-full-report-a.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:146px;height:188px;" />Supporting Quality in Summer Learning: How Districts Plan, Develop, and Implement Programs</a> School district-led summer programs play a critical role in supporting students academically and providing them with enriching experiences. Drawing on existing research and the perspectives of policymakers and field professionals, this recently released report looks at the policies, practices and resources that go into the planning, development and operation of these programs. <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/summer-for-all-building-coordinated-networks-promote-access-to-quality-summer-learning-enrichment.aspx?_ga=2.130479439.1378018415.1657643438-504352793.1654185536"><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/resources-to-help-guide-your-summer-learning-program/summer-for-all-building-coordinated-networks-promote-summer-learning-a.jpg" alt="summer-for-all-building-coordinated-networks-promote-summer-learning-a.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:145px;height:207px;" />Summer for All: Building Coordinated Networks to Promote Access to Quality Summer Learning and Enrichment Opportunities Across a Community</a> This report looks at how schools, community-based organizations and other civic organizations in four cities formed coordinated networks to increase access to high-quality summer programming for young people. <a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/two-summer-programs-inch-towards-normal-as-covid-subsides.aspx"><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/blog-pandemic-summer-post-lg-feature.jpg" alt="blog-pandemic-summer-post-lg-feature.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:274px;height:117px;" />Two Summer Programs Inch Towards Normal as Covid Subsides</a> Summer programs could be a key to addressing lost instructional and extracurricular time from COVID-19, and summer program leaders can learn a lot from the past two summers. Read about how two programs in New York and New Jersey have adapted to help young people through the pandemic, and how they’ve been preparing for this unpredictable summer. <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/getting-to-work-on-summer-learning-2nd-ed.aspx"><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/resources-to-help-guide-your-summer-learning-program/Getting-to-Work-on-Summer-Learning-2nd-ed-a.jpg" alt="Getting-to-Work-on-Summer-Learning-2nd-ed-a.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:144px;height:206px;" />Getting to Work on Summer Learning: Recommended Practices for Success, 2nd ed.</a> This report addresses questions about how to implement a high-quality summer learning program and offers evidence-based recommendations on such topics as timing, hiring and training, and how to recruit students. It also discusses the costs associated with offering a voluntary summer program and provides suggestions for lowering them, such as working with community-based organizations and consolidating program sites into as few buildings as possible. <a href="/knowledge-center/summer-learning/toolkit/pages/default.aspx"><img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/resources-to-help-guide-your-summer-learning-program/blog-summer-learning-toolkit.jpg" alt="blog-summer-learning-toolkit.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;width:180px;height:110px;" />Summer Learning Toolkit</a> One of our most popular resources, the Summer Learning Toolkit consists of more than 50, evidence-based tools and resources drawn from the work of five urban school districts and their partners, and aligned with research from RAND. It might be a bit late to start planning this year, but it’s never too early to start the pre-planning for next summer!

Jenna Doleh

2022-07-13T04:00:00Z

From research reports and our popular hands-on toolkit to interviews with program staff and parents, these materials can help you plan a high-quality summer program.

7/13/2022 1:00:21 PM

The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Resources to Help Guide Your Summer Learning Program From research reports and case studies to our popular hands-on toolkit

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Two Summer Programs Inch Towards Normal as Covid Subsides

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Trenton, N.J., <a href="https://www.nj.com/mercer/2014/04/from_iron_to_steel_to_pottery_trenton_once_flexed_industrial_might_for_world_to_take.html" target="_blank">a former manufacturing hub</a> where <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/trentoncitynewjersey/AGE775219#AGE775219" target="_blank">nearly a third of the population now lives in poverty</a>, is not known for nature or green spaces. It is understandable, then, that when two busloads of children from the city arrived last August at the <a href="https://princetonblairstown.org/" target="_blank">Princeton-Blairstown Center</a>, a bucolic, 268-acre environmental education center in Blairstown, N.J., some were a bit nervous.When some two dozen children set out on canoes to explore the center’s Bass Lake, two stayed behind, both terrified of the unfamiliar body of water. Staffers had to coax them into the lake, first getting the children into life jackets, then helping them onto canoes, then gently bumping off the pier and, only when the panicked parties had found their sea legs, paddling off to join the other students in the center of the lake. This is what the Princeton-Blairstown Center, a 114-year-old organization that brings students from some of the poorest parts of New Jersey to its campus in Blairstown every summer, calls “challenge by choice.” The goal is to help <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/podcast-lets-talk-social-and-emotional-learning-(sel)-podcast.aspx?_ga=2.40619170.1045308987.1648136693-1352763000.1643649010">build social and emotional skills</a> by getting children out of their comfort zones, helping them confront some fears and showing them how they could use those experiences to overcome challenges at home, in school and in their communities. The practice can cause its share of anxious outbursts, but staffers are trained to help students learn from them. “That’s the whole point of our activities,” says Christopher Trilleras, one of the counselors who helped the wobbly mariners onto Bass Lake. “To process frustrations at the end, to really talk about them and prevent them.” Such<a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/helping-children-feel-safe,-understood-and-supported.aspx?_ga=2.47824935.1045308987.1648136693-1352763000.1643649010"> social and emotional support is especially important</a> for children today, as the coronavirus pandemic has robbed them of months of school, play and interpersonal experimentation. The Wallace editorial team visited two summer programs in 2021—one operated by the Princeton-Blairstown Center and the other by <a href="https://freshair.org/" target="_blank">The Fresh Air Fund</a> in New York City—to see how they worked to help young people overcome the effects of months of isolation, including social anxiety, emotional volatility and a lack of focus after several school terms spent spacing out on Zoom. Both programs have had to get creative with established practices to help young people through two Covid-infested summers, staffers say, and are learning from those experiences to take on an unpredictable summer ahead. <div class="ms-rtestate-read ms-rte-wpbox"><div class="ms-rtestate-notify ms-rtestate-read fae0f294-6dd2-4d33-b4ca-9d4fcd783c83" id="div_fae0f294-6dd2-4d33-b4ca-9d4fcd783c83" unselectable="on"></div><div id="vid_fae0f294-6dd2-4d33-b4ca-9d4fcd783c83" unselectable="on" style="display:none;"></div></div><h3 class="wf-Element-H3"> Old principles, new social and emotional needs </h3>The two organizations, both more than a century old, have well-developed practices to help young people develop the sorts of social and emotional skills that the pandemic appears to have compromised. When they take children out canoeing, for example, they’re working to help children build confidence to confront new experiences. When they design collaborative construction projects or obstacle courses, they’re looking to grease social wheels and encourage teamwork. When they teach kids to tend to vegetable gardens or model farms, they’re working to foster a sense of responsibility. The students’ mere presence in peaceful but unfamiliar outdoor spaces, far removed from their regular lives in urban centers such as Trenton, New York City and Newark, N.J., can help build relationships, says Pam Gregory, president and chief executive officer of the Princeton-Blairstown Center. “When you come together for a week with people who have a shared experience that’s really unique from most of the other people in your life,” she says, “you form a very close bond.” Such practices can be insufficient in a pandemic, however. Months in isolation without social opportunities have made many young people more reluctant to try new things, program staffers say. Last August in Sunset Park, a diverse, middle-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., about 30 tots and tweens spent a morning practicing crafts, learning to dance and racing handmade carts on a street blocked off for summer programs by The Fresh Air Fund. Most seemed comfortable enough, but one 10-year-old clung to a counselor, too uncomfortable to approach the others. It was a situation familiar to Jane Li, an area resident whose son faced similar anxieties when he first came to The Fresh Air Fund.  “Sometimes in the beginning, he’s a little withdrawn,” Li says of her son. “Maya, the counselor, she talks to him, plays games with him, gets him warmed up and gradually join the small group and then the bigger group.” Some counselors are even able to use the pandemic to help students deal with deeper traumas. Many students who find their way to the Princeton-Blairstown Center or The Fresh Air Fund have histories of homelessness, domestic abuse or worse. Tabs Alam, a senior environmental education facilitator at the Princeton-Blairstown Center, speaks of group sessions with students where conversations began with talk of the pandemic but ended with discussion of more visceral worries about home, family, friends and poverty. Some students will admit how they find lockdowns especially hard, Alam says, because home has never been safe for them. “Covid was a vessel to have people think about themselves a little bit more,” she says. <div class="ms-rtestate-read ms-rte-wpbox"><div class="ms-rtestate-notify ms-rtestate-read c042efd2-9392-414f-9c95-097f0727d9c0" id="div_c042efd2-9392-414f-9c95-097f0727d9c0" unselectable="on"></div><div id="vid_c042efd2-9392-414f-9c95-097f0727d9c0" unselectable="on" style="display:none;"></div></div><h3 class="wf-Element-H3"> Learning Without Knowing It</h3>There are fewer silver linings when it comes to academics, however. School closures and other pandemic-related disruptions have set students, especially “historically marginalized students,” months behind, according to <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/education/our-insights/covid-19-and-education-the-lingering-effects-of-unfinished-learning" target="_blank">consulting firm McKinsey & Company</a>. Basic math and English are rarely the central focus of programs like The Fresh Air Fund and the Princeton-Blairstown Center, but they are still working to help students regain the ground they’ve lost. Both face two major constraints when doing so. For one thing,  they can’t really drag children into classrooms and force them to make up for the academics they’ve lost. <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/getting-to-work-on-summer-learning-2nd-ed.aspx?_ga=2.47824935.1045308987.1648136693-1352763000.1643649010">Research suggests</a> that attendance is a key component of student success, and students are unlikely to want to attend if they’re crammed back into rooms after months spent indoors. For another, both programs have less time than usual to dedicate to academics. In normal times, the Princeton-Blairstown Center would host its students for at least five days, while The Fresh Air Fund would shuttle campers to nature reserves north of New York City for two weeks. In 2021, after a season spent online, the Princeton-Blairstown Center was able to offer four days of programming in parks and schoolyards in its students' communities and a fifth-day daytrip to Blairstown. The Fresh Air Fund had to move most activities to New York City, cordoning off streets for camp-like activities for two, three-hour sessions a day, four days a week. Both programs work to meet these twin challenges by doubling down on one of the things they do best: making learning fun. “We like to fold education in without kids knowing that they’re learning,” says Sheila Wilson-Wells, chief program officer of The Fresh Air Fund. The programs feature libraries that staffers encourage students to use and quiet spaces where students can read, reflect and write. They also offer activities such as cooking, architecture and soil and water analysis that help students brush up on science and math. “For a lot of the young people that we serve, it’s the first time that they understand that learning can be fun,” Gregory says. “Because it’s hands-on, not just sitting there doing worksheets or a lecture.”“Throughout their time with us, they’re learning,” adds Wilson-Wells. “From the time they get off the bus and they don’t even know it.”Such subtle blends of academics, fun and social and emotional learning are essential in summer programs, say Aaron Dworkin and Broderick Clarke of the <a href="https://www.summerlearning.org/" target="_blank">National Summer Learning Association</a> (NSLA), especially in the wake of a crippling pandemic. “We have to get away from false-choice binary arguments that are a waste of time,” says Dworkin, chief executive officer of the NSLA. “Do kids need academic help or do they need social emotional help? They need both.”“The best practitioners don't necessarily make that distinction or separation,” adds Clarke, the association’s vice president for programs. “They figure out a way to make the magic happen and to incorporate social and emotional competencies in the course of whatever activities they're presenting.”<h3 class="wf-Element-H3">O to Struggle Against Great Odds…</h3>Summer programs must make this magic happen while dealing with their own daunting challenges, from staff burnout and fatigue to the limited time they have with their campers. Three characteristics help them do so, say staffers from the two programs: flexibility, partnerships and continuous improvement.Both programs have had to be nimble to offer children as much programming as the pandemic permits. When the coronavirus shut everything down in 2020, for example, the Princeton-Blairstown Center sent its students “PBC in a Bag,” kits with books, snacks and the materials they needed for daily activities such as building catapults and seeing how far they could shoot projectiles across their rooms. After each activity, counselors led discussions on Zoom and helped students draw lessons from the experience. “It was very challenging for our facilitators,” says Gregory, “but over time they perfected it.”The following summer, as the relative safety of outdoor gatherings became clearer, the Princeton-Blairstown Center resumed in-person activities. It still couldn’t host people overnight, as most parents were still nervous about children sharing rooms, so it devised its schedule of four days in students’ neighborhoods and one at its Blairstown campus so students could get at least a little taste of nature. It isn’t much, but Richad Hollis, a rising eighth grader from Trenton visiting the center in August, appeared to appreciate it. “In Trenton, it’s just streets and people playing outside,” he said. “Here, it’s a whole creek right over here. It’s just way more stuff that you can do other than just running around in the streets.”The Fresh Air Fund never stopped in-person programming, but it created <a href="https://freshair.org/summer-spaces/" target="_blank">a new Summer Spaces</a> program to avoid crowding children into buses or dorms. It blocked traffic on 11 city blocks throughout New York City and opened them up so children could drop in for activities including dancing, sports, STEM projects and arts and crafts. Each site featured two health and safety officers to ensure adherence to pandemic protocols and social workers traveled from site to site to help acclimate children unnerved by the sudden onslaught of social activity. These adaptations would have been impossible without partnerships, says Wilson-Wells. To find and secure city blocks, staffers worked with communities, city councilmembers and the New York City Department of Transportation. To offer dance lessons, they recruited performers through a partnership with  the <a href="https://www.abt.org/" target="_blank">American Ballet Theatre</a>. To help teach science, they asked for help from <a href="https://www.biobus.org/" target="_blank">Biobus</a>, a New York City-based organization that runs mobile labs for children. To get books, they worked with the Brooklyn and Queens libraries. “There were so many wonderful partners that really pulled together to do comprehensive services,” Wilson-Wells says, “so we can ensure that, even in the pandemic, we were able to impart learning moments.”There are about 22 million children who receive free or reduced-price lunches in American schools, according to the <a href="https://schoolnutrition.org/aboutschoolmeals/schoolmealtrendsstats/" target="_blank">School Nutrition Association</a>, a trade group for the school-food-service industry. Such partnerships are essential to get those children the services they need, says Aaron Dworkin of the NSLA. “No one program can serve 22 million kids,” he says. “But collectively, we can.”<h3 class="wf-Element-H3">…To Meet Enemies Undaunted</h3>Both programs are now using these experiences to gear up for an uncertain summer ahead, inching towards traditional programming, keeping what worked during the pandemic and tweaking what did not. The Fresh Air Fund plans to reopen camps for two-week experiences again. But 2022 will include important adjustments to help students and staffers adapt and respond to new realities. The organization will open just four of its six camps and limit capacity to 50 percent. The reduction in size, says Wilson-Wells, should help get campers the extra attention they need, give staffers room to reacquaint themselves with camp life and ensure everyone has enough space to return to social distancing should that become necessary. To help meet the demand it cannot meet at its condensed camps, The Fresh Air Fund will continue to operate the Summer Spaces program it created during the pandemic. However, as it begins to direct resources back to more traditional programs, it will trim that program from 11 sites to four, focusing on neighborhoods that were hardest hit by the pandemic and where families have expressed the greatest interest. All experiences, both at the camps and in New York City, will still include the health and safety workers who helped ensure adherence to Covid restrictions during the pandemic. Staffers felt kids could use more social and emotional support, however, so the fund will replace its traveling social workers with support staffers dedicated to each site. “We're hoping that that will allow us to have organic conversations with young people to really hear how we can best serve them,” says Wilson-Wells.The Princeton-Blairstown Center, meanwhile, is staying flexible. It will begin to host groups for overnight sessions at Blairstown if the parents, schools and organizations that send them are comfortable. But it will keep a pandemic schedule to accommodate students from communities with low vaccination rates, those who may live with vulnerable family members in multigenerational households and those whose regular teachers are too Covid-worn to chaperone them.Like The Fresh Air Fund, the center is adapting that pandemic schedule based on observations from the last two years. The one, five-hour day at Blairstown seemed rushed in 2021, Gregory says, so the center  may expand it to an eight-hour day for children who cannot visit for a whole week. The extra time, says Gregory, would allow children to experience more of the pastoral expanse of the Blairstown campus, learn more about their relationships with nature and form closer bonds with each other. “Dosage matters,” she says. “The amount of time kids spend doing the activities matters a lot.” The center will also tweak its curriculum to adapt to shifting needs during the pandemic. In 2021, most students read Seedfolks, a book about 13 children of different ethnicities tending a community garden in Cleveland. To spark conversations, counselors asked students which of the book's characters they found most relatable. The book remains the same for 2022, but the discussion will now focus on the plants in the garden and what they could teach campers about sprouting from the ashes of a pandemic. "It's to provide kids with more of an opportunity to talk about how challenging it's been," Gregory says, "and what they need moving forward." It is unclear whether such careful planning can help children recover from the two years they have lost to the pandemic. Many parents and educators, however, are happy just to see them get out, let loose and have fun again. “They were free to run,” says Alice Lightner, a parent who was chaperoning children in Blairstown in August. “They were free to play, free to explore and engage with their peers.”“Getting in touch with nature, just a quick walk, you feel so at peace,” adds Samantha Elliott, another parent. “I just saved probably about $500 from the therapist.” Additional reporting, editing and production work by <a href="/about-wallace/people/pages/jenna-doleh.aspx">Jenna Doleh</a>.

Sarosh Z. Syed

2022-03-29T04:00:00Z

The Princeton-Blairstown Center and The Fresh Air Fund lean on creativity, flexibility and self-reflection to help kids rise from the ashes of a pandemic

7/26/2022 1:07:26 PM

The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Two Summer Programs Inch Towards Normal as Covid Subsides The Princeton-Blairstown Center and The Fresh Air Fund lean on

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Students Around the Country Offer Advice for Re-Opening Schools

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“While last year was the most difficult year we’ve probably had as educators, this upcoming year is the most important year,” said Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in an opening statement during the U.S. Department of Education’s final <a href="https://compcenternetwork.org/national-center/6827/summer-learning-enrichment-collaborative-events" target="_blank">Summer Learning & Enrichment Collaborative Virtual Session</a> last month.Earlier conversations in the seven-part series focused on such topics as forming state-level coalitions, using evidence to inform summer programs, tapping federal funds to promote equity through summer enrichment opportunities. This last session, however, addressed perhaps the country’s most important stakeholders: students. “We know students have a voice, and they have a lot to say. We have to make sure we’re designed to listen,” Cardona said.Cardona kicked off the convening in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgICxaHfdIw" target="_blank">conversation</a> with a panel of students from around the country, who discussed what they’d gained from their various summer programs. “We had different things for everybody, and I really enjoyed how inclusive and how much of a family my summer program is,” said Noah Shaw of his experience at the Miller Boys and Girls Club in Murray, Utah. Mkayla Rowell, a freshman at Cleveland School of Architecture and Design at the John Hay Campus who participated in the Cleveland Metro School District Summer Learning Experience as a teacher, said the aspect she liked most about the program was being able to help kids who are younger than she is.  “I really enjoyed just connecting with a younger generation and teaching them things that would’ve helped me when I was their age growing up in the city,” she said. The students and young educators also offered their advice to education leaders for how to reimagine, redesign and rebuild engaging learning and enrichment opportunities throughout the year. “Because most of us are transitioning from a school year that was mainly virtual, it’s going to be difficult for students to go back to in-person school,” said Kwynsky Miguel, a Lehigh University freshman, who worked over the summer at a program he attended in the past, the Aim High Summer Program in San Francisco. “I recommend teachers be very patient with their students rather than rushing them, because everyone will have a different pace going back into school. I really think being patient will help your students see that you want them to succeed and you really care about their mental well-being.”  In fact, a common theme throughout the conversation was the importance of creating a safe space, not just physically but mentally as well.“I think the best advice I can give is just to be persistent with students,” Noah Shaw said. “Because I know some students have stuff going on at home, and that makes them want to give up and be antisocial, and their grades can fail. A great thing is to be persistent in making sure they’re okay...make sure you stick with them, never give up.”Representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also participated in the meetings that followed the roundtable with the youth leaders to provide updates on guidance and resources for a healthy and safe return to school. Their recommendations for schools included promoting vaccines to those who are eligible, wearing masks indoors, maintaining three feet of distance between others, washing hands, improving ventilation systems and staying home when sick.  “Transitioning in times of physical distancing, masks and extra stress is extra hard,” said Lara Robinson, a behavioral scientist with the Child Development Studies Team at the National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. “Teachers, parents and programs can help children by planning the transition, making strong connections and establishing new routines. With the right support, children can adjust to their new program, make new friends, learn new things and strive.”Attendees of the virtual meeting also had the opportunity to join tabletop discussions. One of them, Engaging Educators, Families, Students in Planning Summer and the Return to School, examined innovations employed by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and district partners for a “whole child, whole community” recovery from the pandemic. Representatives from the district showed how they developed a vision for post-pandemic learning that includes competency-based education, anytime/anywhere and whole human learning, along with personalized learner pathways. This summer, Cleveland had the opportunity to implement some of these principles during their Summer Learning Experience. Teachers submitted creative ideas for projects to implement during two separate four-week summer sessions, which more than 8,000 students participated in. “We saw our kids do amazing work,” said Shari Obrenski, president of the Cleveland Teachers Union. “Our educators came away invigorated with the different things they had done; our students were excited to share what they learned. And now the task for us is to build upon what we have been doing over the summer and start bringing this to scale during the course of the normal school year with a larger number of our students and educators.” Schools in Cleveland will return to in-person instruction in the fall, with a new remote school option. The district is working diligently to create an experience that aimed at making students want to be in school. Educators and administrators are implementing a more inclusive dress code and offering expanded enrichment and extracurricular activities such as band, choir, fitness and pottery classes, along with the supports to make them accessible for students.   In addition, this fall, on October 28, the <a href="http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/loa.cfm" target="_blank">22nd annual Lights On Afterschool</a> will take place. In a typical year, more than 8,000 afterschool programs around the country hold events to showcase their programs. According to Tiyana Glenn, a project associate at the Afterschool Alliance, this event is a chance for afterschool programs to celebrate and showcase exactly what they do everyday, as well as make their case to their community, to parents, to policymakers and to the media that afterschool programs are essential for students and their families. Kwynsky Miguel, the teacher-assistant at Aim High Summer Program, made the case for summer and out of school time programs and how they can both help students and adults adapt to new situations that might come up in the school year.“I knew this was a safe space for me to be who I am as well as to learn from others,” she said. “The whole experience of meeting new people and learning about their story was such a surreal moment that I really appreciate Aim High for—for showing me that it’s okay to be new to a whole new environment as well as knowing when it’s right to let yourself be comfortable with new people.”  In his roundtable with the students, Cardona also stressed that schools and afterschool programs can help provide a much-needed sense of community for kids this fall. “Schools, school communities, and good summer programs are like second families,” he said. “There’s a sense of community there that, I think, sometimes we overlook. We don’t talk about that as educators as much. Schools are communities for our students."

Jenna Doleh

2021-09-16T04:00:00Z

Students, educators and others at U.S. Department of Education convening encourage patience, safe spaces, increased support as students return this fall.

9/16/2021 3:13:46 PM

The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Students Around the Country Offer Advice for Re-Opening Schools Students, educators and others at U.S. Department of

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How Libraries Can Partner with Communities for Summer Learning Success

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By providing free and accessible summer learning activities and reading materials, <a href="https://www.urbanlibraries.org/blog/reimagining-summer-learning-during-the-pandemic" target="_blank">even during the pandemic</a>, public libraries have a unique role in the summer learning landscape. Libraries are one of the most trusted institutions in the communities they serve, <a href="https://www.nextlibraries.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PI_2017.09.11_FactsAndInfo_1-02.png" target="_blank">according to Pew research</a>. They are also one of the widest-reaching—there are <a href="https://www.imls.gov/news/imls-releases-new-data-american-public-libraries" target="_blank">more U.S. library branches</a> than <a href="https://www.scrapehero.com/location-reports/Starbucks-USA/" target="_blank">Starbucks locations</a>, and visiting the library is the <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/284009/library-visits-outpaced-trips-movies-2019.aspx" target="_blank">most common cultural activity</a> for Americans, having outpaced visits to movies or sporting events by a wide margin in the pre-pandemic world. <div> <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-libraries-can-partner-with-communities-for-summer-learning-success/Liz_headshot.jpg" alt="Liz_headshot.jpg" class="wf-Image-Left" style="margin:5px;color:#555555;font-size:14px;width:220px;" /> </div><div>In fact, public libraries have been providing learning materials and opportunities to youth in the summertime for over a century. This began with the distribution of Victorian-era reading lists designed to keep youth on the moral path. Today, the efforts of libraries, and their partners, have become more joyous: making available beautiful, culturally appropriate books and other resources to support young people in myriad ways, from letting them indulge in the simple pleasure of reading to helping them develop 21st century learning skills.</div><div> </div><div>For over half a decade, the Urban Libraries Council (ULC) has taken a leading role in catalyzing the evolution of public libraries as essential hubs and partners for summer learning. ULC is a think and action tank of leading North American public libraries with a primary focus on advancing more positive outcomes for all youth by dismantling barriers they face, providing them with high-quality learning opportunities and strengthening local partnerships between libraries and other educational institutions.</div><div> </div><div>ULC’s <a href="https://www.urbanlibraries.org/initiatives/the-leaders-library-card-challenge/participating-libraries" target="_blank">Leaders Library Card Challenge</a>—which started as an Obama Administration initiative—has equipped more than 4 million K-12 students with library cards, an achievement made possible by partnerships forged between libraries, local schools and mayors and county executives. ULC’s <a href="https://www.urbanlibraries.org/initiatives/stem-middle-school" target="_blank">Partners for Middle School STEM</a> initiative aligns libraries, local governments, schools and businesses to increase high-quality STEM learning opportunities for middle grade youth from low-income families—positioning the library as a critical partner in fixing the “leaky” STEM pipeline.</div> ULC’s focus on building partnerships to strengthen summer learning started in 2016, when we published the <a href="https://www.urbanlibraries.org/assets/Leadership_Brief_Expanding_Summer.pdf" target="_blank"> Libraries Expanding Summer Opportunities</a> leadership brief in collaboration with the National Summer Learning Association, the pre-eminent authority on summer learning in the United States. That pivotal document has directly helped to shape the ways that libraries think and go about their work to support youth during the summer—shifting from a focus on “summer reading” to “<a href="https://journals.ala.org/index.php/cal/article/view/7200/9831" target="_blank">summer learning</a>,” intentionally addressing a wide range of academic and developmental challenges.Driving that shift is a growing recognition of the importance of summer learning for improving the lives of all youth, and the unique role that libraries can play in supporting those opportunities. Over the past two summers, the devastating impact of COVID-19 has made it more important than ever for communities to leverage the unique capacity of libraries as partners for addressing learning loss. Combating opportunity & achievement gapsEven before COVID-19, much research had been compiled about the widening of achievement and opportunity gaps between students from low-income families and their peers from higher-income families during the summer months. Emerging post-pandemic data now also reveals profound inequities for children who have been historically excluded, including Black, Hispanic and Indigenous youth. Research from McKinsey & Associates reported in <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-learning-loss-disparities-grow-and-students-need-help" target="_blank">Mind the Gap</a> shows the disparities in access and educational equity which have created barriers to learning.  The good news is that high-quality summer learning can make a real difference for children, as <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/every-summer-counts-a-longitudinal-analysis-of-outcomes-from-the-national-summer-learning-project.aspx">research</a> clearly shows. The National Academy of Sciences, too, recently released a <a href="https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/summertime-experiences-and-child-and-adolescent-education-health-and-safety" target="_blank">study</a>, which analyzes availability, accessibility, equity and effectiveness of summer learning experiences in conjunction with overall health, social-emotional and safety outcomes for youth. <img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/how-libraries-can-partner-with-communities-for-summer-learning-success/Active_Learning_NOT4.jpg" alt="Active_Learning_NOT4.jpg" /> While <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2021/04/29/covid-19-the-educational-equity-crisis-and-the-opportunity-ahead/" target="_blank">learning loss research</a> underscores the importance of helping youth in Kindergarten through third grade recover or level-up reading and math skills, the further good news is that public libraries across the country are offering reading and learning programs targeted to these ages during critical out-of-school time periods, including summer. Early math, social-emotional learning and play-based programming are also part of these efforts.Complementing these programs are workshops for parents and caregivers, offering them meaningful time to reflect on learning. Additionally, understanding that we must reduce barriers to youth learning, thousands of public libraries that serve young people living in poverty now tap federal food programs to offer <a href="https://www.cslpreads.org/libraries-and-summer-food/" target="_blank">meals</a> and afterschool snacks.      In the words of Brian Bannon, Merryl and James Tisch Director for Branch Libraries and Education at the New York Public Library, “Summer is a time of immense inequities for America’s youth. The public library is uniquely poised to reach children with high-quality books, STEM and active learning activities that I have personally seen … [improve] anticipated outcomes for our youth.” Programs such as the New York Public Library’s <a href="https://www.nypl.org/summer/book-kits" target="_blank">book and activity give-away</a>—which provides children and teens with totes or colorful drawstring bags filled with age-appropriate books and other goodies— show how libraries continue to innovate to reach children during COVID-19 and Summer 2021. For another great example, look to <a href="https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/2021/07/12/heart-stark-stark-county-district-library-offers-summer-fun-school/7908675002/" target="_blank">The Stark District Library</a> in Canton, Ohio, which is working with a local elementary school to provide learning activities for over 2,000 rising kindergarteners through third graders with targeted learning interventions, book ownership and meals. Partnering for greater equityAll education institutions—and libraries are no exception—confront systemic barriers that limit opportunity, particularly for those from traditionally marginalized populations or who are living in low-income households. One obstacle facing many children and their caregivers is lack of access to the reliable transportation needed to visit library buildings and other institutions in person. A related barrier, hindering both reaching and engaging youth, is inadequate digital access. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/06/22/digital-divide-persists-even-as-americans-with-lower-incomes-make-gains-in-tech-adoption/" target="_blank">Pew research suggests</a> that “35% of lower-income households with school-age children [do] not have a broadband internet connection at home.” By convening and strengthening partnerships with summer and out-of-school program providers, libraries can help bring literacy and learning programs to children and families who would not otherwise have access. Relationships with park districts enable libraries to provide literacy and other educational opportunities to campers and youth living in areas where they may not otherwise have access to learning resources. Our ability to share program materials makes us a strong ally of community camps and other summer programs. And, critically, our relationships with schools allow us to align summer learning activities to school priorities. In addition, public libraries develop partnerships with cultural institutions and with organizations across the nation to promote more equitable outcomes for young people and ensure our program content is culturally appropriate and healing. The <a href="https://sfpl.org/events/" target="_blank">Summer Stride</a> program at the San Francisco Public Library, for example, involves a partnership with the local Human Rights Commission to develop deeper connections to communities where youth have been historically excluded from high-quality summer programming access. As another example, <a href="https://www.crlibrary.org/" target="_blank">Cedar Rapids Public Library</a> forged a partnership with Cedar Rapids Parks and Recreation’s Rollin’ Recmobile to offer unique tech learning opportunities at four parks per week throughout the summer, providing youth with access to e-readers, laptops, robotics and more.The Urban Libraries Council continues to find ways to support the essential role of libraries in the  education ecosystem. Over the past year and half, ULC’s <a href="https://www.urbanlibraries.org/initiatives/" target="_blank">Partnering with Schools</a> action team has been researching and working on tools to help libraries across the nation rethink and recommit to partnerships with their local school districts, including aligning library work to efforts to help children and teens accelerate their learning after the instructional losses caused by the pandemic. In June, the Urban Libraries Council supported the development of the National Summer Learning Association’s <a href="https://discoversummer.inplay.org/" target="_blank">Discover Summer</a> web app, which is designed to help families nationwide locate accessible summer learning opportunities in their local communities, including public library programming.“Public libraries are uniquely positioned to help all kids rise and close … [education] gaps,” said the National Summer Learning Association’s president and CEO, Aaron Dworkin. “It’s going to take the enormous energy and heart of us all, working together to make a meaningful difference.” Luckily, many tools and models to activate these opportunities already exist. The Wallace Foundation has given out-of-school and summer providers a <a href="/knowledge-center/summer-learning/toolkit/pages/default.aspx">toolkit</a> to develop vigorous summer learning programs that help build equity and develop strong outcomes. Libraries can play a critical partner role through each phase of this toolkit—from recruiting youth, strengthening academics and enrichment opportunities, offering safe and resource-rich learning sites, filling staffing gaps and supporting program planning. Together with libraries, summer learning program providers can drive deep, meaningful and equitable outcomes for youth that will last a lifetime. Photos courtesy of Urban Libraries Council and Chicago Public Library.

Elizabeth McChesney

117

2021-07-28T04:00:00Z

Public libraries have long been poised to help strengthen learning opportunities and equitable outcomes for youth

1/4/2023 9:23:23 PM

The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / How Libraries Can Partner with Communities for Summer Learning Success Public libraries have long been poised to help

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