June 16, 2021

Early summer is the perfect time to get a jump on student recruitment for the fall. High school students are the trickiest of all, but we know how eager teens are to get back together. With tips from Y4Y’s new Click & Go, Recruiting and Retaining High School Students, and field notes from a California program that had great success with all-virtual programming, you can learn how to market your program and really show off all you have to offer.

• Y4Y’s Recruitment and Retention Plan tool will give you a great idea of where you are and where you need to be going with your recruitment efforts, month by month. Now is exactly the time of year to get up and running for a successful fall program.
• Happy days are here again! Returning to in-person programming hopefully means you can gain access to buildings during school hours. A great way of recruiting students is just talking with kids in the cafeteria at lunch, but if social distancing is still required, the Y4Y Idea Wall/Board Tool will help you create visuals of your program to more passively entice students to the exciting offerings of your program. If class is out for the summer, you can adopt many of the same creative ideas for your website. Drive students to your website by partnering with school administrators on their end-of-year communications.
• Your students are your greatest asset! Many tools in this Click & Go offer guidance for building effective student leadership in your program. Your student ambassadors are the key to successful recruitment. Check out the Youth Ambassador Plan Template, the Youth Ambassador Job Description Template and the Youth Leadership Roles tool. If you don’t already have a strong student leadership plan in place, this is where you’ll get started to ensure next year’s recruitment efforts get a boost. Meanwhile, it will strongly reinforce your retention efforts by increasing student buy-in.

Speaking of student retention, participants in Y4Y’s winter listening session on virtual learning shed light on some critical steps in retaining teens in any environment:

• Games are universally popular. But not all students enjoy the same kind of games. Be sure you can offer a combination of video games, board games and interactive computer games to engage every student. Remember that differences in academic levels are likely to be apparent during game play. The last thing you want to do is exclude anyone from something that is meant to be fun.
• Nothing beats the great outdoors! Just as is highlighted in this month’s Voices From the Field on forest kindergartens, young people are often happiest outdoors. Teens are no exception. Being forced on screen so much has demonstrated that anything that can be taken outside should be taken outside!
• Connection is at the root of all you do. Teens who find themselves in 21^st CCLC programs are often the students that don’t quite fit with a sport or other afterschool activity but crave those human connections. It’s the job of your program to discover and accentuate the greatest common denominators. Soon, investment in each other will become that very thing!
• Honor perseverance. Academic standards drive your students’ school-day sense of achievement more than ever as they become teens. You can provide them the opportunity to develop the feeling of success they deserve by celebrating effort and resilience as well.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow noted that youth comes but once in a lifetime. You have tremendous power in helping your teens make the most of it. Your 21^st CCLC program is in a unique position this summer and fall as more teens are vaccinated and policies are opening up to offer a renewed sense of community at a time when they need it most. So don’t be shy: Get out there and show off that program!

June 16, 2021

Getting back on track after two breakneck program years will take some truly intentional assessment and reflection. Programs have learned a lot from in-the-moment experimentation, making changes on the fly to meet students where they were. Now that the worst of the great storm has passed, you can use this summer to take full stock of your program. With tips from Y4Y tools designed to walk through every key aspect, you can be sure the new program year is beginning with the clean slate of comprehensive assessment and reflection, and begin anew with a solid grasp of your students’ needs, going forward.

• Brush up on the basics. Y4Y’s Introduction to 21^st CCLC is an important course to revisit whenever you’re looking to mentally step out of the daily grind of your program to give thought to its structures.
• Take it to the next level. The Managing Your 21^st CCLC Program course is a broader, deeper extension of the introduction, and is worth revisiting each summer. You’ll be amazed at how many 21^st CCLC fundamentals may have slipped your mind while in crisis mode, and how much more you can get out of the course with another year of experience under your belt.
• Get your ideas down while they’re fresh! You’ll be shifting into planning mode before you know it, and the Sample Annual Task Timeline is a handy tool for this. If you reflect on it now, you can make some smart customizations to the document based on your timely recollections of this past program year.
• Now dive into all those layers. As you’ve discovered, each Y4Y course that adds new dimension to your program comes with “assess and reflect” tools. Here are some important ones to pull up now:
  • The Environmental Checklist will help you consider ways to adapt your physical environment to offer more authentic inclusion of students with disabilities. And everyone benefits when you use the Positive Learning Environment Observation Checklist.
  • Reflect on your existing partners in supporting English learners and consider what gaps you might fill next year using the English Learner Partners Asset Sheet. Partnerships, in general, demand annual reassessment, and the Partnerships Observation and Supervision Checklist can keep you on track.
  • It’s been a make-or-break year for family engagement. The Family Engagement Follow-Up and Supervision Checklist can help you take “what worked” into your next program year.
  • Having most of these elements up to par will help you ensure the social and emotional well-being of your students. Gauge those needs with the Capturing Social and Emotional Learning Program Needs Assessment.

This month’s blog post on celebration notes lightheartedly that celebration is the “nth” step in 21^st CCLC programs. Celebrations are so important to give your students and yourself that sense of accomplishment — which isn’t just a sense: You’ve accomplished SO MUCH this year. But as you sweep the proverbial confetti and clean out those cubbies, you’ll be thinking about that “nth plus one” step of continuous improvement. What are your takeaways? Your leave-behinds? May your summer reflections be rich with pride in an amazing year!

June 16, 2021

You’ve probably noticed that no matter how many strategies for success a Y4Y course offers, the final one is always to celebrate! That’s because celebrating is fundamental to impactful educational experiences. From STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics) to civic learning and engagement, check out these ideas of what successful celebrations might look like, both virtually and in person.

• Shout from the rooftops. If your program just wrapped up a successful project or met a milestone you’ve been looking forward to (like enrolling your 1,000th student), don’t keep it to yourself! Share the news on social media and in your regular communications with partners.
• Don’t forget student voice and choice! Your students are bound to have their own thoughts about how they’d like to celebrate. In fact, you can use their favorite reward, whether it’s a pizza party, dance party or trip to the park, as an incentive to meet an attendance goal, for example.
• It’s all in the family. Your celebrations are a natural fit for family involvement. Get the most bang for your family engagement buck by listening to students’ ideas about how to engage each of their family members in attendance.
• Have a backup plan. If your celebration is a culminating event for a design-thinking project in STEAM or a problem-based solution to a community concern, have a backup illustration of your students’ successes, such as printed photos or short write-ups, in case technology or prototypes malfunction. Never waste an opportunity to show off your program or your students!
• Play it safe. Virtual celebrations with a mix of adults and children online demand a little extra vigilance. Have staff rotate the assignment of gauging appropriate internet etiquette and being prepared to mute or turn off cameras if needed. If in person, be sure to follow your host facility’s guidelines for gatherings, such as making sure any snacks are individually wrapped, avoiding crowded spaces and masking.
• Have fun! It doesn’t really need to be said, but don’t forget that your staff sets the tone. It can be stressful to aim for perfection in your celebration. Remember: Perfection isn’t your goal — a happy vibe is.

For more ideas, see these Y4Y tools: Tips and Tricks: Plan a Successful Culminating Event and Demonstrating and Documenting Learning.