October 24, 2018

Looking back on his childhood, nature writer Paul Gruchow lamented not knowing that his town’s leading banker wrote an important book about Minnesota’s native prairie. “I can only imagine now what it might have meant to me — a studious boy with a love of nature — to know that a great scholar of natural history had made a full and satisfying life in my town,” he wrote.

Too bad no one at Gruchow’s school (or afterschool program) invited the banker to share his passion for botany with local students. But chances are, they weren’t even aware of it!

Until you go looking, you may not realize how much knowledge and talent is around you. Maybe the district Title I coordinator is also a Master Gardener. The high school Spanish teacher could be a yoga instructor. Maybe your local insurance agent goes rock climbing on weekends, your son’s coach bakes special event cakes and the school secretary paints landscapes. Thrills and skills with student appeal may be just down the hall and around the corner. Here are tips on finding and recruiting local experts to enrich your program.

Three Places to Look

• Institutions and organizations: Government agencies and universities often have outreach offices or participate in community service events. For example, agricultural extension offices offer programs and experts to interest young people in citizen science and develop skills they can use throughout their lives.
• Social networks: What interests and hobbies do your friends mention in their profiles or posts? What local groups or clubs have an online presence? If your students are interested in astronomy, you or an online friend probably knows someone who knows someone who does star parties.
• Everyday life: Every person you know or meet — at school, work, church, the gym, local businesses, community events, family reunions — is a potential contributor. Keep your eyes and ears open.

Two Ways to Recruit

• Personal contact: If you learn the local banker is a botanist, why not make your pitch: “Hi! This is Ms. Talent Scout, and I work in our local 21^st CCLC afterschool program. I just heard that you wrote a book about local plants. I’m wondering if you’d be willing to share your knowledge with our students. Could we talk sometime soon?”
• Call for volunteers: Maybe you’re looking for expertise in a specific area, like photography or financial planning. Or maybe you could issue a general invitation for students’ family members and others in the school or community to share their knowledge, skills and interests. Either way, put out the word in newsletters, bulletin boards, social networks and word of mouth.

Be Prepared If a Local Expert Says Yes

• Offer a variety of formats and time frames, ranging from a single event to a series of activities to one-on-one mentoring. Both you and the person you recruit might want to “start small” before committing to long-term involvement.
• Be prepared to support local experts, once they get involved. Watch for ideas in an upcoming Y4Y blog post! 

Ready to get started?

March 22, 2018

• Continuous Education Course. Learn about six key components that make strong partnerships between out-of-school and school-day programs.
• STEM Initiatives. Get science and engineering projects from NASA and other federal agencies.
• Computer Science for All — Computer Not Required. Yes, you can do this!
• Citizen Science Course. Students will love contributing to real scientific studies.
• Civic Learning and Engagement Bring civics lessons to life in your own community with ideas from the Project-Based Learning course.
• College and Career Readiness Course. Help students and families see higher education as a real possibility.

• Lessons from the Field: Serving All Students, Including Students With Disabilities

User-friendly, topic-focused guides and webinars provide strategies and best practices from experts and practitioners.

December 18, 2017

Y4Y’s online courses, archived webinars, and other professional learning resources are always free and available 24/7 to 21^st CCLC leaders and practitioners. So please forgive the use of “marketing lingo” in the headline. Here are some highlights of new content added to Y4Y in 2017, just to make sure you don’t miss out:

Citizen Science

By working with professional scientists on real-world problems, students hone their research skills by gathering and analyzing data. Check out the new Y4Y course for ideas that will get you fired up about the potential of citizen science. For a guided tour of course tools, resources and strategies, see this archived webinar. The Y4Y STEM Initiatives page includes links to a range of activities that engage students in the scientific process. You’ll find engineering design activities from NASA, making and tinkering activities from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and watershed-focused citizen science activities from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For a deeper dive, set aside an hour or two to go through the updated STEM course. Meanwhile, you and your students can get a taste of citizen science by taking part in Audubon’s 118th Christmas Bird Count (Dec. 14, 2017, through Jan. 5, 2018).

Summer Learning

Stem the tide of summer learning loss with fun activities that target student needs. Another new Y4Y course, Summer Learning, gives step-by-step guidance on designing a high-impact program that students will enjoy. You can use Y4Y’s ready-made Trainings to Go to get others talking and planning for summer. You can also sign up for “The Right Stuff” Summer Learning Series webinars (the next one will be Feb. 7). Looking for ways to get families involved to prevent summer learning loss? There’s a blog post on that topic.

Virtual Institute for New Grantees

If the fall season was so busy that you missed the four-part virtual institute for new grantees, Y4Y understands! The institute’s webinars, PowerPoints and resources are archived and ready when you are. The virtual institute covers four topics: conducting a needs assessment, intentionally designing activities, implementing with fidelity and engaging partners for sustainability.

There’s more to explore! Bookmark the Y4Y website so you can browse the menus whenever you have some free time. If you haven’t visited in a while, you’ll notice an updated look and other improvements.

P.S. Happy New Year from the Y4Y Team!

June 8, 2017

How can you make your program appealing to students, families, school and community? As you compile data for your end-of-year report, add a narrative story that “sells” your program, and it will help you take a step toward long-term sustainability.

Look at these examples and decide which approach has more power to demonstrate the value of your 21st CCLC program activities. Then start crafting your own and share it with your stakeholders!

Example 1. Oakville Afterschool Program

During the past school year, the Oakville program served 45 students from the first through fifth grades during the fall term, and 53 students from the same grades in the spring term. Most students attended at least three days every week, with perfect attendance by 10 students in the fall and 11 students in the spring. All students participated in the Homework Help activity, and most took part in the Readers Theater, where they focused on four different stories. Other activities included Chefs Club, soccer, jazzercise and chess. See the tables on the next two pages for data on student attendance and participation by our community partners and staff members. 

Example 2. Oakville Laughing and Learning Together

This school year, our OLL Together students and staff worked on literacy, math, team building and healthy living — and everyone got their homework done, too! Thanks to our new Student Ambassadors program, enrollment grew from 45 students in the fall to 53 in the spring — our kids love to make new friends! 

Readers Theater helped students practice important elements of literacy, such as plot, comprehension and motivation. When students produced Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax, we asked science teachers to help with understanding the environmental theme. Everyone enjoyed playing with rhymes and meter when we wrote an original chapter about our Oakville environment (see the script on our Facebook page).

Our Chefs Club learned to prepare holiday dishes from different cultures. Our families provided recipes from American, Hispanic and Vietnamese traditions, and students practiced measurements and fractions as they worked in teams to test the recipes, develop the OLL Holiday Cookbook and prepare a December feast for families (see the photos on Facebook).

The local Youth Stages Art Company supported our production of The Lorax, helping our students get into costumes and characters in an authentic setting. Feel the Beat, a community dance group, provided our Monday and Wednesday jazzercise sessions, and sometimes our young musicians helped us keep the beat with their drums. From our University partner, men’s and women’s soccer players came on Thursdays to coach soccer. Our team especially enjoyed their day at the University playing on the “big” soccer field and touring the campus.

Our students told us, “This year was awesome!” We know they meant it, because they had great attendance (see enrollment, attendance and other data later in this end-of-year report). Thanks to our school partners, we could identify and target specific language, science and mathematics skills that needed to be strengthened — and we built those skills into activities that students wanted. Thanks to our families, we could help students learn more about other cultures and build friendships. Thanks to our community, we could encourage arts learning, good exercise habits and team skills — and give our young people a look at life on a college campus.

We agree: This year was awesome!

Reflection and Resources

So, what worked for you? Although the second example took more time to construct than the first, do you think that extra time would likely produce extra support?

Here are some Y4Y tools to help you strengthen your activities so your end-of-year report says “awesome”!

• Intentional Activity Design Diagram. This tool helps you look at student wants and student needs to design powerful activities.
• Knowing Families and Cultures. This tool helps you think about and plan ways to build cross-cultural understandings.
• Partnering With Schools. This rubric helps you rate how well you’re connecting with the school day and suggests actions that can help you improve. 
• Literacy: Six Key Strategies. This tool supports literacy activity design by suggesting strategies that support skill development in ways that engage students and family members.
• STEM Strategies and Techniques. Use this tool for ideas about how to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics thinking and learning.
• Successful School-CBO Partnerships Training. This presentation can be used as-is or customized to meet your program’s needs.