October 5, 2021

Out-of-school time programs like yours are widely viewed as a key to post-pandemic learning recovery. Just like the players on a football team, each student needs slightly different equipment to get through some tough plays. By using the new Y4Y Structuring Successful Homework Help and Tutoring Sessions Click & Go, your program can avoid unnecessary roughness as you coach your students to the end zone!

Below are just some of the tools you’ll discover when you check out the new Click & Go on academic supports.  

Down…

• Be sure to huddle around the mini-lesson, which provides an overview of the important distinctions between successful homework and tutoring sessions with respect to their structures and functions. To start thinking about how these apply to your program, download the Homework Help Versus Tutoring Sessions tool.
• Podcast #1, Structuring Successful Homework Help and Tutoring Sessions From Beginning to End (full transcript), coaches listeners through one site’s own set of hard-learned do’s and don’ts around implementing their academic supports.

Set…

• What is academic support going to look like on the home field? Download Five Key Strategies for Establishing Effective Learning Environments for Homework and Tutoring and Homework and Tutoring Session Routines to guide you.
• To guarantee yardage, your playbook should include Resource-Based Techniques and Practices.
• Listen to podcast #2, Increasing Student Self-Regulation and Self-Monitoring Skills (full transcript), and download Goal Setting Activities, Games and Templates so students can pull a quarterback sneak, playing an active role in their own academic recovery.

HIKE!

• The right team and materials will get you to the goal post. At kickoff, check out podcast #3, Vetting and Selecting High-Quality Supplementary Homework Help and Tutoring Materials (full transcript). Then make a pass over to the Quality Online Education Resources tool.
• Your scrimmage partners may have a lot to offer to strengthen your game. Download the Accessing School-Day Staff and Resources tool for their play-by-play.

Now, more than ever, the role your 21^st CCLC program plays in the academic growth of your students is critical. Y4Y is here to respond to your greatest needs. The new Click & Go on structuring successful homework help and tutoring sessions was developed to help guide you to MVP status in the academic recovery of our nation. Looking for more? Let us know through the Y4Y Suggestion Box. Y4Y is committed to the team!

September 21, 2021

Heading into what’s traditionally flu season, your host organization is likely stepping up its safety practices to ensure a healthy winter. Throughout August, the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) released resources and reminders to start the year out right. Be sure to review them along with Y4Y resources to help you “brave” the rest of the program year.

To start, check out the Department’s comprehensive list of COVID-19 resources and the Return to School Roadmap.

The Department responded to questions about enforcement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) — which promises all a free appropriate public education (FAPE) — during these unpredictable times. The Department issued a letter to state education agencies (SEAs) noting that it reaffirms a commitment to the legislation. What does this mean in your 21^st CCLC program? As an entity receiving federal funds, you want to be sure your students with disabilities are not disproportionately impacted. Consult Y4Y’s resources in the course on including students with disabilities, such as the Federal State Law Fillable Document, to be sure you’re up to speed with any modifications your state might have made in response to COVID-19 measures. While you continue to make modifications to your program space with infection safety in mind, don’t forget to review the Environmental Checklist to be sure you’re still accommodating those students with disabilities.

While it does stand firm on IDEA, be sure to review the Department’s list of Waivers and Flexibility, and know that as you have pockets of students going in and out of quarantine, your state may offer generous flexibility around school-time 21^st CCLC programming. Y4Y hosted and archived many webinars and published contributions from practitioners around the country who managed to meet their students where they were throughout the last school year. Check out 21^st CCLC Programs in a Virtual World Part I and Part 2, and podcasts on engaging students virtually, successful virtual STEAM programming and one program’s student-driven “netiquette” policies.

In response to questions around school openings and civil rights, the Department prepared a civil rights Q&A document. Has the question of civil rights come up in your program space? Don’t be afraid of this conversation! Instead, use the opportunity to help students understand how our government works, both on the national and local levels. Y4Y’s Civic Learning and Engagement course and resources like the Investigating Issues in Your Community tool can help you turn a hot-button topic into a teaching moment.

Know that a focus on wellness — both physical and mental — is a priority for everyone this year. The Department published a list of resources, but catering to your 21^st CCLC program specifically, tools within the Y4Y’s Health and Wellness: Partnering With the School Day Click & Go can make it easy to work with the professionals who know your students as well as you do to fill in the wellness gaps you discover together. In some cases, your program may even be connecting families with health care or other related services. Now is a good time for staff to brush up on their understanding of how important all types of family engagement are in 21^st CCLC programs with Y4Y’s Training to Go on connecting families to supports.

“Wellness” means different things to different people, especially in 2021, but we know your concern for students’ wellness covers all definitions: physical, mental and academic. We’re here to help. Just take your dose of Y4Y and call us in the morning!

September 12, 2021

The country’s collective consciousness and conscience are waking up to inequity. Institutions are eager to address this societal albatross, and there are many very different ideas on how to do it. Resources such as Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation by Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan ask educators to shift thinking from deficit-mindedness to asset-mindedness. “Street data is the qualitative and experiential data that emerges at eye level and on lower frequencies when we train our brains to discern it. Street data is asset based, building on the tenets of culturally responsive education by helping educators look for what’s right in our students, schools, and communities instead of seeking out what’s wrong.” While your 21^st CCLC program will continue to require evidence-based intervention methods, how can you begin to shape the culture and implementation in your program around student strengths rather than perceived deficits?

Authors Safir and Dugan, who were featured at the 2021 Summer Symposium, offer guiding principles and core stances for each chapter of their groundbreaking book. These are crosswalked below to Y4Y resources that can help your program shift its framework to an asset-minded approach that promotes equity.

Why Street Data, Why Now?

Guiding Principle 1: Reimagine our ways of knowing and learning. Core Stance: Holism.

How can your program give value to learning that’s emotional, spiritual, and physical as well as that which is cognitive?

• Know the five skill domains of social and emotional learning.
• Principles of inclusion reach beyond disabilities. Gather a full team and build an inclusive team by roles so your program can see every student for their strengths, like leadership, teamwork and clear communication.
• Tools available in Y4Y’s Career Pathways for Students course already put you in the mindset of focusing on each individual’s strengths. Asset-based thinking takes this principle a step further and recognizes that different subcultures in your community might practice different and exciting ways of knowing and learning. 

Guiding Principle 2: See the barriers; imagine what’s possible. Core Stance: Awareness.

Is equity just one more new initiative, or is your program committed to a culture shift?

• Your culture and climate language must reflect your commitment. Consult the implementation strategies section of Y4Y’s course on creating a positive learning environment.
• Only with strong community champions that share your values can you make progress toward equity.
• Team building is one more way to stress that your program is a community that values all its members.

Choose the Margins

Guiding Principle 3: Center voices from the margins. Core Stance: Antiracism.

Are the loudest voices that are front and center the only ones that are heard in your program?

• Engage in Y4Y’s course on student voice and choice to appreciate all that goes into creating a safe space in front for those voices in the margins.
• Train staff on all aspects of empowering those marginalized voices with tools like Y4Y’s Creating a Safe Learning Environment for English Learners Training to Go.
• Your team for promoting social and emotional learning is the same team you need on board for student empowerment. Be sure to assign roles and responsibilities for the most effective team.

Guiding Principle 4: Seek root causes over quick fixes. Core Stance: Deep Listening.

How is your program working to fully understand its students?

• Recognize that a lifetime of experiencing racism carries its own trauma. Listen to podcasts in Y4Y’s Trauma-Informed Care Click & Go.
• Train staff on building relationships and creating an environment that amplifies student voice.
• As one subject matter expert, Stacey-Owens Howard, advises, keep it REAL.

Deepen the Learning

Guiding Principle 5: Equity work is first and foremost pedagogical. Core Stance: Agency.

Does your program place resilience at the center of perceived success?

• A sense of purpose in their community gives every student agency. Give them opportunities to make an impact through purpose.
• Review the introduction to Y4Y’s course on social and emotional learning to reflect on the best strategies to help your students develop agency and a sense of self-worth.
• Partner with the school-day using Y4Y tools from the related Click & Go on student health and wellness, especially the tool for using best practices for mindfulness, to help students pursue the kind of inner peace that can support healthy self-esteem.

Guiding Principle 6: Less is more; focus is everything. Core Stance: Coherence.

Progress cannot be made in the silo of your program. How can you reach to partners to bring them along on this journey?

• Review the introduction section of Y4Y’s course on continuous education to develop strategies for approaching your school-day partners. Aligning your efforts to foster asset-based thinking with hopes of affecting pedagogy is key.
• Adapt the Y4Y tool to establish professional learning communities and bring all your stakeholders together from around the community to reflect on your different views of data collection.
• Families are your strongest partner in advocating for equity. Understanding and overcoming challenges to family engagement are important first steps.

Guiding Principle 7: Mobilize a pedagogy of voice for educators. Core Stance: Symmetry.

Have you empowered your staff, many of whom were perhaps chosen for their familiarity with the community, to act on their best impulses for supporting equity?

• A Y4Y Voices From the Field guest, Johanna Friedel, empowers employees by showing appreciation for program staff.
• Strong training in identifying and addressing program strengths and weaknesses will make your staff conversations around equity more intentional.
• Remember: Staff may bring their own traumatic experiences of racism to the table. The Staff Health and Wellness Self-Assessment tool can help to ensure your program team is starting off on the right foot.

Transform the Culture

Guiding Principle 8: Break the cycle of shame. Cores Stance: Vulnerability.

Do you strive so relentlessly for perfection in the delivery of your programming that you don’t take the risks that can lead to imperfect progress?

• A theme we can borrow from STEAM/design thinking is undoing right-answer thinking; it’s better to try and falter, learn from that experience and try again.
• Another Y4Y Voices From the Field guest, Marcy Richards, focuses on the “can-do’s” and not the “can’t-do’s” in her approach to equity, diversity and English learners.
• Virtual learning in 2020 and 2021 was a stark lesson in just how quickly and effectively 21^st CCLC programming can pivot. Nobody said “effortlessly.” Nobody said “easily.” And certainly, nobody said “perfectly.” But take those lessons, just as California practitioners featured in Y4Y’s March webinar series, Literacy Done Virtually, did, and consider what kind of shifts toward equity can be put into place immediately and program-wide. There may be bumps in the road, and it’s OK to be OK with that.

Guiding Principle 9: Every moment is an equity moment. Cores Stance: Warm Demander.

As the authors note, “Rather than call people out, warm demanders call folks in and up to the work of equity.” Is your program committed to a universal approach to challenging your full staff, partners and community to embrace equity?

• By definition, 21^st CCLC programs are a place where diversity is understood. You already fight for the students in the margins. Consult the Diagram of Philosophy and Practices Within 21^st CCLC to guide everything you do.
• Use the Knowing Families and Cultures tool to develop strategies for familiarizing staff and partners with the unique qualities and strengths of the families you serve.
• Become a warm demander by creating a program elevator speech. Craft your language not around calling people out, but around calling partners in and up to the work of equity. Most important, get comfortable talking about equity with a tone of gentle insistence.

As you balance your formal and informal data collection activities with an eye toward equity and improvement, consider the book’s closing message:

“Listen deeply. Trust the people. Act on what you learn. With that invocation, I invite you to walk forward on your street data journey with clear eyes and a full heart, knowing that the biggest mistake we can make is to cling to the status quo. Be brave, be bold, be visionary. We’ve got this.”

July 19, 2021

Is your health and wellness the first thing you let go of in your personal life when things get hectic? Is it also the first thing to give way when you need a little more space or time in your 21^st CCLC program? Look to Y4Y’s Click & Go resources so that by partnering with school-day professionals, you’re committing to everyone’s well-being.

Consider New Risk Factors

The long-term effects of the pandemic will take years to fully document, but here are some concerns you might already have about your students:

• Possible infection by COVID-19, including unknown lifelong health risks
• A more sedentary lifestyle for a full year
• Food insecurity, which could mean hunger, unhealthy attitudes about food and/or even higher processed food consumption than before COVID-19
• Neglect or trauma in the family, which adds to their Adverse Childhood Experiences score (ACES), also bringing with it lifelong health risks (see Y4Y’s Background on Trauma Research Brief or Mini-Lesson: An Introduction to Trauma-Informed Care).

In other words, the time is right to focus on student health as an important aspect of their overall recovery.

Exercise Is Important, But Not All Important

Naturally, a generous dose of good old-fashioned running around or playground time is a go-to in your 21^st CCLC program. When weather permits, those outdoor activities that allow for student choice, teamwork and physical exercise are irreplaceable. But some obstacles to your “plan A” for student health and wellness might include limited time, a program space that is not conducive, weather that drives you indoors, and possibly student mask wearing, which some students might find troubling during physical exercise. For these reasons and many more surrounding their future wellness, you can look to weaving in mindfulness exercises for students to address many of the same health considerations that exercise does.

Follow the Evidence

Chances are, your school district is well aware of the proven health benefits of mindfulness. Dozens of controlled studies indicate that active, routine participation in mindfulness or meditation can do the following:

• Reduce blood pressure
• Slow cognitive decline in older people and improve mental clarity and focus at all ages
• Reduce cell aging
• Improve immune response
• Help to counteract psychological pain

These strong arguments for introducing your students to routine mindfulness exercises are sure to sway your school-day partners if they don’t already have a formal initiative in place. Or, maybe a wellness initiative exists, but little or no emphasis is given to mindfulness. Your program’s efforts will have greater impact if you collaborate, so Y4Y developed a microlearning Click & Go with easy-to-follow guidance to either tap into existing efforts or start a new ball rolling. Important tools to get you started are the Quick Guide to Initiating a Partnership and the Conversations Starters tool. Like any other collaboration with the school-day, your program’s voice at the policy table will amplify results — in this case, boosting students’ health and wellness recovery.

Ready to Implement

Luckily, simple mindfulness exercises require little training for staff to lead. As an added bonus, when staff engage in these activities, they reap the short-term reward of being more patient, compassionate educators and the long-term health benefits noted above. But be sure to get staff on the same page at the outset. Y4Y’s Staff Health and Wellness Self-Assessment and Self-Assessment on Personal Views of Health and Wellness will help. Also see Y4Y’s Best Practices for Mindfulness tool.

Although practicing mindfulness can help you learn how to let things go — an argument, disappointment, anxiety or even grief — the practice itself is something your program should keep a tight grip on. And be sure you’re giving students the tools they’ll need to do likewise throughout their long, healthy lives.

July 8, 2021

Some educators suggest we should resist the idea that “learning loss” is the only thing that happened to students during the pandemic. Why? They want everyone, including students, to recognize what they’ve gained over the past 18 months. For example, some gained technology skills; developed a greater appreciation for family, friends and the great outdoors; and discovered resilience they didn’t know they had. Yes, there were losses, but there were gains as well. What does this mean in your 21^st CCLC program?

Focus on the Positives

If policymakers were to build from scratch a new program to support learning recovery today, it might look a lot like a 21^st CCLC program. Summer and afterschool learning. Tutoring. Family engagement. Student voice and choice. Attention to social and emotional learning and positive learning environments. Increased support for underserved students in the communities hit hardest by the pandemic. These are priorities that have been emerging in all recovery plans, so existing 21^st CCLC programs are ahead of the game! With that in mind, let’s set aside those negatives that are getting plenty of airtime and focus on the positives.

• Funding. The American Rescue Plan for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ARP ESSER III) is disbursing funds through states and school districts. Whether you’re in a school-based or a community-based program partnering with a school district, you’re sure to be already collaborating on how your program can beef up tutoring, especially to meet shared student goals. If you missed Y4Y’s webinar on ARP ESSER III addressing how 21^st CCLC programs can make the most of funding, check it out today!
• Lessons learned. The world of education is ever-evolving. Challenging periods can provide important lessons, if we pay attention. Your program professionals have likely discovered how to be resourceful about everything from seeking out education resources to strengthening human connections — with peers and students — when faced with obstacles. Your students’ families have learned how to advocate for their children on a whole new level. And students are walking away with skill sets nobody would have imagined at such young ages.

Name and “Own” Your New Strengths

Which of these new strengths have you, your staff or students developed during the pandemic?

• Flexibility. You had that going for you before the pandemic, but now you’re the Olympic gymnasts of education when it comes to flexibility.
• Tech wizardry. Staff and students alike have gained amazing skill sets for navigating the virtual world. You’re making the most of a whole host of useful features on various platforms and eking out new kinds of experiences — like fascinating field trips around the world and in your own (literal) backyards — thanks to virtual learning.
• Organization. The added workload called on staff to heighten their organizational skills. At the same time, students — even younger ones  — developed impressive skills at time, schedule and workload management.
• Social and emotional development. The five skill domains of social and emotional learning (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision-making and relationships skills) got a lot of “exercise” during virtual learning. Most educators have concerns that gaps in social-emotional development are as pronounced as academic gaps. Yet being on camera every day gave many students a boost in certain aspects of self-awareness and self-management. It also reinforced an appreciation of relationships, leaving students eager to participate and be fully present for in-person learning.
• Resilience and a growth mindset. The oyster and the pearl are the ultimate symbol that an irritant can turn into something beautiful. The resilience that all staff and students have gained sets everyone up for great future achievements.

Apply What You’ve Gained

There are so many positives and new strengths to focus on! How is your 21^st CCLC program moving forward to apply what you’ve learned and make “learning loss” an obsolete term? See how many of these things you’re already doing:

• Trying new virtual platforms. You’re no longer afraid of the brave new virtual world. The more tricks you can find, the better! Check out Y4Y’s two archived webinar series on 21^st CCLCs in a virtual world (part 1 for novices or part 2 for masters). You’ll learn about dozens of platforms and how you can use them virtually or in person.
• Leaning into the power of resilience. Keep reminding students that as things get better, as things feel better, they’ll carry with them always the muscles built when they had to be resilient. Nothing hits a message home like a good story. Y4Y offers a Teaching Resilience Book List with suggestions for read-alouds at different grade levels.
• Counting on partners. You may be increasing the number of paid and volunteer tutors in your program. Your retired teachers association is a great resource. Be sure to map other community assets as well. To learn the basics of partnership development, see the Implementation Strategies section in Y4Y’s Strategic Partnerships course.
• Making time to connect. Developing relationships is the pinnacle of social and emotional development. So even as academic focus intensifies, you’ll want to make sure that human connections stay front and center in your program. Y4Y’s Building Relationships Training to Go is a great tool for brushing up if staff are looking for fresh ideas on how to connect with students. These basic ideas carry over into ever-important peer relationships as well.
• Bringing students along in planning. In February’s Education Week, there’s a great quote from Neema Avashia, an eighth-grade civics teacher in Boston Public Schools (and Boston’s 2013 Educator of the Year). She notes, “One important lesson I’ve learned from my students is that everything I plan with them goes much better than anything I plan without them.” Build on the self-awareness they’ve developed and consult Y4Y’s Student Voice and Choice course or accompanying tools like Student Survey: How Do I Learn Best? if you’re looking for tips on how to effectively incorporate student voice in your program and activity planning.

Whether we’re conscious of it or not, every human experience gives us a new opportunity to weigh our practices, our habits, and our ways of doing — and to weed out the things that don’t work. With that exercise comes the opportunity to view new experiences differently. Instead of focusing on “learning loss” in your 21^st CCLC program, scrounge around for the unexpected opportunities brought about by the pandemic, and discover how you can build on those gems to ensure a bright future for all your students.