Voices From the Field

Each month, Y4Y Technical Assistance team members have opportunities to conduct interviews with out-of-school time practitioners in a range of roles. Select from the brief descriptions below to learn about strategies and best practices that interest you. 

New this Month

Julie Smutko Daugherty, the previous editor of The Y4Y Insider and host of the Voices From the Field podcast, sat down with the current Insider editor, Cappella Santos-Brown, to reflect on what she wishes she’d known before embarking on the Insider’s journey and the lessons she’s learned about planning, communication, collaboration, and creativity. [Read more]

Archives

State Coordinator

• Karyl Resnick, Massachusetts, talks about social and emotional learning, project-based learning, and other initiatives to support program improvement and professional development. [Read more]

21^st CCLC Grant Specialist

• Erin Busk, Indiana, talks about what it is like to work with diverse 21^st CCLC program grantees, including a large number of community-based and faith-based organizations (CBOs and FBOs). [Read more]
• Lisa Kluge, Program Specialist, Arizona 21^st CCLC Program shares some fresh ideas to make the most of Arizona's state grantee conferences. [Read more]

Project Director

• Delia Johnson, Project Director for Alief ISD’s Children Interacting Afterschool (CIA) program in Texas, sat down with Y4Y to discuss their 8th Annual CIA Market Day, which consisted of 26 student-created and operated businesses. More than 7,800 products were available for purchase with CIA “Market Day bucks.” Delia discusses how family engagement and financial literacy factored in to contribute to a successful Market Day! [Read more]

   
• Johanna Friedel, Texas, talks about some best practices surrounding staff appreciation. [Read more]
• Shannon Browning, Oklahoma, shares her heartfelt answers to questions about food insecurity faced by so many Oklahoma students. She also offers great ideas on how 21^st CCLC programs in other states can help. [Read more]

21^st CCLC Grantees

• Marcy Richards, 21^st CCLC Program Manager, Anchorage School District, shares her expertise in developing partnerships that mutually benefit wide-ranging partners and her district’s at-risk students. [Read more]
• Marcy Richards, 21^st CCLC Program Manager, Anchorage School District, shares her strategies for serving English learners equitably in the most diverse school district in the country. [Read more] [Podcast]
• Simone Miranda, Community Learning Center Project Manager, Schenectady City School District talks about the community partnerships that allow their program to deliver incredible STEAM learning and career pathways support. [Read more] [Podcast]
• Luis Bravo, Project Specialist for the Safe & Healthy Kids Department in the Office of Fresno County Superintendent of Schools in California shares how they used virtual connections to keep rural students engaged when their program went virtual and how they will continue to use them going forward. [Read more] [Podcast]
• Renee Starr, the Community Schools Manager with Brooklyn Center Community Schools in urban Minnesota, and Megan Grubb, the Farm to School Coordinator talk about their district's popular farm to school programming that impacts both the school day and out-of-school time. [Read more] [Podcast]
• William “Bill” Rodriguez, Jeri Lyn Salazar, and Bryan Cruz from Santa Fe Public Schools share their inventive program ideas used in their 21^st CCLC program sites that have led to tremendous successes throughout their programs. [Read more] [Podcast]
• Sara Morales, Associate Director of the New Mexico State University's 21^st CCLC program, shares how strong and enriching their program has grown to be because of partnerships rooted in a fierce sense of community and shared goals. [Read more] [Podcast]

Subject Matter Expert

• Logan Newman, a high school science teacher, talks with Y4Y about developing a program that teaches students to manufacture eyeglasses and provides those eyeglasses to students in need in urban Rochester, New York. His experience offers great ideas that can easily translate to out-of-school time career pathway opportunities. [Read more] [Podcast]

• Jolene DiBrango, Executive Vice President for the New York State United Teachers, talks with Y4Y about the organization's Take a Look at Teaching initiative which aims to elevate the eduation profession and build a teacher pipeline that reaches all the way back to students in elementary school. [Read more] [Podcast]

• Stacey Owens-Howard, Founder of Z.E.C.A. School of Arts and Technology in Jacksonville, and plenary presenter at the 2020 21^st CCLC Summer Symposium, talks about how to educate at-risk students regardless of trauma and how to build a culture of learning. [Read more]

• Anna Luther, MSW, curriculum director at Kids Included Together (KIT) shares some best practices on serving students with disabilities, especially in the current environment of hybrid or fully virtual learning. [Read more]

• Tara Cox, Senior Manager of Professional Development at The Franklin Institute talks about undoing "right-answer thinking." [Read more] [Podcast]

• Jen Siaca Curry, E.D., Change Impact, shares pro tips for engaging youth in virtual programs. [Read more] [Podcast]

• In partnership with Rina Serrano, Coordinator of Student and Parent Support Programs, Candace Walker, Operations Supervisor, Youth Enrichment Program in California’s Hayward Unified School District talks about ​their “netiquette” agreements to support positive virtual learning environments ​by including student voice. [Read more] [Podcast]

• Edie Cusack, Executive Director of the College of Charleston REACH program in South Carolina spoke with Y4Y about the concept of “disability neutrality” and how to approach inclusion with simplicity. [Read more] [Podcast]

• Stacey Gummey, certified Forest Kindergarten Teacher and trained Pennsylvania Master Naturalist offers her thoughts on how time outdoors can offer 21^st CCLC students time away from screens — and a magical perspective on inquiry-based learning. [Read More] [Podcast]

• Susan Sachs, Great Smoky Mountains National Park Education Branch Coordinator, and Jessie Snow Neeley, Great Smoky Mountains National Park Education Park Ranger share about their opportunities for students through 21^st CCLC partnerships in Tennessee and North Carolina. [Read More] [Podcast]

• Collaborators Vanessa Spero and Brent Braddus from the University of Florida, and Jennifer Smith with the state's Afterschool Network share their experience with (and tips for) successful entrepreneurial education for K-12 students. [Read More] [Podcast]

• De Angelo Rorie, Director of Youth Services, and Paula Carroll, Case Manager at Washington D.C.'s United Planning Organization share how they've place social and emotional learning at the center of their college and career readiness efforts. [Read More] [Podcast]

• Heidi Gibson, Science Curriculum Developer for the Smithsonian Science Education Center shares how students in 21^st CCLC programs can benefit from free, high-quality, global science guides while learning to make their world a better place. [Read More] [Podcast]

• Brittany Miracle, Assistant Director of Health, Attendance, and Family with the Ohio Department of Education's Office of Whole Child Supports sheds some light on how Ohio came to adopt its whole Child Framework, and the lessons out-of-school programs can learn from it. [Read More] [Podcast]

• Tiffany Grant, Business Development Manager with First Children's Finance talks about her trainings on how a better understanding of what linguists call African American Language can advance equity and inclusion. [Read More] [Podcast]

• Sarah Johnson, a landscape-based environmental educator shares some basics about environmental education and how out-of-school time is the perfect opportunity for discovering one’s own place. [Read More] [Podcast]

• Katherine P. Manley, a retired teacher from West Virginia talks about her life experience of growing up in significant poverty and how that informed her practice as a profoundly compassionate and engaging educator. [Read More] [Podcast]

• Amy Franks, Asscoiate Director of Learning Partnerships at Book Harvest, shares how to gain a better understanding of supplying students with "books that fit". [Read More]

• Sonya Westerman, an advocate for children and adults with disabilities, offers pointers on how 21^st CCLC programs can understand and include students with autism in their out-of-school time programs. [Read More] [Podcast]

• Paul Travers, principal at Washington Montessori Elementary in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Guilford County Principal of the Year, talks with Y4Y about the people who inspired hime to become an educator - and innovative ways to engage family, community, and out-of-school time partners. His stories and examples will make you want to try some of his ideas in your own program! [Read more]

   

• Angelica Robinson, a higher education professional, who along with her team from Tool Maker Productions, gave an impactful session at the 21^st CCLC Summer Symposium in 2022. We invited her to come to answer some of our questions about how staff in out-of-school time can benefit from professional training that helps them unpack their self-identity with an end goal of creating identity-safe spaces for their students. [Read more]

   

• Marissa Rodriguez and Jessica Rodriguez are family engagement specialists with the Houston area Alief Independent School District’s 21^st CCLC program: Children Interacting Afterschool (CIA). Through a valuable partnership with Hope Clinic, a fast-growing community health center, they have helped to develop an initiative, A Bite of Hope, to provide students and families in their community with valuable experiences preparing healthy foods. [Read more]