The Texas Afterschool Centers on Education (ACE) is the program administered through the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for the federally funded 21st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC) grants. The Texas ACE Boys and Girls Clubs of Austin Area Cycle 10 program is composed of a compilation of activities at 9 Austin Independent School District…

This brief reports on the first year of a promising effort in Texas to deepen the postsecondary preparation that schools and programs offer. With support from the Greater Texas Foundation (GTF) and coaching and technical assistance from Jobs for the Future (JFF), five sites have begun using JFF's Back on Track: Postsecondary Success model and…

The Texas Afterschool Centers on Education (ACE) is the program administered through the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for the federally funded 21st Century Community Learning Center (CCLC) grants. The Texas ACE Foundation Communities Cycle 9 program is composed of a compilation of activities at 3 AISD campuses that provide a comprehensive range of…

The Short-Term Programs department at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI) offers week-long and weekend classes during the school year for students with visual impairments who are on or close to grade level. Students primarily come to these programs for direct instruction in specific areas of the expanded core curriculum…

This report describes the activities and accomplishments of Austin Independent School District's (AISD's) CARES team during the second year of implementation, school year 2019-2020. Highlights include how CARES team members were able to: maintain and in many cases exceed high-quality standards, continue progress monitoring, and provide support and…

Each year, Austin Independent School District Department of Research and Evaluation (DRE) staff develop a plan of work to describe the scope of work for the coming year. The plans that make up this document identify programs to be evaluated and services to be provided by DRE staff and provide the blueprints for evaluation that staff will follow…

Young Americans represent the future of the United States but face challenging pathways to economic opportunity. Challenges related to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and demands for related skill sets are complicating access to work and opportunity for many who are newly entering the workforce. To address this challenge, more state, local, and…

This is the executive summary for a full report. In 2019-2020, the program's third federally funded year, GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) Austin served a cohort of 8th grade students (n = 2,546) across 11 middle schools. Nearly all GEAR UP students received support services relevant to college…

This article describes the Social Entrepreneurship for Poverty Alleviation (SEPA) grant-writing program at Austin College. The SEPA program provides a service-learning experience in which students spend a summer writing grants with local nonprofit agencies. In the hope that others might choose to emulate our efforts, what follows is a detailed…

The Austin Independent School District (AISD) offered several academic summer programs to students June through August 2021. These programs offered students opportunities to accelerate their learning, recover academic course credits, and support grade level transition. Although AISD offered a variety of summer programs in 2021, this report focuses…

This executive summary provides highlights of the full report, looking at the impact of the Seed Model Campus Cohort Program in its first 3 years of implementation. Evidence put forth in the report suggests that by deliberately focusing on inclusive program design and peer-to-peer sharing with a focus on growth, the program already positively…

Each year, over 600 youth under the age of 25 experience literal homelessness in Austin, Texas. Of these youth, 76% have a history of involvement with foster care or the juvenile justice system--far exceeding the rates of system involvement observed among homeless youth in other large communities in the United States (approximately 54%; Voices of…

The purpose of the 2018-2019 CARES evaluation was to (a) help program staff conceptualize the CARES implementation work and goals; (b) define measurable indicators of implementation, outputs, and outcomes; and (c) provide summative data on the first year of program implementation. Results of the 2018-2019 CARES program evaluation activities were…

The Coordinated School Health (CSH) reports describe how the CSH program was implemented at AISD campuses. The report provides district summary information about achieved CSH action goals and information about changes in physical fitness of students at the campus since the previous year.

Sometimes users need to be asked if they need help. This is difficult with online users, because in-person cues cannot be used to engage when the users need assistance. Proactive chat widgets help to solve this problem as the chat box slides out onto the screen and prompts the user for help. The need for the proactive chat widget was also seen as…