Purpose/Objectives: Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) participation rates often underserve the number of children in the community needing access to food. Each year, District 87 in Bloomington, Illinois offers children 18 years old and younger a free lunch at six feeding sites throughout the community as part of the SFSP. During the summer of…

In response to the need to broaden participation in computer science, we designed a summer camp to teach middle-school-aged youth to code apps with MIT App Inventor. For the past four summers, we have observed significant gains in youth's interest and self-efficacy in computer science, after attending our camps. The majority of these youth,…

Barriers to summer enrichment and learning experiences reinforce gaps in resources and opportunities in public education that face students from lower-income households. In a growing number of cities, new support structures are emerging to help parents overcome barriers to summer enrichment and learning for their children. These supports provide…

High-quality afterschool and summer programming serve an important role in Nebraska communities. They engage students emotionally, intellectually, and socially (National Research Council, 2015). They provide safe and caring supervision for children who might otherwise be unsupervised outside of school hours, they also discourage negative…

The 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) initiative is the only federal funding source dedicated exclusively to before-school, afterschool, and summer learning programs. Each state education agency receives funds based on its share of Title I funding for low-income students at high-poverty, low performing schools. Funds are also…

These "Stories From the Field" describe five Wallace-funded programs working to expand learning and enrichment for disadvantaged children, so they can benefit from the types of opportunities their wealthier counterparts have access to, from homework help to swimming classes. The report details each program's approach, successes and…

The federal government's key summer nutrition programs for low-income children are the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the SFSP is an entitlement program funding public and private non-profit organizations to serve nutritious meals…

Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, offers to a select group of community college students from around the U.S., an intensive summer program called Exploring Transfer. Exploring Transfer, which recently completed its 21st summer season, is hailed as an affirmative-action program that provides a much-needed educational boost to its diverse,…

In October 1970 the New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University and Cooperative Extension launched a research and action pilot program to improve the quality of life in Chenango County. High priority areas included the improvement of social services delivery and the increased participation of low income families…

The document describes the consumer and home economics summer programs for grade 7 and grade 8 girls in two junior high schools. The programs provided opportunities to learn basic sewing and cooking skills, as well as personal improvement such as grooming, hygiene, posture, and modeling. A number of field trips to supplement the class instruction…

Despite decades of precollege science education programs, African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans remain critically underrepresented in science and health professions. This report describes college and career outcomes among graduates of the Stanford Medical Youth Science Program (SMYSP), a 5-week summer residential program for low-income…

Although community-based education support organizations are second only to public schools in the number of young people they serve each year, there has been little substantive research on these organizations and the education support they provide. With funding from the Walter S. Johnson Foundation, a 10-month study of neighborhood-based…

The Philadelphia Partnership is a Philadelphia School District (Pennsylvania) program, sponsored by the state higher education system and designed to increase the number of low-income and minority students in comprehensive, neighborhood magnet schools who attend college and graduate. A hundred sophomores are selected annually to participate in the…

This paper describes the programs at the University of Kansas (UK) School of Education to encourage diversity. The TRIO programs, which include a regular Upward Bound program, an Upward Bound Math and Science Center, an Educational Talent Search, and a McNair Scholars Program, report to the associate dean for teacher education and play a key role…

This grant proposal describes Project GOLD (Garfield Options for Leadership Development), an after-school and summer program designed to serve African American middle school-aged youth in Richmond, Virginia. The youths are residents of public housing, are primarily from female-headed households, and are typically at least one school year behind…