Tulsa (Okla.) Public Schools is a model for quality afterschool and summer out-of-school time. With pillars of capacity building, quality improvement of programs and creating a year-round engagement, its program structures have fostered familiarity, normalcy and whole-child support. TPS's education and out-of-school time values focus on the…

For the Expanded Learning Summer Program (ELSP), at a midsized public school system in the Northeast, providing high quality programming that engages student interest and fosters active learning by all children was a top priority. This case study, undertaken during the summer of 2017, provided insight into how the ELSP aligned with the relevant…

The Summer and Afterschool Needs Assessment helps youth serving programs and organizations learn best practices and identify areas where they might benefit from guidance or support. The Needs Assessment draws from the best available evidence on what constitutes high-quality afterschool and summer learning programs and organizes these Success…

Intentionally designed afterschool and summer programs can benefit students' social-emotional skills, accelerate their learning, and even increase their school attendance during the school year. This infographic touches on the value of these programs, possible barriers that might limit access to students, and states with innovative models.

Sprockets collaborated with Wilder Research to conduct Journey Mapping sessions with its network partner organizations to learn more about the experiences they have had with Sprockets and to hear from them about future hopes for Sprockets. Information gathered is intended to inform Sprockets' continuous improvement efforts in providing effective…

The Denver Afterschool Alliance (DAA) is a community collaborative whose mission is to increase access to and participation in quality afterschool programs to keep Denver's youth safe, inspire them to learn and prepare them for the future. It represents a collaboration of many stakeholders, including the City and County of Denver, many…

A high school diploma is no longer enough to get by in the current job market, and high-level knowledge, skills, and abilities are crucial to success especially in the fields of and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Afterschool programs are a critical component and lever to better prepare our youth for college and careers,…

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…

Research has shown that an idle summer is not just boring; it can cost a student as much as two to three months of educational progress. Summer is critical to each child's development, both mind and body. Any meaningful attempts to get at America's equity divide and the consequent gap in opportunities for kids must include summer education as a…

What does it take to transform a large, bureaucratic institution with a fractured culture and a compliance orientation into a nurturing, collaborative, vision-directed organization? In 2017, the California Department of Education's Expanded Learning Division (after-school and summer programs) took a radically different approach by cultivating the…

The Information Age Publishing new book series, Current Issues in Out-of-School Time, is designed with a purpose to disseminate original research and promising practices that further the Out-of-School Time (OST) field. This first book sets the foundation on which the series rests upon, by offering an analysis of the progress made since the 2000s,…

What does it take to transform a large, bureaucratic institution with a fractured culture and a compliance orientation into a nurturing, collaborative, vision-directed organization? This report and the accompanying research brief endeavor to answer that question by examining a humanistic and systems thinking approach to cultural change that took…

California allocates $550 million to expanded learning through After School Education and Safety (ASES) state grants, and $140 million of federal money in 21st Century Community Learning Center grants each year; more than all other states combined. Much variability exists in program quality, and research has identified mixed results as to the…

Funders and program planners want to know: What does it cost to operate a high-quality after-school or summer program? This study answers that question, discovering that there is no "right" number. Cost varies substantially, depending on the characteristics of the participants, the goals of the program, who operates it and where it is located.…

From the nefarious achievement gaps, to the racial isolation in increasingly segregated schools; from the digital divide that results in kids not having access to computers, to the poverty gulf that results in kids not having homes; from boys' reading difficulties and girls' problems with math, to the disparities among rural, suburban, and urban…