At BOOST Workshop: Time to Change Education from the Out-of-School Time

At the inspiring BOOST conference, Dr. Helen Wang, founder and CEO of 6crickets hosted a panel on "How to Create Quality Expanded Learning Programs that Promote Student Success in School and Beyond". The panel consisted of: Jeff Hohne, Director of Expanded Programs at Visalia USD, Alan Pantanini, ELO-P Director at Pomona USD, ?and Eva Robles, ELO-P Coordinator at Mountain View USD. Together, this group of education advocates discussed at length what ELO-P means for our kids and communities and how it can be effectively implemented at any district. ?If you missed it, that’s okay! Here is the video recording of the talk.?

The ELO-P intent

Jeff Hohne, an Expanded Learning Director at Visalia USD, started the presentation by describing the ELO-P intent from the California Department of Education. The goal of ELO-P is to close a glaring opportunity gaap in out-of-school time learning. The programs should be: ?

• based on student choice
• hands-on and engaging learning experiences, and not just childcare
• results-driven, measurable, and improving continuously
• tapping into community partners, which also helps ease staffing
• shortages complementing and not replicating the school day. ?

Meeting staffing needs for expanded learning

Meeting ELO-P intent requires significant staffing and with the hiring difficulties facing so many districts Jeff Hohne of Visalia USD shared how they tackled the issue.

Incentivizing teachers, organizing internal expanded learning departments, and automating and streamlining management using a modern system called 6crickets meant that Visalia USD could offer expanded learning opportunities and successfully deliver choice-based enrichment to 7,890 students in just their first year of ELO-P. That is 52% of their student population. ?Not only is that an incredible response, it was and continues to be a fantastic opportunity for those students to close the learning gap.

Parents have loved Visalia USD’s expanded learning program:?

• “This is an amazing learning experience and opportunity which my child has been privileged to be a part of. She has learned SO much and has had a spark of curiosity lit inside of her. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity.”?
• “Built confidence and aided with stage fright. My son loved this class.”?
• “My son is autistic and I love the way they try to include him with peers his age.”

Make programs accessible and attractive to students and families

Panelist Eva Robles, Expanded Learning Coordinator at Mountain View School District, ?shared that her passion for expanded learning comes from a strong conviction that after-school activities are necessary for positive student outcomes, noting that “I know if you’re [students] not engaged in something positive, you’re going to find something else to do.” We all know how true that statement is! She also pointed out that chronic absenteeism has become a serious issue after the pandemic and it is ever more important to re-engage students and families. ?

Michael Funk, Director of Expanded Learning from the California Department of Education, shared in an earlier session that billions of ELO-P dollars have been left on the table and not spent by some districts. Eva advocated passionately that districts should spend that fund to support their students: "We have been doing education the same way since the 1950s. I look at this [ELO-P] as a way to really change and transform our schools, and to be able to do things that we always wanted to do. With the ELO-P funding, we have the opportunities to do it now." ?

Eva shared how Mountain View SD has leveraged the ELO-P funding to bring vibrant programming to her students. Furthermore, she worked hard to make sure that these programs are easily discoverable and accessible. She resorted to using 6crickets to give families a one-stop district program portal to easily see all program offerings and enroll their children: "Being able to have an organized platform where our families can go to, and being able to have everything in one place has been really great." Because they have a large Spanish-speaking population in the district, Eva configured a big "Espa?ol" button to allow translation to Spanish, making program content and the registration process even more accessible. Eva ensured that programs have vivid images reflecting the interesting content, as a way to attract both families and students to register for the programs.?

There are always some parents who are apprehensive of technology, but Eva and the Mountain View SD team haven't given up on them. As Eva said, “We’ve got to bring our families into the 21st century.” Speaking on adopting faster, simpler management systems, Eva also ?said, “Being able to support our families and our students, to be able to offer all these options and programs, to be able to do so in an organized way using a modern system like 6crickets … was very helpful." She continues that these systems have allowed her district “to offer all of our kids fun but also a safe place to be, especially with our working families.”

Eva and her team's hard work paid off. 45% of their students enrolled in their expanded learning program!?

Ensure Student Safety and Accountability

Aside from engagement, schools and districts also need simple, efficient systems to keep track of all the students who are attending expanded learning programs, just like the in-school hours. Alan Pantanini and his team at Pomona USD have found their solution to ensure students are safe and accounted for.?

Real-time rosters and attendance is key to ensuring basic student safety and knowing where the students are in real time. Alan shared the above slide illustrating how Pomona USD real-time syncs student attendance from instructors to the district central office, at each school site, and at each community-based organization, leveraging the 6crickets management system. Alan emphasized the importance of sync-ing with the district's Student Information System because it allows connecting the expanded learning with the school day and measuring student outcome continuously to keep improving the expanded learning programming and operations.?

Concluding remarks

Every student deserves access to choice-based, results-driven learning outside of the school day. The historic ELO-P initiative enables such access for every California student. ?It is imperative that we have systematic organization for program management, ?student safety, accountability, and continuous measurement and improvement to optimize both programming and operations for student outcome. ?As Alan Pantanini of Pomona USD said, “Time has changed; education has changed… it’s time to be risk takers and time to really advocate for our students outside of the school day.” ?Whether through increasing support for school staff, embracing community partnership, or modernizing and digitizing expanded learning operations, districts and schools are reimagining and re-shaping expanded learning in the out-of-school time!?

Quick tip

A great resource to tap into is the California AfterSchool Network (CAN) ?ELO-P Office Hours , co-hosted with the California Department of Education (CDE) Expanded Learning Division (EXLD) at 12 pm on 7/12, 7/26, 8/9, and 8/23. The office hours are one and a half hours long. The first approximately 30 minutes will be set aside to provide the latest updates. The remaining time will be used for Q&A and for sharing promising practices. There is a meeting cap to ensure discussion, so register soon if you want to join! ?

Yours in Education,

6crickets team