By Holly Phillips |  

&

Lisa Wisham |

Here in Utah we know that improved outcomes for youth can happen when afterschool programs complement and support concepts being taught during the school day. In afterschool programs and schools in which there is intentional alignment between the afterschool program and the school day, teachers have expressed noticeable improvements in students’ class participation, homework completion, and positive behaviors. As teachers continue to see these positive changes in their students, they will become more invested in the afterschool program, which opens the door for additional alignment opportunities.

The Afterschool Alliance (2011) suggested “Afterschool is at its best when it complements and coordinates with, but does not replicate, the learning that occurs during the formal school day.” Research on school day and afterschool alignment includes Gil Nom’s work (2003), in which he proposed various degrees of “bridging” to align these two worlds. The work of Nom and his associates provided the framework that future researchers have utilized and built upon. Bennett (2015), Anthony, Carmichael (2016) offered three school day/afterschool alignment practices: 1) sharing of resources; 2) sense of partnership; and 3) communication structures to further inform their work in this area. 

It can be tricky to know where to start school alignment conversations. We know that aligning with the school day isn’t always as easy as it sounds which is why we created the Align for Success Rubric, a self-evaluation tool that provides a roadmap for school alignment. The descriptions under the “integrated” column indicate best practices for each of the 5 key areas of alignment (relationships, program and school policy, shared resources, student needs, and academics). Each section offers examples of the degree of bridging within an afterschool program and school team partnership. This evaluation is to help you think through where you might have areas of weakness and how to create goals for improvement. UAN recommends completing the rubric individually or as a team both in the fall and the spring as a way to show and celebrate progress and successes. Check out the School Day & Afterschool Alignment Webinar for additional information and help on completing the rubric. 

In addition to the Align for Success Rubric, UAN has a variety of newly created or carefully curated resources on school alignment. Once your baseline assessment is complete and you’ve created goals for your semester or year, use these tools and resources to help you create a plan for success. Make sure to share your plan with your team and your Out-of-School Time Specialist/School Alignment and Data Specialist. 

Here are six recommended steps to take during the start of the school year. See if you can complete one or more of these before or during the first couple weeks of school. 

1. Complete the Align for Success Rubric, create SMART goals and discuss your plan for the semester or year as a team then share your strategic plan with your school day administration welcoming feedback and suggestions. 
2. Connect with your school administration to discuss their top goals and priorities for the semester and full year then go back to your plan and see how your program can reinforce and align. 
3. Gather curriculum maps from teachers or the school administration then use this information to help map out your semester. They can also usually be found on the school district website.
4. Introduce yourself to school day personnel. See if you can have 5 minutes during a staff meeting to talk about your team and your program or see if you can write a hello blurb for a newsletter or email announcement. 
5. Highlight your summer successes and share them with school day personnel with in-person conversations or write a note to individual teachers who will have your students in the upcoming year. 
6. Ask questions and take note on how the school plans to connect with families throughout the year. Are there ways you can collaborate or coordinate events that complement their plan? 

About the Authors

Meet your Utah School Alignment Team! Holly Phillips has been with UAN since 2019. She enjoys working with programs all over the state and is always just a phone call or email away. Lisa Wisham, from the Utah Education Policy Center, helps to round out this dynamic duo by providing a wealth of knowledge on school improvement and school day perspectives, 

By Ben Trentelman | 

It’s clear to all of us that your program is great. You’ve got kids coming every day. They know you, you know them, your enrichment activities are on point, and you can make it through your homework time with only a handful of kids insisting that they don’t know what homework is. You feel good, your team feels good, and the kids don’t cause too much trouble for you. All is well! Why fix what isn’t broken? Why stir the pot? Well… as good as things seem now, they could be better… As good as things can get, they can STILL BE BETTER. 

That’s why the Quality Self-Assessment Tool exists; to help things continue to get better, no matter how good they may seem right now. 

We hear a good deal from programs why they don’t feel like they should complete the Quality Tool; they’ve done it a bunch and don’t think they need to do it anymore… Alright, that’s just about all we hear from people about why they don’t think they should complete a quality self-assessment. They’ve done it, they know it, nuff said. Well, that’s not all there is to increasing program quality, and here is why:

The Quality Tool is only part of a continuous improvement cycle.

Improving your program quality isn’t just about reviewing best practices to see what you are doing and what you aren’t doing. It’s all about identifying what you are doing well along with the areas in which you can improve. Once you identify areas for growth, you set goals in order to improve where you can. You work on those goals and regularly assess how well you are doing. Once you feel like you’ve improved, you reassess your goals and objectives and either continue to work on improving more in certain areas or you can choose to focus on another area. Completing the tool on an annual basis gives you a nice window to reassess how you’ve progressed from the previous year’s goals and to look at other areas that you didn’t focus on before.   

We understand that this may seem like a lot to keep track of, but if you work as a team, focus your efforts, are accountable to one another, and follow-through, this process becomes part of your day-to-day ritual and can drive the entire program.

You may have been around for a while, but the odds are that your team has changed.

We are lucky to have so many seasoned coordinators and staff working in afterschool programs around Utah, but the reality is that those seasoned employees are the minority in this field. We see an unfortunate amount of turnaround in afterschool programs, which means a lot of people aren’t aware of best practices, your goals, or your mission. The Quality Tool is a nice way to communicate all of that to your team, no matter how long they’ve been around.

Two years ago UAN completed a Quality Study where we evaluated different strategies to support quality improvement in afterschool programs. The programs where we saw the greatest growth were those where staff had working knowledge of their program’s quality improvement efforts and mission. To best utilize the Quality Tool, it should be completed by your team collaboratively. You want to give your team an opportunity to discuss and review each area of the tool and to help in your evaluation process. Once everyone has had a chance to review the areas and rate your program, have a discussion about how you scored in each area, why you scored what you did, and how you can improve. This discussion helps to increase the buy-in your team has in your program, increases their knowledge of best practices, and helps them to align those ideas with your overall programming, philosophy, and mission. The more informed and participatory your staff are in decision making, the more ownership they have, and the less likely they are to move on to something else. If you include, inform, and listen to your team, you are more likely to keep them. 

Reviewing the Quality Tool with new team members is also an excellent onboarding resource to bring them up to speed with the rest of the team. 

The Quality Tool Makes You Look So Good! 

One of the struggles we face in the afterschool world is that some may think we’re all basket-weaving, camp songs, and dodge-ball. While we love all of those, we all know that afterschool is so much more! Including your partners, families, schools, and youth in your quality improvement efforts lets them see first-hand that you are focused on maintaining the safest program possible and are willing to evaluate the safety of your program to make sure it is up to snuff on an annual basis. You show them that you are determined to create an atmosphere that supports academic success, enrichment, and social and emotional learning. You show them that you want to support healthy relationships and interactions among youth, adults, and in the community, and you show them that you closely collect and evaluate data, including attendance, measures for academic growth, and other areas to constantly understand the community you serve and to improve your program. You are demonstrating your commitment to academic rigor, understanding of development, and intentionality of your practices. You are showing them that you are an informal educator and that what you do is methodical and greatly beneficial to youth, families, and the community.

So, with that being said, I have to ask one question: why aren’t you looking at the Quality Tool right now? Here it is! 

As you engage your team in the self-assessment process, remember that you can always reach out to our team of Out-of-School Time Specialists for support.