What Makes this Session “Special”?

State & Federal Budget News

Legislators headed back to Olympia this week for the start of the 30-day special session.  The House and Senate failed to agree on a final budget for the 2013-2015 biennium which brings them back together in Olympia for some heated negotiations.  On the table is funding for education and whether the legislature will adhere to the Supreme Court mandate to fully fund education by 2018.  Learn more about what this means on the Washington State Budget & Policy Center website.

In other budget news, we at SOWA were extremely concerned with proposed budget cuts to the Child Care Development fund, a federal funding stream which supports early learning and school-age supports.  The current proposal includes a 56% cut to supports and resources for school-age providers reallocating those funds towards early learning.

Professional development and technical assistance are critical to improving quality, and maintaining high quality before and afterschool care in licensed child care settings. This proposed cut would dismantle an efficient system of support through the Washington Regional Afterschool Project that has been built over the past 14 years.

The Department of Early Learning is accepting public comment. Click here for a sample e-mail that you can cut, paste and add personal comments then send directly to CCDF2013@del.wa.gov. This will only take a few minutes of your time and will make a huge difference in letting DEL know that school-age matters! We have also prepared a fact sheet with more background information and can help you with additional messaging. Contact Janet Schmidt for support.

Lastly, budget negotiations are also currently underway at the federal level. At stake is funding for the 21st Century Community Learning Center program, the only federal funding stream dedicated to supporting afterschool and summer learning.  There is proposed language that could divert these funds to extended day programs that don’t provide the same experiential and hands-on learning that enhances what students learn during the school day.  There may also be cuts to funding.  The Afterschool Alliance has more information on their website along with steps you can take to support this funding stream.  We leave you with a quote from a high school student participant in a NY YMCA program who testified in Washington, D.C. on the value and critical importance of 21st CCLC funding:

“The program kept me safe and off the street during the afterschool hours, but more importantly, this program had a special focus on teaching me about advocacy, public policy, leadership skills and the importance of civics education and being a part of the solution to our society’s problems.   As a matter of fact, it’s this program that gave me the skills and confidence to be here today.  I learned in the program that my opinion is important and my voice is powerful.” Read the full testimony here.

There’s lots happening both at the state and federal level so stay tuned for more updates in the coming days and weeks.

Photo by Harvey Barrison on Flickr.
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by School's Out Washington on May 17, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Legislation
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Posted by School's Out Washington on May 17, 2013

http://schoolsoutwashington.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/what-makes-this-session-special/

Connecting Afterschool learning with Common Core State Standards

Afterschool Snack, the afterschool blog. The latest research, resources, funding and policy on expanding quality afterschool and summer learning programs for children and youth. An Afterschool Alliance resource.

By Jen Rinehart, for Afterschool Snack, the blog of the Afterschool Alliance on April 30, 2013

While volunteering in my daughter’s kindergarten classroom recently, I noticed a stack of kindergarten math workbooks that proudly advertised, “Aligned with the Common Core State Standards.”  It was a clear sign that the Common Core standards have arrived in classrooms across the country and a reminder to me that the Afterschool Alliance can help afterschool providers better understand Common Core and what roles afterschool stakeholders can play in supporting learning under the Common Core.

So what are the Common Core State Standards?  They are a set of standards in reading/language arts and math that resulted from several years of collective thinking by teachers, researchers and leading experts in the education field about what students should know and be able to do in mathematics and English language arts.  Prior to the Common Core, most states had their own individual sets of standards.

Why do the Common Core State Standards exist?  Proponents of Common Core argue that with the adoption of the standards, students who move from state to state, and especially students in military families who might make multiple moves in a K-12 career, will have a smoother transition because the schools in each state will be working from the same set of high expectations about what kids in each grade should be able to do.  They also point out that states can share instructional resources like textbooks and even assessments, which are currently under development and expected to be rolled out during the 2013-2014 school year.  As you might imagine, there are also education leaders who question the value of Common Core, particularly since the Common Core were not pilot tested prior to roll out to nearly all states, and who view Common Core and the related assessments as costly (both for the country and our children’s futures) experiments in learning.

What does Common Core mean for afterschool?  Whether you agree or disagree with Common Core, these standards are the reality for students, families and educators in nearly every state.  While the goals of afterschool go well beyond academic support, given the importance of Common Core to educators and the ways in which Common Core will impact the learning experience for children and youth, the Common Core will surely affect afterschool providers as well.

How can you help prepare afterschool programs and staff to support learning under the Common Core State Standards?

  • Educate yourself about Common Core and the role of afterschool.  Achieve has a variety of resources on Common Core, including guides for elementary and secondary school leaders and guidance counselors.  In addition, there are briefs focused on the role of afterschool that share examples of programs and recommendations for supporting learning under the Common Core.
  • Help parents better understand the Common Core and what it means for their children.  The National PTA and the Council of Great City Schools both have parent resources on Common Core available for download.  Given the strong relationship that afterschool providers have with parents and families, programs are well positioned to help educate parents about the Common Core.
  • Promote opportunities for professional development and sharing among afterschool staff and school staff.  Expanding Minds and Opportunities includes an article on Common Core and expanded learning that features a couple of examples:
    • In Wisconsin, district and local expanded learning programs are connecting with school curriculum online and directly with teachers.  Programs include current and retired teachers on their staff to facilitate effective engagement with schools and the academic content students are learning.
    • The New Jersey State Afterschool Network, NJSACC, in cooperation with the New Jersey State Department of Education, completed a statewide pilot training program on the Common Core for afterschool program leaders. Training sessions focused on how to align student activities and curriculum with the Common Core.
  • Check out examples of afterschool providers who are helping students reach Common Core.
    • The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and America’s Promise Alliance have an upcoming webinar on May 6 that will explore the ways in which afterschool and summer programs can help students achieve under the Common Core standards.  Examples from New Jersey and Wisconsin will be highlighted and case studies, best practices and lessons learned will be featured.

As the recognition of the valuable role that afterschool and summer programs play in supporting student learning continues to grow, it is essential that afterschool providers demonstrate how they can expand on and complement the learning that happens during the school day.  Throughout the rest of 2013 and beyond, we’ll be working to provide the afterschool community with resources related to Common Core and the role of afterschool in helping all students succeed in school and out.

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by School's Out Washington on May 14, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Afterschool Resources, Expanded Learning Opportunities
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Posted by School's Out Washington on May 14, 2013

http://schoolsoutwashington.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/connecting-afterschool-learning-with-common-core-state-standards/

Time to GiveBIG!

2013-GiveBIG-Signature---OriginalGiveBig is in its second year and we are so excited to be participating again and hoping to raise much needed funds to support Washington’s rural kids.

You’ve heard about it and are starting to get lots of emails from your favorite non-profits. But you still might be wondering, what exactly is GiveBig? Well, we’re here to provide you with some GiveBig 101 and details about how this day of giving works.

When?

Wednesday, May 15, 2013 12:00 AM – 11:59 PM

Support  School’s Out Washington as part of The Seattle Foundation’s GiveBIG, a one-day online charitable giving event.

Why GiveBIG?

The more you give, the more School’s Out Washington receives that day from The Seattle Foundation’s matching stretch donations from GiveBIG sponsors!

How to GiveBIG?

Click here to bookmark our page and return to it on May 15 to donate to School’s Out Washington, and watch your gift grow! All donations must be made with a credit/debit card through our profile on The Seattle Foundation’s website.

To Do Now

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for GiveBIG reminders and updates!

Why School’s Out Washington?

Children at Boistfort Elementary enjoyed learning about Washington State.

Children at Boistfort Elementary in Lewis County received our support last year!

Your donation through The Seattle Foundation on May 15 will help support our Feed Your Brain Project and give a rural community the resources they need to provide summer literacy programming and free meals to kids.  So many kids across our state experience “summer slide” without access to summer programming that keeps them learning and on track to enter school in the fall.  In addition, only 10% of eligible kids receive free meals during the summer months through federally-subsidized meal programs. Feed Your Brain helps solve these issues in rural communities by supporting summer programs for kids that focus on literacy and provide free, nutritious meals. Every dollar you donate will go toward supporting kids in rural communities!

Join thousands of folks across our region in an exciting day of giving sponsored by The Seattle Foundation.  This May 15th, GiveBig for rural kids in our state.

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by School's Out Washington on May 2, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Events, Summer Learning
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Posted by School's Out Washington on May 2, 2013

http://schoolsoutwashington.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/time-to-givebig/

Parent Forum Truly Inclusive

Road Map Region’s Inaugural Parent Forum authentically engaged parents and families by removing barriers for participation.

by Lynne Tucker, Education Policy and Advocacy Director

“We truly can accomplish anything if we put our minds to it!” For parents and caregivers, these are words of encouragement we share with our children daily. This was no more evident than at the Road Map Region’s Inaugural (First) Parent Forum, an event designed for parents and families from the region.

The Road Map Project is a community-wide effort aimed at improving student achievement from cradle to college and career in South King County and South Seattle. Seven school districts are part of the Road Map Project.  Parent and family engagement has been a core focus area of the project which includes communities representing a huge diversity of cultures, language and ethnicity.

School’s Out Washington and SOAR had the pleasure of being involved in the Road Map Region’s Inaugural Parent Forum held on Saturday, April 20th at Foster High School in Tukwila. What an amazing and electrifying event.

At the resource fair, SOAR provided developmental screenings for children on the spot, while School’s Out Washington signed up parents and families to stay engaged with our monthly e-newsletter and Children’s Action Network.

With well over 900 in attendance, the Community Center for Education Results (CCER) led a group of seven school districts, community based organizations, education and family advocates and parents from the Road Map Region in their first Parent Forum. The event was a huge success, due to extraordinary collaboration by community groups and schools  to remove all barriers that could prevent parent participation.   You can view photos of the event on the Road Map Project’s Facebook page.

All details in removing barriers were considered:

  • Language: 27+ Interpreters were on site to provide interpretation for 16+ different languages during the event and in workshops.
  • Cost: was free to all participants.
  • Transportation: Getting to the event was made easy for parents and families.  The Parent Forum set-up transportation for participants by providing bus and light rail passes for those in need and bus routes were coordinated across the region.
  • Childcare: There were childcare providers and volunteers on site who served over 130 children while parents attended the resource fair and scheduled workshops.
  • Food Provided: We ordered 750 meals and 12 large pizzas and several orders of bread sticks and 11 subway sandwhiches.

A special thanks goes out to the Road Map Project staff, community organizations and loads of volunteers who made this event possible.

The Inaugural Parent Forum was about as authentic an event as you can get for engaging families from seven school districts across the Road Map Region in South Seattle and South King County. Thank you for all those who made this event possible – We can’t wait for the next Parent Forum in the region!

What strategies to you use for strong parent and community engagement?

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by School's Out Washington on April 26, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by School's Out Washington on April 26, 2013

http://schoolsoutwashington.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/parent-forum-truly-inclusive/

Active Listening: Addressing power differentials and conveying value

by Jenny Walden, MSW Intern at School’s Out Washington

I had the opportunity to attend the 14th annual White Privilege Conference (April 11th-13th) which was hosted for the first time in the Seattle area. Though I only was able to attend one day of workshops, I left with insight not only about different dimensions of privilege and oppression, but also challenging personal and professional questions that I will no doubt engage throughout my career.  

The first workshop I attended was Active Listening, Human Value, and Solidarity: How to Counter Classism in Everyday Language, presented by Pippi Kessler, the director at Ma’yan which is a nonprofit research and education center in New York City.  The workshop took place in a standard hotel-sized room, but was packed with about 30 participants, with many of us (including me!) gladly squeezing together on the floor so that we could all fit. Pippi led a lively and engaging discussion that introduced the importance of active listening as well as different strategies to utilize when communicating. Upon reflection, my biggest take away from the workshop is that listening can be revolutionary. It provides a space to bear witness to others and communicate their inherent value. Through active listening we can avoid universalism of experiences, and move towards more inclusive communication, relationships, and communities.

I wanted to share some of the verbal techniques presented that address power differentials and convey value and visibility to others. The following information is modified from materials presented during the workshop and can be utilized when communicating with children, youth, and adults.

Why is listening important?

Listening is one of the most effective, efficient strategies available to you. It speaks to our deepest human need to be seen, valued, and unconditionally cared for. Being a witness to someone else’s life is one of the most powerful gifts you can offer another person. 

Active listening removes us from being just cultural observers to being change agents. Humans have inherent value and active listening is a way to communicate that value in everyday conversations.

Active Listening communicates two main goals:

  1. Saying what you see communicates: “I see you. You are not invisible to me.”
  2. Asking open questions communicates: “I’m curious about you. I want to be changed by you.”

 Image

When you are actively listening there are 3 layers of information to be thinking about:

        1.      Facts

        2.      Feelings

        3.      Human Needs

Human needs are especially important and can be conveyed as physical or emotional needs, a need for understanding, a sense of safety, a need to be engaged, or a need to connect and receive recognition.

When playing back what you hear, be mindful of the phrases you use. Some phrases have hidden, embedded “guesses” about the other person or shut down possibilities about what their answers might be. Instead, swap out guesses for phrasing that leaves room for variation. 

Image

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by School's Out Washington on April 22, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Opinions

Posted by School's Out Washington on April 22, 2013

http://schoolsoutwashington.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/active-listening-addressing-power-differentials-and-conveying-value/

What are the main interest areas in our field?

While the new 2013 Afterschool and Youth Development State Action Plan provides some high level direction and guidance for the afterschool and youth development field (AYD), we have done some more informal surveying recently to gather feedback from the field.

At the March 2013 Washington Afterschool Network (WAN) and Washington Regional Afterschool Project (WRAP) meetings, 37 participants filled out a survey on topics and areas of interest  in the afterschool and youth development  field.

Results from the survey align well with the areas of focus here at School’s Out Washington including quality programs, summer learning, racial equity, and expanded learning opportunities.

Do you have a STEM success story? Share it with us!

Another area of high interest was STEM.  This is great news and coincides with School’s Out Washington’s recent funding opportunity from the Noyce Foundation to support building a STEM afterschool system.

We’d love to hear from those of you in the AYD field specifically what kinds of tools and resources you are looking for to support STEM learning in your program. And if you have a STEM success story, please share with us. We will be working hard over the next several months to bring together partners to identify key elements in a statewide afterschool system so stay tuned for more STEM.

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by School's Out Washington on April 15, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Expanded Learning Opportunities, Opinions, Racial Equity, Summer Learning
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Posted by School's Out Washington on April 15, 2013

http://schoolsoutwashington.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/what-are-the-main-interest-areas-in-our-field/

Who’s Your Audience?

by Stephanie Lingwood, Girl Scouts of Western Washington

This question is one of the fundamental questions you ask when you create a youth program. Who are your kids? What is their experience? What are their needs, their interests, their environment? The answers to these questions help you decide whether you need to do career exploration, homework help, or extended investigations of dinosaurs.

Is your writing style appropriate for the education level of your readers (or listeners)?

The same holds for good writing. Your audience shapes your approach, language, tone, and the overall structure of your end product. Are you writing for an academic audience, which means complex sentence structure and five-syllable-word vocabulary? Or are you writing something that you hope your afterschool colleagues will read in their spare time, which means that a simpler writing style (complete with dino references) is appropriate?

In this meeting of the fellowship, we finally got to dive into those questions and start thinking about the ultimate readers of…whatever it is that we’ll be writing. Up until now, the fellowship has been more internally focused. We’ve observed and analyzed our own programs, identified questions we’re interested in, and started gathering data. The data has taken many forms, from kids’ handwritten notecards to extended interviews with afterschool program staff. We’ve reflected on how we do our jobs, and made changes to our work to see what will happen.

Now we begin our transition to producing our final product. Our exploration today of one particular outlet for our writing –  the Afterschool Matters journal – let us see different styles and approaches we could use in writing an article. We got into discussions about things like tone, reading level, graphs, and what the reader might be expected to do with the information. With only two months left (!) until our Big, Huge Writing Retreat (emphasis and title from yours truly), these discussions will help us as we begin to create our final products.

[This article is 6th in a series on the STEM Afterschool Matters Fellowship, an intensive research project for afterschool providers and school teachers.]

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by School's Out Washington on April 9, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Afterschool Matters Fellowship
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Posted by School's Out Washington on April 9, 2013

http://schoolsoutwashington.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/whos-your-audience/

Summer Learning Activities

In the March edition of our e-newsletter, we provide you with an array of resources to help you get geared up for summer. Whether you attend a workshop on Summer, commit to be a Summer Meal site or sponsor this year, apply for grant funding, or gather resources to start planning for your high-quality program, we hope that you find the contents inspiring.
Here are a few website and book suggestions to help you plan activities
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by School's Out Washington on March 6, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Summer Learning

Posted by School's Out Washington on March 6, 2013

http://schoolsoutwashington.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/summer-learning-activities/

What sequestration means for afterschool

‘Sequestration’ – an across-the-board set of budget cuts totaling $1.2 trillion from defense and non-defense spending over the course of the next ten years’. – CBS News

As leaders in Washington continue to face gridlock and disagreement regarding the budget, the reality of the sequestration is hitting home.  If a budget is not agreed upon by tomorrow, afterschool programs supported by 21st Century Community Learning will feel the impact.

The Afterschool Alliance has put together a chart that shows by state how much would be distributed under the FY 2013 budget with the number of kids served and what the estimated cut due to sequestration would mean in hard numbers.

In Washington State, the FY 2013 budget would include $16,504,291 for the 21st CCLC program serving 16,504 children and youth in programs. The estimated cuts from sequestration would be -5.1% decreasing the allocation to $15,662,572 serving 15,663 meaning 842 fewer kids served.  The 21st CCLC program is already not funded at the authorized level so serving even fewer kids would be even more detrimental to the program.

Check out the chart for more information.

And visit the Afterschool Alliance website for federal policy news and updates.

UPDATE 3/5: Afterschool Alliance blog post about sequester and afterschool goes beyond CCLC.

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by School's Out Washington on February 28, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Legislation
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Posted by School's Out Washington on February 28, 2013

http://schoolsoutwashington.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/what-sequestration-means-for-afterschool/

Washington Not Fullfilling Constitutional Mandate

Washington State’s Supreme Court ruled in McCleary v. State that Washington is not fulfilling our constitutional mandate and paramount duty to fully fund education.   With the 2013 legislative session underway, education is at the forefront of many a mind as policymakers discuss how to fully fund basic education by 2018.

This will impact the afterschool and youth development field as we have an opportunity to assert our role in supporting young people’s success both in school and in life.

The Washington State Budget & Policy Center has a nice overview of what McCleary v. State means for Washingtonians and what is needed to really meet the needs of today’s students and create an equitable and quality education system.  Take a moment to read this important policy brief to better understand what is happening around education reform and funding right now in Olympia.

 

 

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by School's Out Washington on February 14, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Legislation
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Posted by School's Out Washington on February 14, 2013

http://schoolsoutwashington.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/washington-not-fullfilling-constitutional-mandate/

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