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Thank you Nicky, and good afternoon, everybody, and greetings from Washington, DC.
And also from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania which is where our speakers are today.
I, Margie Legowski, I'm at the Corporation for National and Community Service and with me is my colleague Elson Nash,
who's also here at the Corporation.
Catherine Augustine, who is with the RAND Corporation in Pittsburgh, and Bob Seidel,
who is with the National Summer Learning Association.
Let's take a minute to just take a look at who's with us on this webinar.
As you can see from this slide up on the screen, about 80% of you currently work
or served in a tutoring program for K through 8 years; some of those programs may be during the school day,
some of them may be after school or in the summer array, and 71% work or serve in a summer program already
and 42% are starting a new program.
You guys represent a wide spectrum of National Service grantees, you can see we have AmeriCorps, RSVP,
Foster Grandparents, VISTA, and school counterparts represented here.
Thank you all for joining us today.
I suspect that as we go through this webinar,
you're going to recognize many of the things you hear as being important considerations for any program working with
young people, any program working with kids in terms of learning, whether it's during the school day or after school,
as well as sound youth development.
So I'd like you to keep in mind some of the experiences you already have
and the knowledge you already you have about effective programming as you listen to the research that Catherine will
be presenting, because I think that will help to validate some of your experiences.
This is the beginning of your learning and we hope that as the result of this webinar
and reading the report that Catherine will make available to us,
you will have a better sense of what the characteristics are of a high-quality summer learning program.
We want you to be able to strengthen or develop your own program using those characteristics.
We want you to be able to identify high-quality program partners if for example you're looking for placement sites for
your RSVP or Foster Grandparents,
and we'd also like you to have a sense of who you should work with for your AmeriCorps programs as well.
So this is our goal for you today
and how we're going to do that is Elson is going to give us a little bit of a context so you can see where the work of
Summer Learning fits into the big picture of the Corporation and your work in service to young people.
So he'll give you the big picture context for it.
From that, Catherine will move into the research findings around what makes a strong Summer Learning program
and then the implications of that for volunteers, some of the opportunities and challenges there.
And then Bob is going to reflect on the resources that are available to you if you're planning to work in this area as
well as some of the resources that we have available on our various websites.
So with that, I'd like to just turn things over right now to Elson.
Elson?
All right. Thank you, Margie.
And so as we go into the next set of slides here, some idea of the service supports for academic success.
So when we talk about the Corporation for National Community Service, as many of you all know,
we are one of the leading funders of support for service programs; but in this case,
we're talking about service programs that have an emphasis on learning, it could be year round learning,
but in this case we're highlighting the support for the summer term,
which in many ways addresses the issue of the summer slide.
So our challenge, of course, we have many students in the system,
some of them are not completing K through 12
as we've seen from the reports from John Bridgeland's work in Grad Nation,
some of them are not pursuing higher education and are not prepared for real world experience.
As you know, system has some inequities and it's exacerbated by some of the social problems related to education
and the background and family lives of some of the children that are in the system.
So our beliefs are that education prepares you for democratic participation, it includes hands-on skills,
and it really is our failure to engage students.
Often times folks say that it's a problem of the students themselves or their families,
but really we as providers should provide those opportunities for students to engage in their work and as we know,
individual student support; it works.
And so our mandate a few years ago through the Edward Kennedy Serve America Act,
it gave us the opportunity to expand our resources, we really had the opportunity to emphasize
and improve our education outcomes.
And then we channeled that support to marginalize youth.
The other piece that I would mention is that it did authorize programs related to the summer
and we piloted a couple of those programs a couple of years ago.
And so what is our past role, we've looked at under-resourced students through all of our programs, AmeriCorps,
Senior Corps, and Learn and Serve, and you see those, the idea of service learning, mentoring, academic support,
tutoring, summer learning, after school enrichment, academic engagement, and family and community partnerships.
Next slide.
And so our current role, we're integrating these
and channeling those resources in a way to really support the organizations
that address the needs of under-resource students.
And so you see those things where we tend now to really focus on this idea of academic engagement.
It's not that we are over-looking graduation rates or academic achievement or education policy,
but we really are looking at what we call that sweet spot where we can really focus our energy around the academic
engagement of students, and this is within the context of all of the issue areas that we address in National Service.
And so our objectives, we look at where students start school equipped and performing at grade levels,
so that early childhood piece.
We look at the college access piece where we can prepare high-school students where they're energized
and interested and prepared.
The whole idea is getting students to thrive and have an interest in higher goals and contributing to our nation.
And then definitely last but not least the idea of having those students be civically engaged is critically important.
And so our methods, and this is just part of that idea of method, in
and out of school supports for students performing below grade level, the tutoring, the mentoring,
the idea of family engagement;
and then of course, the coordination of community based partnerships with many partners like yourselves,
integrating that with the schools.
Those are our methods.
Thank you Elson.
Sure.
So I think we're hearing that it's certainly a need that we all recognize from our work with young people and schools.
And I can see that from your profiles that you're all playing in this area.
We also know it's part of our mandate with the Serve America Act.
And it's also an opportunity; it's an opportunity to help to strengthen kids in their school environments
and to bring some of the resources, the service and volunteering to the school community.
Let's pause for a moment and take a few questions now.
Does anyone have a question for Elson?
This is Nicky, I'm just going to remind folks that the best way to pose questions is through the chat panel
and be sure that you click either all participants or post when you send your questions.
If you send them directly to an individual, we might not see them.
So let's give folks a couple minutes, Margie.
That sounds great.
Okay, I'm not seeing any questions.
Nicky do you have any questions from your end?
Nope, I'm not seeing any either.
Oh, I have one.
Elson would you be willing to explain what you mean by academic engagement and how is that different from tutoring
and some of the other work that we do in National Service and schools?
Sure.
So the concept of academic engagement from our perspective is,
and we actually have performance measures related to this.
The ultimate outcome and we mentioned it and you saw this on one of the slides;
the ultimate outcome is this whole idea of academic achievement meaning the idea of getting students to have increased
their performance in the classroom, increased performance on of course standardized tests, et cetera.
That's the achievement piece.
With our programs obviously we want to go there, that's an important place where we can go, but what's interesting
and challenging is this whole idea of how do we isolate National Service
and point to National Service as being the source for academic achievement.
That actually has been a challenge with our programs.
We talk about the random control trial studies, and we've attempted to go there.
Some of our National Service programs have done that well, some don't have the money to do that.
And so one step short of that is this idea of engagement, how do we get students engaged in school,
how do we measure how they are engaged in their school work, how can we get them excited about the school work.
And so often times through our programs, some of them tutoring, some of them mentoring,
some of them the drop out prevention program, some of them even the service learning programs;
those are our strategies and ways in which we get students excited about school, involved in the classroom,
we reduce the tardiness, we increase things like their interest in their academic studies
and then we're able to move along the next spectrum so that we can ultimately achieve academic achievement.
And so in the whole performance measures world, it would be really considered that intermediate outcome
and the ultimate end outcome would be that academic achievement.
So hopefully that answers your question.
Great.
Thank you so much.
And I like the fact that you presented it as a pie because in a sense we need all of those pieces of the pie there for
young people.
It's not just one thing, and academic engagement may be this thought that we can have the greatest impact.
That's right.
Great.
Thank you so much, Elson.
Thank you.
Sure.
Let's go on then to hear a little bit more about some other research findings in this area.
And again, when you listen to Catherine, please keep in mind your current program,
or the programs that you're familiar with whether it's from your own families' placement of kids
or from a program that you're volunteers or members work in,
I'd like you to think about if there are any surprises as a result of this research
or anything that resonates with you in particular because one of the beauties of listening to research is there's new
information, but at the same time it affirms what we know from experience.
Catherine, may I turn it over to you please?
Sure.
Thank you, Margie.
It's so exciting to see that so many of you have experience working in summer learning programs.
And it's a real pleasure to talk with you today about the research that RAND has done on summer learning loss
and on the potential for summer learning programs to address and stem that loss.
In my opinion, this is really exciting research because summer learning loss is a solvable problem.
So before I talk about loss, let me start by talking about the motivation for this research in the first place.
So this chart comes from data from 2009, the National Assessment of Educational Progress administered in that year.
And on that test there are basically four levels of achievement; below basic, basic, proficient, and advanced.
And fourth graders and eighth graders take this test across the country and when we look at test score results,
we see gaps in performance between low-income kids and higher-income kids.
As this particular chart demonstrates,
30% of low-income students scored below basic in math in fourth grade versus only 9% of higher-income fourth graders;
and then in reading,
half of the lower-income students scored below basic compared to only 20% of the higher-income fourth graders.
Now we see this achievement gap by income in the eighth grade as well
and unfortunately this achievement gap by income has existed for the past 40 years.
We worry about this gap quite a bit.
We know that kids who are scoring below basic in the eighth grade are unlikely to graduate from high school
and likely to remain living in poverty.
So we worry about these test score results in
and of themselves, but we also worry about low-income children's life trajectories.
Next slide.
Now summer learning loss or summer slide as some refer to it,
unfortunately contributes to this achievement gap between low and higher-income children.
Regardless of background, students learn at roughly equal rates on average during the school year.
But each fall, on average students come back to school performing about a month behind where they were in the spring.
Now all students, regardless of their background, lose some ground in math over the summer,
however low-income students lose ground in reading and in contrast, higher-income peers either maintain
or gain literacy related skills over the summer.
So summer learning loss is an important policy concern.
Not only do low-income children fall behind during the summer,
but there's also some evidence that students who lose ground over the summer don't regain it.
One recent study found that cumulative summer loss over consecutive summers between kindergarten
and ninth grade made up two-thirds of the achievement gap that we see in ninth grade between high
and low-income children.
So these inequitable and cumulative summer experiences are, as I mentioned earlier,
related to high school drop out rates,
and so closing that achievement gap requires attention to not only what happens during the school year,
but also to what happens during the summer.
Luckily we know that participating in summer programs can improve student academic achievement.
Now summer learning programs as you might imagine, come in many different shapes and size.
And one of the things that we did was review all of the rigorous evaluations that we could find on any type of summer
learning program, and we found that many of these programs accrued benefits to children.
Those include voluntary programs in which kids and their parents sign up on their own accord,
mandatory summer learning programs for students at threat of grade retention,
and even home-based summer programs in which students are sent books home with tasks to complete over the summer, all
had positive effects on students' academic outcomes.
Now these programs could have been half-day
or full-day, but they needed to run for a sufficient length of time to benefit kids
and I'll say more about that on the next slide.
Now a handful of studies have also intriguingly demonstrated that the benefits to children last for two years after
they have participated in a summer learning program, which is great, it's really exciting.
We don't know if the benefits last longer than two years, but that finding is still quite promising.
Now of course not all summer learning programs lead to academic achievement gains.
Both the quality of the program and the extent to which students participate are critical for achieving benefits.
Certain program characteristics have been linked to positive student academic outcomes.
First, programs have to be long enough, as I mentioned on the previous slide, to make a difference.
There's not an exact formula dictating an ideal dosage,
but research evidence indicates that programs tend to work well
in terms of improved outcomes for kids if they're at least five weeks long
and operating for five days a week with at least three hours spent on academics.
Smaller class sizes have also been linked with positive academic outcomes.
And the theory there is that teachers with smaller numbers of children
can better interact one-on-one with those students.
And similarly the curriculum needs to be aligned to the students' needs
and that means that programs need to invest resources in understanding the needs of the students that they're serving.
Now that sounds easy but many programs actually struggle to pitch the curriculum adequately given that they only have
say between four and six weeks
and they don't often know far in advance which students will be attending their programs.
Now teachers in summer programs should be motivated to work with these kids.
Students attending summer programs are often very needy, both in terms of academics and in terms of behavior.
It's also ideal if teachers have recently taught the age group that they'll have in the summer so that they're
intimately familiar with the standards for that grade level
and also with the learning trajectories associated with that age.
Teachers also need training on summer curriculum.
They don't -- most in our research,
we found that most teachers don't have a lot of time to prepare for teaching in a summer program so having a well
scripted curriculum coupled with training that provides opportunities to witness peer modeling of the curriculum
and to practice it really makes a difference.
Now finally, students need to attend these programs in order to reap benefits.
There's no Hawthorne effect in which a student gets admitted to a summer program
and they automatically have positive outcomes; they actually need to participate in them.
And one way, one smart way in which programs get high attendance
is through offering engaging enrichment activities on top of academics.
For example a lot of programs,
maybe the ones you're familiar with have academic blocks in the morning either in reading, or math, or science
and then in the afternoon after lunch, the children go into activities such as horse-back riding, or kayaking,
or fencing, or rock climbing, or an arts experience;
and those experiences are offered not just to encourage consistent attendance, although that's incredibly important,
but also because many of these programs are serving these low-income children who don't have the same opportunities as
their higher-income peers do over the summer.
So the goals of the program in some cases are not just to close
or narrow the achievement gap but also what's called the opportunity gap.
So this past summer, we looked closely at six school districts' summer learning programs,
and in all of these cases the programs were full-day providing both academic
and enrichment experiences to elementary students.
And in the course of this work,
we learned that two of the school districts were engaging volunteers in their summer learning programs
and maybe some of you on the line have actually worked in one of these two programs.
In the Dallas Independent School District for example,
AmeriCorps members were placed across three summer learning school sites
and the district brought them on a month before the program started to provide them with both an orientation to the
program itself and some pre-program training.
And the district had requested AmeriCorps members from a partner agency in the community who were creatively inclined
and then they placed these members with teaching artists
who were providing afternoon enrichment activities to the students.
But the AmeriCorps members were on site all day working from 8:00 to 3:00
and they did that during the entire four weeks of the Dallas program.
The Rochester City School District engaged 12 Foster Grandparents in one summer learning site this past summer.
The site director paired these Foster Grandparents with willing teachers and with the most needy students.
Unlike the Dallas AmeriCorps members who's main responsibility was to support enrichment opportunities for children,
these Foster Grandparents served in the academic blocks working with children each morning for the duration of the
five-week program in Rochester.
And they worked with struggling students both one-on-one, and they also led small groups of students on academic tasks.
These programs and the volunteers themselves both benefited from these opportunities.
The school districts reported that they had gained access to pre-cleared, pre-trained, low-cost members and volunteers.
The AmeriCorps members and the Foster Grandparents reportedly served as positive role-models for the children
and they were observed talking with the children both about civic engagement and community service in particular.
And the members and the volunteers were surveyed after their service
and reported valuing the opportunity to have an impact on low-income and academically struggling students.
The AmeriCorps members also reported that they had learned quite a bit about managing a program.
They had come in as I said, a month before the program launched
and they were performing various tasks in the morning before they were paired with the enrichment teachers
and they had learned a lot about management and leadership through that opportunity.
So I'm continuing to consult with these and other districts on how to improve their summer learning programs
and they are admittedly struggling in some ways with how to best incorporate volunteers of all types.
So I thought I would share some of their struggles
and then ask you all to share your ideas for overcoming these challenges.
It has been difficult for school districts for example to clarify the roles that they want their volunteers to play.
In particular, many districts see early career volunteers as able to serve as mentors for the students,
not to say that other volunteers could not, but they see younger volunteers as being closer in age to the students,
perhaps they're in college or they're recently graduated;
and a lot of these districts have a goal of getting their kids to think about college at an early age.
But no district in our study at least is doing that really well.
They struggle with what should a mentor be doing, can the mentoring process be quantified and specified.
Some districts have written contracts for volunteers even if they're not paying them that specify expectations,
roles, and responsibilities and I don't know if that's a good idea
or not but it's one way districts are trying to improve this process.
And the two districts I described did a pretty good job on communicating expectations.
In Dallas as I said, the AmeriCorps members were brought on a month early.
In Rochester, the site leader took time to figure out which teachers were willing to work with the volunteers
and willing to meet with them ahead of time to clarify roles and responsibilities.
But clear communication on such is often missing.
And finally, many districts have overlooked the need to train volunteers specifically on classroom management.
Classroom management and dealing with misbehavior of students was reported by both the AmeriCorps members
and the Foster Grandparents as a challenge.
As I mentioned earlier, a lot of children participating in summer learning programs
struggle with behavior issues as well as learning challenges.
And some districts are recognizing the need for training adults on positive behavior systems for classroom management
and if volunteers came to programs already having these skills, that could really benefit summer learning programs.
So if programs knew of volunteers who had that training already
I think they would be even more interested in engaging them.
So I'd love to hear your ideas on these and other challenges,
I'm going to end here with this slide so you can see the link for downloading our report for free if you're interested.
So thank you so much for your attention, and I'd love to hear your thoughts and answer any questions you may have.
Thank you so much, Catherine.
I think this is good point to pause
and ask you to think about, were there any surprises in what Catherine shared about the research findings
and what resonates with you, what seems similar in your program?
Or what questions do you have about the rest of the research study?
So we'll take a minute or two here to just pause and give you a chance to type in your questions.
Catherine, I was really struck by the information that all children lose some learning over the summer.
I mean it's been an assumption
and we've all been operating on that assumption
but it's really interesting to see that that's something that's across the board.
In math for all kids, I'm a former classroom teacher
and that I know that we spend September pretty much going back over what they did the previous school year,
at the end of the school year but it was really interesting to see that.
And then to see that it was math that everyone dropped in and that for low-income kids it was the reading piece,
and in a sense that really shouts out an opportunity to work with literacy both in a summer learning program
and in other youth development programs that happen in the summer,
really giving those kids a chance to be exposed to reading and books.
The other thing that I was struck by was what we know about good tutoring program design
and good tutoring programs seems to carry over here very nicely.
We know for example that when you're tutoring by nature,
paid tutoring is about addressing the individual needs of a child or a group of children, it's very targeted.
And you mentioned that assessing the kids
and then using the assessment results to inform instruction was one of the characteristics of an effective program was
really good to see, as well as the idea of dosage.
Obviously if you don't show up, if you're not there, if you're not delivering the service over a period of time,
you're not practicing those skills, you're not going to get the learning.
And the fact that you needed to train teachers was also important.
Oh good, we've got some questions here.
A number of questions coming in starting with Charlotte.
Margie, could you read all those or shall I read them?
I sure can.
Okay.
This is a question.
How did the programs get access to children during the summer?
So for example, most schools are closed in Nashville during the summer,
so this participant wants to know how did the programs get access to kids.
Well, the programs that we studied were offered by the school districts,
so the districts decided to keep some schools open in the summer and run the summer program in them.
However, there are several private non-school district programs that run during the summer
and some of them partner with school districts,
Higher Achievement does that for example where they'll come up with an MOU with a district
and recruit students from the district through that MOU but host the program somewhere else.
Some providers host programs on university campuses so they can familiarize students with a particular local college,
some host programs on private school campuses.
So the location varies but there's often some kind of memorandum of understanding with the school district so that
there's permission to go in and recruit students to attend during the summer
and so the outside provider can work with teachers in terms of getting to know the students in advance, et cetera.
And I think the other important point to that too Catherine is not only is it about getting to know the students
and their academic needs, but then you can work with the school to better align the curriculum that you're using
in the summer program with the curriculum that the school is using
and there may be opportunities for shared resources there.
Right.
Bob or Elson, do you want to add to that at all?
This is Bob and I would like to add that there are -- in addition to programs like Higher Achievement,
there are organizations that exists in many many of our communities such as the YMCA or Boys
and Girls Clubs that often run summer programs,
and so if you're not sure who to look for those are the kinds of organizations that'd be good to start.
I had an opportunity last year to visit with YMCA of Charlotte in North Carolina where they actually have a
partnership with the school system, the school system provides in kind space
and the YMCA actually runs the program in the schools.
I had a similar experience volunteering in a Boys and Girls Club in the summer,
this is just a couple of years ago and it was in partnership with the school district
and it was interesting, Catherine, because they followed the model that you described where the morning time was the
academic time and then the afternoon was the enrichment and the activities and the trips
and sort of the language extension to a certain extent as well as really just good fun youth development programming.
So it really can work out that way as well.
It usually helps to first of all do a bit of an investigation of what exists in your community and try to build on
or partner with those folks before starting your own program.
Because starting a program is a very, very huge endeavor and also has lots of restrictions
and regulations attached to it.
Someone made a comment about the challenge of providing the kids with food so I'm wondering if any of your programs,
the ones that you visited, Catherine,
or any of the programs that folks on the phone are working in have access to USDA food in the summer
or what they've done about the food situation.
Because obviously kids need to have their lunch and sometimes they need their breakfast too
and sometimes even lunch and breakfast and dinner.
Oh yes, the programs that I studied provided breakfast, lunch, and an afternoon snack, and extra water on hot days.
Not all of the programs were provided in air-conditioned sites;
and in Cincinnati they gave kids a bag of food to take home with them
on Friday afternoons knowing that not all of them
had access to healthy food over the weekends.
So that was a very important part of these programs.
Now getting fresh food and getting food that all the kids like is a challenge, but they all certainly provided food.
This is Bob, I'd like to add a point.
Of all the students who receive free
or reduced priced lunches through the Federal Lunch program during the school year,
less than 1 in 6 get those meals during the summer.
All all that's really necessary is for them to be enrolled in some kind of organized program that provides the
organizational framework for the lunch -- for the meal program because it is not just lunch, it can be breakfast
and snacks as well.
And any kind of organization that's running a summer program can apply to participate in that Federal program.
And that would be through the USDA?
Is that right?
Yes.
Okay.
One other real quick point on that,
we do have a partnership with USDA around the SNAP, summer nutrition assistance program
and there are VISTAs serving at summer associates and I know there's a question regarding that,
but we do have some VISTAs serving at summer associates with the USDA providing the match for the VISTA.
So definitely trying to shore up that summer program so that young people have a lunch provided
and in some instances breakfast as well.
Great, thank you so much.
And we have two comments.
One related to the slide which talks about the disparity between kids who are in poverty who are not,
and the kids in poverty obviously needing one-to-one reading coaches and assistance
and thank you for pointing that out.
And then the other participant pointed at the hopeful nature of the fact that the learning effects last for two years.
We have a question from Jonathan about how to measure the impact; I work for a North Carolina campus compact,
we sponsor an AmeriCorps VISTA summer associate program that places first generation college students with summer
bridge and other programs with K through 12 students.
We know there's an impact on the volunteers in terms of college retention,
but we're struggling to show impact with the K12 students.
So it sounds like the college students are tutoring the K12 students, I hope I'm hearing that correctly.
We have trouble gaining access to grades and other quantifiable measures from the school system; any words of wisdom?
Yes, I have a couple.
One is that each district varies in terms of its process for sharing data with outside researchers but most require
some kind of IRB,
institutional review board proposal as well as a confidentiality agreement that needs to be signed both by the
researcher and by the school district.
And we're actually drafting ours now for this coming summer
so these are things that need to be submitted far in advance.
They're a pain in the butt, but almost every school district requires them
and then in those documents you can propose to gain access to students' grades and test score results, et cetera.
Now you can also administer your own pre-post test,
that's not always easy either; but there are pre-post tests out there that summer organizations use have -- purchased
and use, if you don't want to try to access the district's data in terms of grades and their test score results.
Elson or Bob would you like to add?
I'm sorry, we'll let Bob add,
and I just want to point out there was a question early on that got inadvertently missed so I want to go in
and share that one in case others can't see it, but let's go ahead and have Bob add.
Bob or Elson, would you like to add anything more about the impact measurement?
Not exactly, but for North Carolina in particular since that's where the question came from.
Communities in Schools has a very strong network throughout North Carolina
partnering community based organizations with schools,
and I suspect that they have a system set up for agreements with the school systems so if you're working in an area
where they also exists you may want to see if they can be of assistance.
Excellent point, Bob.
They are a grantee of ours as well so they're a partner of North Carolina Campus Compact in service there
and they actually have a number of the systems in place to monitor progress of the students.
I'd also like to mention a resource, and you'll have the URL at the end of the session today.
The National Service Resource Center, which is www.NationalServiceResources.org has a lot of information on --
and sample tools for measuring progress and academic gains for children.
Also some wonderful sample memoranda of understanding, I think Catherine you mentioned that one of the strategies,
some of the programs were using was to create position descriptions and clarify roles and responsibilities;
samples of those are also available on the Resource Center and I think you might find that tool collection.
Great.
Nicky, you said there was another question?
Sure, yes there's one more question,
I know we do want to make sure we have time to hear from Bob so maybe we can take this last question.
And it's from Charlotte who's wondering about resources for training Foster Grandparents
or other volunteers around positive behavior systems or positive behavior management.
Well, I only know about how districts are doing that so if others on the call
have any knowledge about other non-school district organizations that provide that type of training,
I would love to hear that as well,
because I know it's something that districts right now are doing but don't have a large capacity to do well.
And I'll just note that if folks want to share any resources like that via the chat,
that will become part of the permanent record of this webinar that will be saved with the recording
and folks will be able to come back and share and take a look at those.
I would say two things come to my mind in terms of resources,
one would be if you do go to the Corporations Resource Center site,
you will see that there is some material on working with kids;
there's some wonderful -- they're monographs either called The Tutor or Youth Impact
and they have some ideas around or strategies for working with kids around behavior.
There are other materials on the site as well that may be useful.
The other thing is a lot of the mentoring program training materials address this issue because some of the mentoring
models include conflict resolution and communication skills.
So if you were to go to -- there is a website called www.foryouthinfo.gov,
it has a database of different program models and sample materials that you could use.
Nicky, how about you guys at the LEX, I know you have a wealth of information.
Sure.
Well, we did create those resources, the Tutor
and others that you mentioned that are on the Resource Center, I think that would be the prime repository,
I think also in terms of the mentoring resources that Margie mentioned,
in addition to www.foryouthinfo.gov that I just posted,
we have our National Mentoring Center website and I'll go ahead
and share that URL as well while we continue.
It's important to keep in mind that just like tutoring and learning, there's no one way,
there's lots of different ways.
But there are some good strategies that you could use.
And I would also talk to the school district because they would have resources
or models that they're trying to perpetuate with their students that you could carry over
or ask for training for your Foster Grandparents for example.
Okay let's move over to Bob because Bob was going to talk a little bit
about some other resources that may be available to us.
Thank you, Margie.
We only have a few minutes and I just want to hit some highlights for you that I think are most relevant at this time.
I'm Policy Director with the National Summer Learning Association.
Our vision is to ensure that every child is safe, healthy, and engaged in learning during the summer months
and our mission is to connect and equip schools
and community organizations to deliver high-quality summer learning programs to help close the achievement gap.
Next slide please.
So I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the Federal Education Law, the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act, and what federal funding is available to support summer programs.
One important mention in the NESEA, which by the way is currently known as No Child Left Behind,
the most important mention is through the 21st Century Community Learning Centers, which some of you may know
or may be working with, it's the only Federal program explicitly dedicated to after school and summer learning.
Summer learning is also an allowable use of funds in many other places in Title I of the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act, Title I aiming at low-income students.
But it's not mentioned explicitly everywhere.
It's also possible to fund summer programs through other federal departments and programs; but frankly,
I think that the expected cuts to federal funding that we're likely to see across the board over the next year
or more, make these various funding sources pretty unreliable.
However, the good news is that there is one way
that I know of where there is some immediate opportunity in No Child Left Behind.
There's been a stalemate in Congress on reauthorizing the law and in response to that back in September,
the Obama Administration through the US Department of Education issued waivers
or some flexibility on how states are implementing the No Child Left Behind.
States can request waivers,
they don't have to do anything different from what they've been doing, but they can request waivers as long as they
agree to certain principles,
I'm not going to go though this now in the interest of time, but those of you who are education policy wonks may want
to look into this some more.
Next slide please.
There are a couple of things about the flexibility or waivers that I want to call to your attention.
In relation to the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program,
the waivers may mean that there's actually less money available for summer because if states adopt a waiver on 21st
Century, they may be able to use some of those funds to extend school hours during the regular school year
and that might be at the expense of -- given the limited nature of overall funding,
that may be at the expense of traditional after school or summer programs.
So our hope is that there will be new appropriations to support all high-quality extended day plans along with
high-quality after school and summer programs.
But there is going to be more competition there.
The good news, the really good news is that state education agencies, when they're applying for waivers,
are required to consult with constituent groups including community based organizations in the process of making their
request, and one of the new waiver rules is that there's new flexibility in Title I on school choice
and supplemental educational services which is a tutoring program.
And that flexibility means that those funds could go to other approved activities including summer learning.
And there's a substantial amount of money relatively speaking available through this waiver, so what I want you to
understand is that local advocates of summer learning need to determine whether your state is applying for waivers;
and if so, advocate for the inclusion of summer learning
as an allowable use of your existing Title I and other funds.
If your state has already submitted a plan,
you may still be able to advocate for summer learning as they continue their negotiations with the US Department of
Ed, keeping in mind that they do have to consult with community based organizations in your state.
So it's really important if you think this is a possibility for you, to contact your local or state education agency,
identify the people who are working on the waivers and advocate for summer learning within that.
The 11 states have already submitted request for waivers, they're listed on the screen here;
and as I mentioned, that doesn't mean that their plans have been approved,
and there may be some wiggle room for inclusion of additional programs
or changes to programs that you could advocate for.
In addition, next slide, there are another 30 states
or so that have submitted letters of intent saying that they will apply in the next round which is in February,
and those are listed on these two slides.
Don't have time to go through them all but since this will be archived, you will have access
and you can double check and see whether you're there.
So I'd like to conclude by saying that if you want more information on the Federal waivers in particular,
you can go to the US Department of Education website and the URL is given to you there, or you can contact me
and I'm happy to try to answer your questions.
If you have more general questions about summer learning, about summer learning loss and the research on it
and high-quality summer programs, those kinds of things, please visit our website www.summerlearning.org
or don't hesitate to contact me at the email address and phone number given there.
And as Margie mentioned before, the National Service Resource Center also has tons of out of school time resources
and I would certainly urge you to take advantage of those.
Thank you, Margie.
Okay.
Thank you, Bob.
If I were you what I would do,
Bob mentioned that this is an opportunity for those of us who are in the community based world to work with school
districts more closely.
What I would do is if I ran a summer program or were working in a summer program right now,
I would call the local education agency, the local school district
and I ask for the person who's working on the Title I, say the Title I coordinator
and find out what kinds of activities are going on and what role you can play,
how you can help them in the work of teaching and learning with kids.
The regulations do require them to engage community based organizations
and this is really an opportunity to bring your voice to the table
and also to develop the partnership that could extend during the school year.
So I would encourage folks to move in that way.
Okay.
You've gotten a lot of information.
Some of it is probably surprising, some of it is probably -- you're probably nodding your head saying yeah,
I knew that, and that's always a good thing because that means you're moving down the right road.
I'd like to ask each of our speakers to share a final word of wisdom,
what they really want you to leave with from their time with you today
and I'll ask our speakers who would like to go first.
This is Elson, I can go first.
I think the two pieces from me; one,
that National Service programs are a critical component to making summer learning engaging and inviting,
and so my hope is that you're able to involve your programs
and perhaps they partnership with programs that are either running summer learning
or at least partnerships with school districts can continue throughout the year.
And then the last piece, I would say is to the degree that you're able to obtain that data,
the academic engagement outcome. If you don't have instruments by looking at our Resource Center for instruments
or posting it on our list serve;
and trust me, we have some programs that can provide insights on how to get instruments so that you can help measure
that impact.
Great.
Thank you, Elson.
Don't try to reinvent the wheel if you don't have to.
That's right.
That's right.
Catherine?
Sure.
My main hope for a take-away from this is that you all understand the differential experiences that kids have during
the summer.
Somebody asked a question about whether the disparate outcomes in terms of literacy skills might be related to some
students who are low-income living with parents who don't speak English
and that's certainly part of it, but we know from survey data that low-income use are more likely to be watching
television over the summer and playing video games.
And we also know from very recent research that low-income kids are more likely to gain weight over the summer,
many live in unsafe neighborhoods, and they're not going outside and playing.
So this image that we might all have of what a summer should be based on our own childhoods,
is not the case for many children living in poverty; and I think if we understand that and accept that,
we could all move toward alleviating some of the problems that that differential experience leads to.
Great. Thank you, Catherine.
Bob?
Thank you, Margie, I just want to emphasize to people that I think it's important if you're an advocate
and a practitioner of summer learning that you argue for summer learning in your programs, not just as a nice thing,
as an enrichment thing, as an added-on thing, but as an essential part of good public education.
And if people want to discuss advocacy strategies, I'd love to talk with you.
And these we're talking about education strategies for you to use when you go speak with your state education agency.
And here you've got, and you'll have with you -- you can use the study as an evidence base for your conversation.
Because what we've learned today is summer learning loss affects all children, all kids in math,
and some kids in reading as well as math and we know that there's some solutions to it
and that the high-quality programs, not just any program,
the program has to have certain criteria but they can make a difference.
We can make a difference.
This is another opportunity for National Service to -- I'm going to just say it, help to change the world
and make it a better place.
So thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We hope that as a result of this time with us,
you're beginning to think about summer even though it may seem far away,
it's not too far away for your school districts and for your families.
Please do also feel free to email me at mlegowski@cns.gov,
and I've also put my phone number up in that chat list if you have a question
and you want to talk a little bit about it, this is a topic that's near and dear to all of our hearts
and we'd love to help you do the best you can in this area.
Thank you.
Thanks, everyone, that'll be the conclusion of our webinar.
Don't forget to fill out the evaluation and you close out, and we'll be in touch with follow-up information
and the location of the recording.
Thank you.
Great.
Thank you so much, Nicky.