Student Success Comes Full Circle
All Children and youth need social-emotional skills to thrive in school, work, and life. We believe expanded learning and school day programs can and must work together to ensure that our investments result in real and equitable gains in young people’s success. They can do this by consistently and coherently prioritizing students’ social-emotional learning and character development.
The purpose of this paper is to help school day and expanded learning leaders capture that opportunity by providing a shared understanding of what and how expanded learning programs contribute to social-emotional learning and character. We believe this information will inspire better coordination of and commitment to school-day and expanded learning practices that ensure young people thrive in school and as citizens in the 21st Century.
This paper was created in consultation with a research work group of California expanded learning and education experts and practitioners. The work group was charged with reviewing existing research on expanded learning opportunities and social-emotional learning to better define the role and value of expanded learning in this new context. We are grateful for the time and expertise that the work group members provided.
Jorge Ruiz de Velasco, The John W. Gardner Center for Youth and their Communities;
Noah Bookman, California Office to Reform Education;
Kim Boyer, Central Valley Afterschool Foundation;
Reba Rose, Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula;
Mary Jo Ginty, Los Angeles County Office of Education/After School Technical Assistance Unit;
Regino Chavez, LA’s BEST;
Jenel Lao, University of California Irvine;
Stacey Bell, Sacramento City Unified School District;
Megan Green, Developmental Studies Center;
Tracey Bennett, THINK Together.
The paper was developed by the Partnership for Children and Youth in close collaboration with the Expanded Learning 360/365 Project, which is a partnership between ASAP Connect, the California School-Age Consortium, the Partnership for Children & Youth, and Temescal Associates. For more information, please visit the Expanded Learning 360/365 Project website.