Report to the Community

Fall 2021

State Budget Win

Summer 2021

Meanwhile At PCY

Looking ahead

IMG_6726 (1).JPG — State Budget Win

For 20 years, we have been making the case for growing **access to quality afterschool and summer programs** because we know definitively from research and experience, that non-school hours and opportunities are a huge factor in school and life outcomes. Inequitable access to expanded learning programs has been one of the biggest contributors to opportunity gaps that have real and lasting consequences for young people. Year after year, we’ve worked alongside our many partners to raise awareness through advocacy, system building, capacity building, strategic communications, and forging relationships with allies across the system.

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raising awareness about expanded learning

During the spring of 2021, we continued to bring attention to the critical role of expanded learning in supporting the learning, social-emotional, physical, and mental health needs of students, and how they could help children begin to recover from challenges they experienced during the pandemic. Together with longtime afterschool advocacy partners and newer K-12 and education equity partners, we collectively educated state policymakers about expanded learning and its importance in this moment. We helped tell this story through creating new resources, writing blogs, participating in webinars, and contributing to media coverage.

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historic funding secured for expanded learning

Policymakers heard our calls and responded with historic investments—billions of dollars—for expanded learning programs. Not only did this budget create expanded learning opportunities for millions of children who previously did not have them, it also strengthens our existing programs by ensuring they can pay a living wage to the incredible expanded learning workforce, and recruit and train the talent needed to effectively serve kids and families.

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helping school leaders and programs understand and implement funding

Effective implementation of all these new resources is a big challenge for already strained educators. We have been helping local school leaders and partner organizations understand the new funding landscape and bringing them implementation resources in a way that’s responsive to shifting context and local needs. This includes training on the research and elements of quality expanded learning, development of planning tools and timelines, and sharing local solutions across peer networks.

We developed tools to help school districts and their partners navigate this funding.
We held learning sessions for district and county office of education staff to help them begin to build an expanded learning workforce and quality programs.
We led a professional learning community in partnership with Reading with Relevance to set up summer reading support for youth living in public and affordable housing communities centered around subjects like voting rights, social justice, and systemic inequity.

related Tools + Publications

Featured

Quick Guide: Funding Sources for Expanded Learning Programs

Through CA3, the afterschool advocacy coalition led by PCY, we developed this quick guide to help expanded learning providers navigate the many state and federal funding opportunities.

Policy Brief: Learning Hubs

With Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) and American Institutes for Research (AIR), we created this policy brief to explore the learning hub model and raise considerations for local policymakers, schools, and expanded learning partners.

Factsheet: The Expanded Learning Workforce

We created this factsheet outlining the essential nature of these frontline workers, whose relationships with students are key to student success, as well as policies needed to support them.

Brief: Role of Expanded Learning in School Reopening

Last year, we collaborated with the Opportunity Institute to create this brief outlining the opportunities to partner with expanded learning programs to better meet the needs of students.

Preparing for Summer 2021

Summer has always been a consequential time for learning and development. It’s a time to build academic skills, to build relationships with peers and adults, and to gain new experiences that benefit students. But summer has never been treated as a priority by policy leaders—until now. For the first time, there was significant new state and federal investments in summer learning, and a unique directive from the governor: a summer of joy. With many campuses opening for the first time in 18 months and a focus on summer as a time for learning through fun, this was a clear opportunity for schools to move away from the traditional summer school model and toward summer learning programs, which look and feel like summer camps. We also knew that **summer learning programs would be more important than ever this year** to help students begin to recover from the learning challenges, isolation, and trauma experienced during the pandemic.

Summer tools + publications

Featured

Guide: 2021 Summer Learning

In partnership with the National Summer Learning Association, we created this guide to give districts ideas, resources, and best practices for how to design and implement summer learning programs, with adaptations emerging from the pandemic.

Webpage: Summer TA Hub

With the help of California Collaboration for Educational Excellence and Sperling Center, we created this Summer Technical Assistance Hub to offer no-cost TA to districts on topics like program design, climate and culture, instructional content, and staffing.

Toolkit: Engaging High School Students in Summer

We partnered with Linked Learning Alliance to create this innovative toolkit and tipsheet to help schools and districts put their COVID-19 relief dollars to work connecting young people to high-quality college and career learning opportunities.

Webinar Series: Summer Game Plan

With over 300 registrants, we designed this 6-part webinar series for K-12 administrators, educators, and community partners to help them navigate the biggest challenges in planning summer learning programs.

Featured

Expanding Our Capacity

We welcomed two new staff members to help us expand our capacity and impact. Aleah Rosario has over ten years experience advancing equity in youth development and nonprofits. As the Director of Programs, Aleah oversees our capacity building work throughout California. Ben Nash joined PCY after serving as a legislative aide in the California State Assembly. As Policy Associate, Ben supports the California Afterschool Advocacy Alliance (CA3) and helps coordinate PCY’s policy, budget, and outreach efforts.

A Commitment to Racial Justice

To further our own learning and promote racial justice for the children, staff, and families in communities we serve, our staff has been actively participating in facilitated anti-racism learning sessions. A representative from our Board of Directors has joined these sessions to ensure cohesion and alignment.

Telescope kids_2013 Gilroy SM.JPG — Looking Ahead

We have kicked off our HousED Membership program to provide ongoing support to **affordable housing** agencies so they can create positive learning environments for the young people living in their communities.
We will continue to support **social-emotional learning** through professional learning communities, like the Northern California Community of Practice with 10 participating county offices of education.
We will advocate to protect **California’s investment** in expanded learning programs and their critical workforce.
We will continue to promote the importance of **summer learning**, including developing new research tools, offering technical assistance, and engaging in advocacy.
We will provide **technical assistance** and other resources to a wider range of communities across the state to help them create high-quality expanded learning opportunities, including:
- Building specific tools and resources around
expanded learning for our **youngest learners**
- Engaging **adolescents** as program participants
and staff
- Developing **workforce** recruitment and training
solutions to meet the demands of the expanded
learning expansion across the state