Afterschool Alliance releases blueprint for how afterschool programs & community partners can assist as schools reopen

From the White House to governors' mansions, there is currently a lot of discussion occurring about how and when schools should reopen for the 2020-2021 school year. That conversation ultimately will need to happen in the local communities of about 13,500 school districts nationwide, and each locality will need to develop a plan that reflects the situation on the ground. To help inform those conversations, the Afterschool Alliance has released “A Blueprint for How Afterschool Programs & Community Partners Can Help.”

Based on the experience of afterschool and summer learning providers this spring and summer, we believe that the most successful school reopening plans will be developed jointly by schools, parents, teachers, afterschool programs, and community-based organizations, so that together we can ensure our children are learning, safe, engaged, and building academic, social, and emotional skills during the hours their parents are at work. There is a growing consensus that schools do not have to tackle the challenge of reopening alone and the Blueprint outlines a host of additional resources and local expertise that can be tapped to help implement a new learning day and ensure our children reach their full potential.

The Blueprint outlines considerations that local communities are currently discussing and provides five essential building blocks that together can help ensure that students have access to a multitude of learning settings and trusted adults -- all operating with a shared vision -- to help support the social, emotional, and academic learning of all young people. While the Blueprint goes into more detail, a brief overview of these components include:

• School-Community Partnerships: Perhaps more than any other component, strong partnerships between community organizations and schools will be needed as we redesign the learning day and reopen in ways that look different than a “traditional” school day. Partnerships should be characterized by the alignment of goals and services, effective lines of communication, and data and resource sharing. Specific considerations include:
  • Inclusion of afterschool and community partners in the planning phases, needs assessments, and implementation of school goals for recovery and operations.
  • Focus on safety by working together to adopt proper safety measures, including masks, sanitation, and smaller staff-to-student ratios so that families feel comfortable across learning settings
  • Access to technology that supports learning in and out of school so that students have access to devices across learning settings.
  • Shared use of facilities.
  • Joint professional development coordinated between classroom teachers and program staff to help ensure diverse staff with aligned strategies and vision.
  • Shared commitment to ongoing assessment & improvement and sharing of data to support social, emotional and academic learning outcomes
  • Efforts to maximize the partnership by ensuring that all partners contribute resources.
• Commitment to Active and Engaged Learning: Supporting students’ social, emotional, and academic learning as we emerge from this crisis will be a top priority.
• Family Engagement: Engaging with families to determine how community partners can help supplement any new school day scenario will be essential to help young people, working families, and our economy recover.
• Intentional Programming: Explicit goals and intentionally designed activities that align with those goals are critical to the success of a redesigned learning day.
• Health & Wellbeing: Together schools and community partners should take a holistic approach to wellbeing, helping students build their social and emotional skills and competencies, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and the ability to work in teams, as well as providing opportunities for exercise and access to nutritious meals and snacks that otherwise might be unavailable.

The Blueprint also discusses possible partners that be leveraged; program staffing possibilities; and public funding sources that can be accessed collectively.  Finally, a table is included that demonstrates how school-community partnerships can work in a variety of school reopening scenarios.

Feedback on the Blueprint is welcome and we envision the resource being useful at the local level as conversations progress.