The Missing Hours: COVID Shutdown and Afterschool

By Sam Piha

This fall, after nearly a year of isolation, youth are likely returning to school full time. What did young people experience during this time? A recent article in the NY Times, The Missing Hours: 7 Students on Losing a Year of After-School Activities, by Juliana Kim, quoted young people about their experience during the last year of shut down. 

Julianna writes, “From 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. That block of time, between the end of classes and the beginning of dinner, were for millions of teenagers everywhere the golden hours of the day. They provided a release from the pressures of school or an escape from a stressful home. It was a time for friendship and fun.”  

Below we provide some excerpts from this article. To read the full article, click here. 

Source: NY Times,
Lila Barth

“I’ve done the Y.M.C.A. from sixth grade onward. It started because my mom was working, my dad was working, my sister was working, so my mom needed to find somewhere I could spend my time instead of staying home alone. I haven’t gone to the Flushing Y in a year; it’s tough. I really miss going. We still have our meetings but they’re online — very rarely do I get to go outside and see my friends or counselors, so it’s a big adjustment. Sometimes I feel like I’m just far away from the world.”— Samir, 16 

 

Source: NY Times,
Lila Barth

“The 96th street library on the East Side was my second happy place, after home. I would go there after school, get my work done, then go home. The security guard knows me, some staff know me. It was like a family to me over there… Libraries were the place you could rely on and have peace. I’ve been through shelters since I was 8 years old. My dad kicked out my mom, and she took me and my little sister with her. It was a lot of back and forth. Some kids out there might go to a cafe, but they have to buy something if they want to study. So it’s hard. The library is really the only option. When they were opening up schools, I was like, OK, are they going to open up the library? But they mentioned nothing about the library. What’s the whole point of opening up schools if you can’t go to the library?” — Sam, 18

Source: NY Times,
Lila Barth

 . This year, remote learning has been very isolating for me. My mom works at a hospital and my dad is a taxi driver so it can feel very lonely at home. And I haven’t danced after school since March. There’s no space to dance but also, I’ve become more self-conscious. I realize how important it is to have company when you do activities that might spark insecurities, like dancing. I feel like there’s been an insensitivity about youth mental health. There’s a huge emphasis on taking care of and making time for yourself, but the best way to take care of myself was through my extracurriculars. I feel like a part of myself has been erased.” — Meril, 17

Source: NY Times,
Lila Barth

“These activities and organizations are so important. They might just save somebody’s life, you know?” — Rafael, 15

The Impact of COVID-19 on Families

By Sam Piha

Many of the young people we serve in afterschool come from low-income communities, in both urban and rural settings. Many of these are communities of color. These communities have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Afterschool and summer learning programs were a lifeline for underserved communities before the pandemic and now they are more important than ever as families with limited resources struggle to adapt to newly designed school days and years. 

Source: www.hrw.org

Expanded learning opportunities that complement the school day will be key to helping all young people and their families through this crisis. In preparing for young people to return to our programs, it is important that we have a snapshot of how our children and families have been impacted by the pandemic.

 

“One of the certainties as we navigate through this pandemic is that all children will benefit from being well known, well cared for, and well prepared. Afterschool programs have a long history of designing programs based on what young people need in order to help them be healthier and more ready to learn. Together schools and community organizations can co-design the future of learning in ways that interrupt historic inequities and help all young people emerge from this crisis strong, resilient and hopeful.” - Tony Smith, former Illinois State Superintendent and Oakland Unified School District Superintendent 

“The Impact of Coronavirus”, a five-part poll conducted by NPR, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, offers a national look at the problems emerging from the pandemic relating to household finances, jobs, health care, housing, transportation, caregiving, and well-being. Below are some of their key findings and you can learn more here.

Source: Getty Images

Key Findings 

• At least half of households in the four largest U.S. cities—New York City (53%), Los Angeles (56%), Chicago (50%), and Houston (63%)—report serious financial problems including depleted savings, and trouble paying bills or affording medical care. 
• Many of these experiences are concentrated among Black and Latino households; households with annual incomes below $100,000; and households experiencing job or wage losses since the start of the outbreak. 
• At least four in ten Latino, Black, and Native American households report using up all or most of their household savings during this time. 
• One in five households in the United States (20%) report household members unable to get medical care for serious problems. A majority unable to get care when needed (57%) report negative health consequences as a result. 

Source: www.nationalnews.com

• More than 1 in 3 households that include anyone with a disability report facing serious financial problems, many experiencing difficulty affording utilities and food. 
• More than one in three (36%) households with children face serious problems keeping their children’s education going, and among working households, nearly one in five (18%) report serious problems getting childcare when adults need to work. 
• About one in three households with children (34%) either do not have a high-speed internet connection at home or report serious problems with their connection while doing schoolwork or their jobs during the pandemic. 
• 43 percent of rural households report adult household members have lost their jobs, been furloughed, or had wages or hours reduced since the start of the outbreak, with two- thirds of these households (66%) reporting serious financial problems. 

The next step is considering what we need to do in afterschool to address the stresses related to these findings. To this end, we are sponsoring a webinar on Monday, March 29, 2021 entitled, “Helping Youth Thrive When They Return to Afterschool Programs Post COVID.” This webinar will be facilitated by Stu Semigran (EduCare Foundation) and features panelists Dr. Gil Noam (Harvard), Gloria Halley (Butte County Office of Education), Jose Luis Navarro IV (Principal and former California Teacher of the Year), and Autrilla Gillis (Director of Expanded Learning, ISANA Academies). You can click here to learn more about the webinar. 

Re-opening: The Big Picture & Practical Realities for Afterschool

By Guest Blogger, Ursula Helminski, Senior Vice President, External Affairs, Afterschool Alliance

Source: Afterschool Alliance

WHAT YOU NEED TO BE DOING NOW
Earlier this month, Jen Siaca and Alison Overseth wrote a great piece in the Hechinger Report on 5 things afterschool programs need to be thinking about as we look toward fall.  We wholeheartedly agree, and have a few more big ideas to add to the list – starting with an immediate call to action – and some challenges for us to address that can help put afterschool in a strong position to help youth, families, and schools during re-opening.

TAKE ACTION
Reach out to your school and district leaders to talk about the role you are willing to play to support them and students in re-opening; schools share many of the same concerns we do around social and emotional support; learning loss; and children needing supervision, meals and support on days outside of school. We need to let them know we want to be part of the team to help youth recover and re-engage.

Contact Congress and your local policymakers to make sure they know afterschool programs are key to recovery, but can’t help without additional funds for smaller staff ratios, expanded hours, & PPE, and access to additional space.

PREPARE FOR
Flexible, expanded schedules – As states begin to share guidance and ideas for schools to reopen, many call for staggered schedules to limit how many youth are in school at a time. Families will need supervised, engaging programs for children on remote learning days in addition to after-school hours. While schools are focused now on their own logistics, they will feel pressure to help parents who cannot be home when students aren’t in school, and to make sure remote learners have a space to log on. We’ve already seen what this might look like in Missouri, where a 21st CCLC program in Missouri re-opened in conjunction with their school district summer school to offer full day programming on a split schedule so that half of the students are doing enrichment with afterschool staff in the morning while the other half is with classroom teachers doing their summer school classes. They then switch during the afternoon. So, where the 21st CCLC program normally serves 350 students daily before and afterschool, they are serving 750+ until the end of June.

Ursula Helminski
Afterschool Alliance

Alternate space & facilities – We’ve got to prepare for the possibility that schools may be closed to afterschool providers.  If you have access to other facilities, this could be a great asset to bring up to local school leaders as you seek to partner with them on re-opening plans. If you usually operate in schools, think about how you might access other spaces or facilities. Think about libraries, parks, community centers, cultural or performing arts centers that may have under-used spaces. Talk to local city or county leaders about ideas.  In Lincoln, Nebraska, afterschool providers are providing in-person care at churches and community centers in the area of the schools.

Staffing considerations – Programs will likely need to sustain staff ratios of 10-1 per health guidelines; prepare for the possibility that some staff may not be able or comfortable working tin the same capacity; and be ready for continued, or resumption of, virtual programming.

“Doubling down on social-emotional learning (SEL).” – The social and emotional needs of children have never been greater; make sure you are prepared to help students re-engage and re-connect, to when youth need additional mental health support, and have a plan for connecting youth to that additional support. The American Institute for Research released a new brief, Recognizing the Role of Afterschool and Summer Programs in Reopening and Rebuilding.

Michael Funk, CDE 

 "Two very influential statewide education leaders not deeply involved in the field stated publicly that expanding learning is going to be a very critical, essential component to the reopening of schools. One of the biggest reasons that people embrace our field and believe in its work is the way that staff care and nurture for children in their programs. These benefits are based on the quality standards that call for positive relationships, safe supportive environments, and engaging activities." 

- Michael Funk, Director, Expanded Learning Division, California Department of Education

Enhancing academic support/enrichment – With estimates that students will experience more than a 50 percent learning loss this year, it is more important than ever to work with schools to complement school day lessons, open lines of communication with teachers to help identify youth who need extra help and shape your homework help, tutoring and enrichment activities to their needs. For instance, establish regular meetings between the afterschool program director and principals, assign staff members the responsibility of managing and maintaining communication, and host joint professional development opportunities for both school day staff and afterschool program staff.

Ursula Helminski is currently Senior Vice President of external affairs at Afterschool Alliance and has worked with the organization since its inception, as part of its founding team. She develops strategy and communications for the organization and oversees public awareness initiatives such as the national Lights On Afterschool event and Afterschool for All, a campaign uniting high-profile and grassroots voices from diverse sectors in support of afterschool. Before coming to the Afterschool Alliance, she was a Senior Associate at the communications and organizing consulting firm, Fowler Hoffman, where she worked on issue campaigns ranging from youth violence prevention to telecommunications, and advised foundations on their communications strategies. She has served as editor of a trade journal covering policy in Washington, D.C., worked in cause-related marketing at The Nature Conservancy and taught English in a Moscow public school.

Re-Opening Programs and More

By Sam Piha

There is a lot of discussion and debate about how and when to re-open schools and youth programs. For youth programs that are located within schools, it is important that afterschool leaders stay abreast of the current thinking on this topic and ensure that any re-opening encompasses youth development values. Because the pandemic situation is very fluid, ideas about re-opening schools are very dynamic.


“As you prepare to welcome students and adults back to school, you face the layered impact of schools closures, the pandemic, racial inequities amplified by nationwide mobilization, and more.”

-CASEL Newsletter, 7/9/20 

The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) has released a roadmap for re-opening schools. CASEL collaborated with over 40 leading organizations in developing 4 critical practices:

1. Take time to cultivate and deepen relationships, build partnerships, and plan for SEL.
2. Design opportunities where adults can connect, heal, and build their capacity to support students.
3. Create safe, supportive, and equitable learning environments that promote all students’ social and emotional development.
4. Use data as an opportunity to share power, deepen relationships, and continuously improve support for students, families, and staff.

"As we sit down and really try to figure out what is going to be a long haul of reopening slowly...we're going to need such a different approach to the traditional 'show up and sit in your seat.' We need all partners at the table together."

-Karen Pittman

President & CEO, Forum for Youth Investment

Below we have offered a link to this entire report as well as some other resources. (Because the plans for re-opening is developed locally, it is important that afterschool leaders track their local plans.)

• CASEL- Reunite, Renew, and Thrive: Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Roadmap for Reopening School
• CASEL- An Initial Guide to Leveraging the Power of Social Emotional Learning as You Prepare to Re-Open and Re-New Your School Community 
• AIR- Recognizing the Role of Afterschool and Summer Programs and Systems in Reopening and Rebuilding 
• ED Week- Nation’s Pediatricians: Get Kids Back in Class this Fall 
• ED Week- Planning Your 2020-21 School Year? Use Our 'Guide to the Guides' on Reopening

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

• Dr. Pedro Noguera recently presented at Temescal Associates' Speaker's Forum and has been a frequent presenter at past HKL Conferences. Soon thereafter, he was interviewed on MSNBC/ "All In" on the topic of school re-opening. 

• Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris (California Surgeon General) was recently interviewed on MSNBC/ "Outfront" on the topic of COVID and childhood stress.

• Two medical students, Samantha Harris and Devon Scott, recently wrote a children’s book about coronavirus, Why We Stay Home, to help parents communicate with their children about why so many families across the nation have been staying home. For a free download of the book, click here. To access video read aloud, click here. To view an interview with the authors on PBS News Hour, click here.

Re-Opening Afterschool: Priorities and Practice

By Sam Piha

We know that young people missed a lot of classroom learning time when schools were closed due to the COVID-19 crisis. We also know that afterschool programs will likely be pressured to help make up for this classroom time that was lost. Afterschool programs may feel pressured to make up for these missed instructional minutes by doubling down on academics. But we know that afterschool programs have something much more important to offer. High quality afterschool programs specialize in positive relationships, safe and supportive environments, and engaging activities. All of these rejuvenating experiences will be essential to get students’ brains re-balanced and ready for learning after an incredibly disruptive spring and summer. We can anticipate that the transition to learning will be particularly hard for students who may be coming from unstable or stressful environments. Afterschool programs can play a vital role in supporting learning and well-being by focusing on their core areas of expertise and experience.

Katie Brackenridge (L) and Dr. Deborah Moroney (R)

On May 18, 2020 we sponsored a webinar entitled, COVID-19 Era- Afterschool’s Whole Child Approach featuring Katie Brackenridge (Turnaround for Children) and Deborah Moroney (AIR). You can view a recording of the webinar here. 

Katie offered Turnaround for Children's “3-R’s Framework” (Relationships, Routines, Resilience) to describe how we should prioritize our work when we re-open afterschool programs. Below she offered relevant practice examples:

Relationships: For example-

• Learn about your students’ lives
• Talk to students one- on- one
• Check-in with families
• Run morning meetings/ advisories
• Loop teachers for more than one year

Routines: For example-

• Co-create and practice norms and routines
• Keep it simple- clear instructions, written signs and non-verbal signals
• Model ways to organize and prioritize tasks 

Resilience: For example-

• Liberally spread oxytocin with smiles, hugs and laughs
• Be attuned to individual students’ emotions and reactions
• Use mindfulness, journaling, movement to calm the brain

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

• COVID-19: Phase 2 Restart and Recovery
• Policy Recommendations to Support Social, Emotional and Academic Development: Fostering Connectedness in the Pandemic Era
• Recovering and Renewal: Principles for Advancing Public Education Post-Crisis
• Blueprint for Back to School
• An Initial Guide to Leveraging the Power of SEL as You Prepare to Re-Open and Renew Your School Community

____________________
MORE ABOUT...

Katie Brackenridge joined Turnaround for Children in 2019 as a Partnership Director. Katie has worked in and with schools, school districts and community organizations for her entire career. Before becoming a consultant, Katie was the Vice President of Programs at the Partnership for Children & Youth (PCY). Katie’s work is grounded in her nine-year experience as Co-Executive Director for the Jamestown Community Center, a grassroots youth organization in the Mission District of San Francisco.

Dr. Deborah Moroney is the Managing Director, American Institutes of Research (AIR). She specializes in bridging research and practice, having worked as a staff member for out-of-school programs early in her career. She's written practitioner and organizational guides; co-authored the fourth edition of Beyond the Bell®, A Toolkit for Creating High-Quality Afterschool and Expanded Learning Programs, a seminal afterschool resource. Presently, Dr. Moroney serves as the principal investigator on national studies of afterschool initiatives.