Afterschool Worker Shortage: Voices from the Field

by Sam Piha

We thought it is important to understand the issue of worker shortages from afterschool practitioners. To accomplish this, we issued a “snap” field survey in which we received 44 responses from practitioners across the country in 12 hours. Below we share some of the responses from our “snap” survey as well as from a survey from the East Bay Asian Youth Center (representing a collective of 13 lead agencies providing afterschool programs to a total of 76 OUSD schools.

SURVEY OF AFTERSCHOOL PRACTITIONERS CONDUCTED BY TEMESCAL ASSOCIATES ON 12/6/21: 

What are the reasons for the worker shortage? 

“I believe many of the people that worked for us before the 2020-21 school year went on to find other work. I also believe that some have enrolled in college and some no longer are able to live in the area due to being priced out of the housing market.” – School District Coordinator, California

“1. Competitive hiring market with higher pay than pre-pandemic. 2. Not all youth are vaccinated and fear of contracting or passing Covid. 3. High cost of Bay Area living and relocation of workers. 4. Work from home job options more prevalent. 5. Stimulus checks led to savings for some and not needing to immediately return to the workforce. 6. Secured alternate work with higher wages instead of returning to the afterschool field.” – Afterschool Program Staff, California

“After school programs generally do not pay well, and we're dealing with a major inflation. Also, I think fear of exposure to COVID plays a large part, too. Working with a large number of mostly unvaccinated people, even if they're kids, is scary sometimes.” – Afterschool Program Staff, California

“Low wages, part-time work (only), no benefits; perception of lack of career path (rather, just a part time, temp job on the way to something more permanent. People staying home to take care of own kids.” – Afterschool Provider CEO, Pennsylvania

“There are a variety of stressors that bring about this shortage: loss of work hours, loss of loved ones and family members, mental exhaustion, and lack of adequate health care and better wages.”- Afterschool Provider CEO, Florida

“We had trouble finding qualified staff who were also fully vaccinated.” – Afterschool Program Staff, Ohio

How has your program been impacted by the worker shortage?

“Programs have had to limit youth attendees in some programs, sometimes programs have had to cancel a day or so due to lack of substitute staff, and less activities are offered in some sites due to lack of instructors.” – Afterschool Evaluator and Consultant, California

“We are serving less students than we have spaces for. The staff is overwhelmed, and the program quality has decreased.”- Afterschool Program Director, California

“Depending on the site location, we are at 50%-75% of capacity to serve youth after school. Fewer students are being served which jeopardizes our local/state/federal grant awards.” – Afterschool Program Staff, California

“The current staff shortage has prevented our 13 programs from fully enrolling our ASES funded sites. We are at about 50% capacity at this time. It is very distressing to not be able to serve the maximum number of families.” – School District Coordinator, California

“We’ve had substantial turnover at our site coordinator level, and front-line staff is more of a revolving door than before.” – Afterschool Program Director, Michigan

“Our enrollment is low because we only have 2-3 staff per site (as opposed to 5-6).” – Afterschool Program Director, Utah

What are some things that the field can do to address the impacts of a worker shortage? 

“I believe we were better positioned than many organizations to hire because we budgeted for a higher wage than many other youth programs. I think increasing wages and explaining the necessity of that to funders so that they can support the organizations they fund in that increase. Afterschool and youth development work also need to be seen as a viable career path with professional training and education.” – Afterschool Program Director, Ohio

“Hire high school students who are 18+ to work at elementary sites, provide university credit for field service hours, increase pay rates.” – Afterschool Program Director, Michigan

“Formal pipelines for after school to educators. Schools facing the same concerns. Increasing wages is tough - in our area, California’s Afterschool Education and Safety (ASES) program will not cover the full cost of the program nor will parents be able to afford the true cost of program.” – Afterschool Provider, California

“Beyond livable wages? Benefits that compensate for the low pay such as full-time employment, fully paid medical and dental, free childcare, reimbursed college tuition, access to robust mental health coverage.” – Afterschool Program Director, California

“We need more money. We are criminally underpaid and overworked.” – Afterschool Program Coordinator, California

Any suggestions on how we can improve the worker shortage at the policy/systems level? 

“Could give credit for high school students that work in afterschool programs under an elective or community service requirement.” – Afterschool Evaluator and Consultant, California

“Funders and contracting organizations like Starting Point and Say Yes could set a $15 minimum wage for afterschool program work and fund programs accordingly. Local colleges could offer Youth Development degrees/certifications and place students in afterschool programs for field experience.” – Afterschool Program Director, Ohio

“Encourage funders to raise grant amounts to get to living wages. Create full time jobs. Consider hybrid work schedules if appropriate. Paid training and prep-time.” - Afterschool Provider CEO, Pennsylvania

“The California Department of Education has to truly make it a pathway to education careers and the Unions should let LEAs and CBOs hire combined positions, so both the school and the afterschool program are fully staffed, because offering more hours attracts more staff. Higher compensation.”- Afterschool Program Director, California

“Bring back funding to invest in and manage workforce development by building a formal pipeline between high school to community colleges and state universities, including the UC system and tap into the resources of private universities.” – Afterschool Program Staff, California

“Loan forgiveness or tuition credits as many part time afterschool workers are in school. Regional or statewide benefits packages as the cost to smaller orgs is tremendous but better benefits could entice workers to stay in or take these jobs. Ensure the jobs are pipelines to full time opportunities and careers.” – Afterschool Program Staff, California

SURVEY OF 13 AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAM LEAD AGENCIES CONDUCTED BY THE EAST BAY ASIAN YOUTH CENTER: 

What program strategies are being implemented to hire staff?:

• 92% Use of “Indeed”
• 85% Recruitment through Colleges & Universities
• 85% Recruitment through Personal Network
• 77% Recruitment through Professional Network
• 77% Increase Hourly Wage
• 62% Recruitment through social media (Facebook, Etc.)
• 54% Referral Bonus
• 31% Idealist
• 23% Paid Recruiter
• 15% Sign-on Bonus
• 23% Other 

Temescal Associates and The How Kids Learn Foundation will be conducting a webinar featuring a presentation by Stu Semigran and his team from the EduCare Foundation on Heartset® for Self-Care and Resiliency on Wednesday, February 23, 2022 from 10:00am - 11:30am (PST). To learn more and register, click HERE.

Voices from the Field: Afterschool Workers Who Transitioned into Teaching

By Sam Piha

Source: A Natural Fit: Supporting After-School Staff of Color in Teacher Pipelines 

In a previous blog post, we wrote about the importance of afterschool programs representing a pathway to teaching. You can read the previous blog here. We encourage that afterschool leaders discuss this option/ pathway with their afterschool staff.

Below we share quotes from afterschool workers who advanced their career by becoming teachers. These quotes are from an important publication from The Education Trust entitled, A Natural Fit: Supporting After-School Staff of Color in Teacher Pipelines. (On a personal note, my career began with work in afterschool programs followed by 10 years of classroom teaching.)

“Even though we were an after-school program, part of the staff was there during the school day, too. So, we did things similar to what a student teacher would do to support daytime teachers in their classrooms. Seeing what teachers did, and taking that knowledge and experience and trying to implement it in the after-school portion of it, made me feel like I could be a teacher, too.” 

“The after-school program let me exert all kinds of my potential. It also brought out my true character of wanting to serve and help people — especially kids and people of the community.” 

“[The after-school/OST experience] just made [becoming a teacher] more concrete for me that I wanted to work in my own community, or communities of color.” 

“It was different because I had that experience of connecting with students, especially students from different backgrounds. My other colleagues who didn’t really have experience had a harder time being able to teach the students because they couldn’t make that connection.” 

“It prepared me to work with parents, because as an after-school counselor, we had to connect with families and speak to and communicate with them very often.” 

Source: www.collegescholarships.org

“We had groups of students, we had lesson plans, unit plans, curricula, we had to internalize it. There was professional development on teacher voice, teacher presence, warm-strict, classroom management. We weren’t trained as though we were after-school babysitters. We were trained like we were teachers.“ 

“It’s made me think about struggles that the students might face. In the after-school program, I’ve noticed a lot of students who are always hungry, or stuff like that. It’s influenced me to have snacks inside my classroom or to be more understanding of why a certain child is acting a certain way, because there are other outside factors that might be involved.” 

“I absolutely loved building those relationships [in after-school/OST work], having those moments when students came to me to talk about things that were college-related or things that didn’t relate to school at all. Just having someone to relate to because I was someone like them.” 

“[The after-school/OST workers] know the students because they grew up in the same neighborhoods. They know the same police officers. They know the corner stores, they know the supermarkets, they know the libraries, they know what students have access to and what they don’t. So as far as connecting with the actual students, the families, the parents, they thrive. Because it’s one thing to know the school, but to also know your community.” 

We are hosting a webinar/ Speaker’s Forum on Wednesday, November 17, 2021 from 10:00am- 12:00pm (PST) entitled, Afterschool as a Teacher Pathway. The purpose of this webinar is to inform and encourage OST leaders on how best to develop/join and promote an afterschool to teacher pathway. It is our intention to capture and share valuable and intriguing ideas from educational and OST leaders. To learn more and register, click the banner below.

We have also released a new briefing paper on this topic, which can be viewed and downloaded here.

VOICES FROM THE FIELD: Lessons and Take-Aways from 2020

By Sam Piha 

Between the COVID-19 pandemic, school closures, police shootings and the calls for racial justice, 2020 was a very difficult year. We asked people from the afterschool community to share any lessons or take-aways they've gained from this crazy year. Below are some of the responses we received. You can read all the response here.

“Expanded Learning plays a vital role in the continuity of education during this time of pandemic, not only by providing staffing for a wide variety of educational configurations for distance learning, Expanded Learning is in a unique position to offering programming and learning experiences that not only address racial issues and equality, but gender issues and equality, marginalized groups and equality and Social Emotional Learning as whole. One take away is the need to identify more clearly the demographics that make up the Expanded Learning Field, who works in expanded Learning from a race perspective, gender perspective, cultural perspective, orientation perspective and so on.” -Director Expanded Learning, Los Angeles County, CA

“Distance learning was good in that it showed us 1) How poorly many teachers support student learning and SEL development; 2) Online learning apps are not the panacea; 3) Educational bureaucracies get bogged down in regulations and labor rules. When this happens, resourced families and CBO's are able to overcome barriers to effectively serve students; 4) teacher-parent/caregiver communication has to improve even post-COVID.” -CEO Youth Service Non-profit, Alameda and Santa Clara County, CA

“I think our organization has learned the important lesson of really listening to the community and developing plans that work for them! Flexibility and patience are key.” -Youth Worker, Harris County, TX

“When the pandemic began, I was an Elementary School Assistant Principal. I was tasked with providing support to teachers as well as families in our at- home learning model that was not yet virtual. From the beginning our goal was to ensure student and family safety and well- being. What we all quickly learned is what we always knew, school is not just a building that students attend to learn curriculum. Our schools are the center of our communities and when they closed, we quickly rallied to ensure we did not miss a beat providing families with the support they needed to grow and nurture our students. During the pandemic, I was transitioned to a district level administrator working in Education Services as the Coordinator of Student Services. In this position I have several responsibilities that support the learning happening in schools but shifted my focus from curriculum and instruction, which had been my focus for my 15 year career, to supporting the social and emotional well- being of our students, families, teachers, and community. My role includes a focus on attendance, supporting the counseling departments, implementing professional learning with restorative practice, PBIS and focus SEL lessons, run the daily operations of the district community center and guide the work of the district and site nurses, the district social worker, and the community and site- based family liaisons. Through these interactions my takeaways are that in order to focus on teaching and learning the curriculum it is most important we meet the mental and physical well- being needs of not only our students, but our families and communities as a whole. My ability to be a strong instructional leader has only been strengthened by my understanding that stakeholder needs extend outside the classroom and the four walls of the school building.” -Coordinator of Student Services, Los Angeles County, CA

“Have a fluid plan to help address new needs as they come. Work closely with partners to help meet the needs of the whole child and address needs specific to the community.” -Director of Programs, Los Angeles County, CA

“Don't be afraid to try new ways of doing things and try and try again. Get ideas and reflections form the students you are serving. Don't under- estimate the tool that continued zoom meetings have on all participants. Take care to balance your time between work and home. Hold high expectations where necessary and let less important things go.” -Executive Director Youth Serving Non-Profit, CA

“My take- away from 2020 would be thankful for my finances that saved me from having hard times. Be thankful for a job. My main take away is even though we marched for racial justice, until the cops who kill us black men are charged and sentenced, we still have a long way to go.” -EXLP Coordinator, Solano County, CA

“The year taught us to put ourselves in a position where we must be more understanding, more flexible, and ready to expect and appreciate anything that comes our way. Working with kids has taught me that even they are having their own struggles, but they are willing to cooperate and put in the effort to be where they want to be. There are so many connections and differences we can make in their lives even if it is through a screen!” -After School Program Tutor, Fresno County, CA

“Take-aways include needing to master better ways to have discussions about systemic racism and how to be anti-racist without stoking contentious anger...” -Youth Worker, Stanislaus, CA

“I think the biggest take away for the year is to remember to appreciate what you have. Whether it's your family, your kids, your house, your job, friendships, relationships, love, nature, health, time... Appreciate it all. I know I've come to appreciate much more over this past year. Life goes too fast. Slow it down and enjoy it.”  -Program Coordinator, Fulton County, New York

“Constantly adapt. Our staff members are outstanding. Love and connection are our strengths.” -Executive Director Youth Service Non-Profit, Mendocino County, CA

“We are resilient; however, we need time to heal and mend. In 2017, we had the Oroville Dam crisis. In 2018, we had the Wall Fire. In 2018, we had the Camp Fire. In 2020, we had the North Complex Fire. Not to mention the COVID Pandemic. We are strong, dedicated and determined to serve our students and families with positivity and gratitude.” -Director of Expanded Learning, Butte County, CA

“The lessons and take-aways for me, from 2020 are these: 1) put people first, focus on relationships; so many relationships have been fractured this year leaving people vulnerable and isolated. Our field excels at relationship-building we should be operating from our strengths and centering relationships, ensuring that staff have the necessary supports, tools and time to do so. 2) Funders can really make the difference between whether an organization not only survives but thrives in the coming year; they should focus on building and strengthening organizational capacity in a number of ways.” -President of Afterschool Training Organization, Philadelphia County, PA

“We used to mistakenly think that success is the amount of time you put in at work. However, 2020 taught us that success is the quality of time we put in.” -Afterschool Coordinator, Solano County, CA

“Relationships rule!” -Program Administrator, Alameda County, CA

“Both personally and professionally, I've had two major takeaways from the year that was 2020. The first is that, as humans, connection with others is vital to our continued growth and development. The second lesson I learned is that we have to overcome the instinct to be fearful and engage in difficult and courageous conversations - with family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and leaders.” -Associate Executive Director/National Program Director, San Francisco Bay Area, CA

“We have seen how many classrooms have tried to operate as they used to before the pandemic, employing the same curriculum but through distance learning. As afterschool programs, we cannot ignore the world around us. Our work is intricately tied to the issues, concerns, and ideas around us. We have to address and incorporate the current climate into our work with children. We cannot go on "business as usual," trying to hold on to old norms. We are skilled at adapting and meeting the needs, requirements, and new guidelines, coming from all directions, placed on us. We have been doing the work throughout the pandemic and have experience to share with those who'd care to listen.” -Assistant Afterschool Director, Contra Costa County, CA

“The pandemic has laid bare that all our systems from education to healthcare to sustainability and every other system we live under are cracked at their foundations. Care for each other will be the starting point to reimagine new systems based on love and equity.” -Co-Director, National Afterschool Training Organization, USA