Month: January 2021

2021 Out-of-School Time Professionals Survey

Deadline: Monday, March 1, 2021

At PSAYDN, we want to better understand the afterschool workforce to support professional growth, improve representation in advocacy efforts, and help to advance equity within the field.

With only five minutes of your time, you will help uncover trends and identify opportunities and gaps in the out-of-school time field that will inform new strategies.

We understand that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges to OST programs in 2020 and to this day. In order to provide consistency in results for an OST landscape overview, we ask that you consider reflecting and responding to the questions in a pre-COVID-19 program setting. You will be able to provide feedback about OST during the pandemic at the end of the survey.

This survey should be completed by anyone who works with or on behalf of youth in out-of-school time.

Contact PSAYDN for additional questions regarding the survey.

Secretary DeVos Announces More than $4 Billion Available in Emergency Education Grants for Governors to Help Students Continue Learning

On Jan.8, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced that more than $4 billion in additional COVID-19 emergency relief is now available to governors to ensure learning continues for students of all ages and at all schools. This emergency relief aid, the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund, has two components: supplemental GEER awards (GEER II) and the Emergency Assistance to Non-public Schools (EANS) awards, which comprise $2.75 billion of the total.

Federal Afterschool Policy Update: Seizing the Funding Opportunities in the CRRSA

The education sections of the CRRSA are focused on supporting students: since afterschool and summer programs are key to students’ recovery this spring, summer and fall, there are multiple points of entry into the funding opportunities in the law. Specifically, afterschool programs are well positioned to make the case that they provide the following types of supports that are called out in the law: learning loss and recovery, social and emotional support, and addressing inequity.

Wolf Administration Announces $600 Pandemic Relief Awards to Eligible Child Care Employees Across Pennsylvania

Governor Tom Wolf today announced the opportunity for one-time, $600 grants for child care workers across Pennsylvania. The funds are available to child care providers licensed by the Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) through federal Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) quality dollars and remaining funding previously made available through federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act allocated for child care providers.

4 Questions Designed to Make Hybrid Science Classes More Equitable

For science teachers whose classes typically include discovery learning, collaborative work, and lab investigations, the challenge became how do we replicate this in a home environment? We also had to find ways to ensure that what we were crafting for our students to do was equitable for everyone — we wanted to minimize the inequity that comes with teaching in a hybrid system like ours as much as possible. We asked ourselves the following four questions. What is the goal of the task we want students to complete? What are the skills that students will need to master to complete this task? How will students accomplish the task? How can the task be assessed to measure learning?

New Report Finds Many Families With Children Are Depressed, Uninsured, Hungry and at Risk of Foreclosure or Eviction

Families require an immediate policy response to meet the needs of children during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has left millions struggling with finances, school, work and mental health, according to a new policy report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a decades-long advocate for young people in America. In “Kids, Families and COVID-19: Pandemic Pain Points and the Urgent Need to Respond,” a 50-state report, data show children and families are suffering from the unprecedented disruption and economic storm set off by the global health crisis.

All in One Afterschool Tool: Mizzen by Mott

Mizzen by Mott is an innovative tool designed to help you plan and deliver engaging courses, lessons and activities. With high-quality content, organizational tools and Pro Tips from education experts, Mizzen makes it easy for you to create exciting learning opportunities for students.

FY 2021 Omnibus Spending Bill and COVID-19 Relief Package Finalized and Passed

The COVID-19 relief bill includes afterschool programs as an allowable use of funds. The new relief language is largely similar to that of the CARES Act passed last March. While that approach will make it easier for the Department of Education and other agencies to distribute funds to states quickly, it means unfortunately legislators left out many of the improvements needed to make the CARES Act language more responsive to local needs. From an afterschool and summer learning perspective, the final COVID-19 relief package mirrors the opportunities in the CARES Act and does not include 21st CCLC flexibility language. Funding Opportunities

America After 3PM: Number of Children Left Without Afterschool Is High

The Afterschool Alliance’s 4th edition of America After 3PM provides a detailed account of children in the afterschool hours, identifying: trends of participation in, and unmet demand for, afterschool programs; the experiences and opportunities programs afford; and which children and families are missing out, and why.

Embracing Failure

Entrepreneurs view failure with a growth mindset and through a lens of optimism. Not with the blind optimism of “rose-colored glasses,” but with the knowledge that they have the ability to recover quickly from difficulties, which is the definition of resilience. They have confidence in themselves and are optimistic that they can overcome their setbacks.