The Y4Y Insider - September 2021 |
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Y4Y is excited to announce the release of an updated course on college and career readiness, with a focus on career awareness, exploration and preparation. In Career Pathways for Students, you’ll hike with Cassie through a forest of possibilities in the trades, the military, college and the workforce — paths that can lead students to successful careers they’ll love.
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Webinars
Approaches to Learning
Sept. 28 and 30, 1-3 p.m. ET
Join the U.S. Department of Education’s Y4Y Technical Assistance Team as we explore facilitation methods, structures and activities that can increase student engagement and learning. We’ll also share successful strategies from the field on how to build trusting relationships with students and community members. Explore how to use student voice and choice to cater to the varying learning styles, backgrounds and experiences of your students. Learn about Y4Y and other resources, and become a pro at creating on-site and virtual learning environments. If you’re already an expert, please come and share your knowledge and experiences!
Day #1: Building Relationships With Students
Day #2: Establishing Trust With Community Members
Do you have questions about Y4Y webinar registration, sign-in, participation or certificates? Send your queries to this email address for the quickest response: Y4YWebinars@seiservices.com.
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Gathering STEAM
Powering Your STEM/STEAM Initiatives
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Puget Sound Estuaries: Inspiring the Next Generation of Stewards of Puget Sound Through Exploration and Education
The North American Association for Environmental Education has published its August Watershed Chronicles, highlighting partnerships with two elementary and two middle school 21st CCLC programs around Puget Sound.
Create and Share Landsat-Inspired Arts and Crafts
For almost 50 years, Landsat satellites have collected images of Earth from space, representing the longest continuous space-based record of our planet’s surface. In September, Landsat 9 is scheduled to launch and continue this legacy. In honor of the launch, NASA invites you to get creative and show what Landsat means to you. Create art or make a craft that’s inspired by a favorite Landsat image or the satellite itself, and share it with NASA on social media.
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NASA STEM: Climate Change Resources and Project-Based Learning: Sept. 20, 4:30-5:30 p.m. ET
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STEM Teaching Tips for Teachers and Parents: Sept. 22, 6-7 p.m. ET
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NASA STEM: Robotics for K-12 Learners (Parts 1 and 2): Oct. 5, 4:30-5:30 p.m. ET
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Archived Webinars
Please note: A certificate of participation is available only to those who participate in the live events. Certificates will not be issued to those who view the recordings.
LIVE With Y4Y
Take a deep dive into tutoring and homework time. Build your understanding of different types of supports. Hear real examples and best practices from the field, and prepare to make your 21st CCLC program more effective and engaging.
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Tech Tip
Each Y4Y course has a glossary with key terms that will help you get so much more out of the content. Consider reading through definitions in advance, especially for courses (like Including Students With Disabilities) with words that aren’t specific to 21st CCLC programming.
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State Coordinators Corner
Y4Y thanks Sheena Strickler, 21st CCLC coordinator for the Idaho Department of Education, for sharing her state’s best practices around subgrantee training.
Y4Y: We are impressed with how Idaho supports new 21st CCLC program directors. Please tell us a little about that.
SS: As a previous subgrantee program director for six years, I had the unique opportunity to transition into the SEA coordinator role with the ability to quickly identify areas of supports needed for a successful onboarding of new directors and new subgrantees.
The first area of support we identified was director mentorships. We opened up a supplemental grant opportunity for directors who were interested in supporting newer directors and programs. Our criteria were a minimum of three years of director experience running subgrants with low to no risk. Our goal was to find directors in different regions, serving different grade levels and program types.
Our second area of support identified was connecting and building relationships among all directors. At times, our directors can feel as if they are on “an island” within their districts and organizations. To foster these relationships, we started our biweekly “Director Meet-Ups” via Zoom. We would begin each meet-up with 15 minutes of a different director delivering content and sharing or demonstrating outside resources like Idaho Out-of-School Network opportunities, Learning Blade, AmeriCorps, Idaho Commission on Aging, upcoming professional development opportunities and more. Our director mentors used this time to connect with other directors and share how they utilize online resources like You for Youth (Y4Y), and how they implemented these resources within their programs. The other 45 minutes of the meet-up was intended for directors to share successful enrichment and parent literacy events, ask questions, share frustrations, and get their peers’ opinions on strategies.
Finally, every July we host an in-person New Subgrantee and New Director Meeting. During this meeting, we ask our director mentors to present how they organize their programs, to share program documents (like handbooks, registration, calendars) and resources, and to give a brief overview of the Y4Y website and how they use these resources for staff development. Not only have the new directors found our director mentors’ information helpful to prioritize how to begin planning, the meetings also have created a way for our veteran directors to share their knowledge and encourage buy-in within programs. We also invite our director mentors to collaborate with state staff before any major changes or ideas are introduced. This has proven to be helpful when implementing these new ideas because directors have felt included in the decisions and not “mandated” policies without thought of how they will affect them or their programs.
Y4Y: Can you elaborate a bit more on your resource sharing practices, and why you feel that’s important?
SS: We found that peer-to-peer collaboration is extremely impactful for creating buy-in among our program directors! As our meet-ups continued, we found more directors sharing their high-quality program ideas and resources that their staff were using. This also gave them a safe space to share frustrations while feeling supported and not alone, which helped our state staff identify other unique needs and determine supports that we could provide to help them be successful.
This community-building was extremely beneficial during school closures. We have introduced some big changes this year, including: NO program income, a new data management system, additional outcome collections and new GPRA [Government Performance and Results Act] indicators. All during a pandemic! I truly believe that because of our director meet-ups and the relationships and trust that were built, these changes were much easier to navigate, and directors showed a much more positive attitude knowing they were not alone and we would be there to support them.
Y4Y: Any hard lessons learned you’d care to share with other SEAs around leadership training?
SS: I wouldn’t say that I have run into any hard lessons with leadership training in my current position. I do feel that because I had the opportunity to serve as a program director for six years before transitioning into the SEA coordinator role, I was able to appreciate the importance of making our directors feel heard and included in all decisions and changes. From the beginning, I expressed to our directors that I would be transparent and always advocate for their programs’ best interests. I find that being transparent with policy changes, showing them why costs are unallowable (EDGAR [Education Department General Administrative Regulations]), and continuing to collaborate on ways to meet their end goals with allowable costs has enabled our directors to feel safe and trust our intentions. From the beginning, every director was given my personal cell phone number and invited to call anytime. I feel this has built trust within our organization to know that no matter what time of day, they are not alone. I truly believe that being accessible around the clock has helped diffuse many situations they have encountered while running programs. These quick responses have enabled our Idaho 21st CCLC program directors to do their job quickly and confidently!
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Voices From the Field
Power in Numbers: Sharing Resource Among Rural 21st CCLC Sites
Y4Y recently spoke with Luis Bravo, project specialist for the Safe & Healthy Kids Department in the Office of Fresno County Superintendent of Schools in California. Mr. Bravo shared some of the practices that came out of his district’s virtual learning experience that they will continue, going forward. Read more here, or listen to the podcast.
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Oct. 3-9 is Fire Prevention Week in commemoration of the Great Chicago Fire, which began 150 years ago on Oct. 8. Age-appropriate safety tips, starting in the kitchen and ending in emergency exit planning (be sure to align with the school day on messaging) are a good way to observe this important topic.
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Oct. 10 is National Metric Day (get it? 10/10?). The U.S. might not switch from miles to kilometers, or from pounds to kilograms, any day soon, though our scientists and medical people use the metric system every day. But you can blow students’ minds with different numerical systems, like binary (or base 2) for computing, and how we use base 10 because most of us have 10 fingers!
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Oct. 11 is Myths and Legends Day, once called Kraken Day. You can explore the evolution of how a legendary creature became better understood with the advancement of science and culture. What other myths and legends can now be “explained?” But speaking of the Kraken…
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Oct. 14 is National Face Your Fears Day. This could be a fun conversation about snakes or spiders that turns into a lesson in resilience when we talk ourselves through the things that scare or worry us most.
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All month you can celebrate TeenTober at your local library. Students in your teen programs AND your younger students can benefit from the message that nobody outgrows the public library!
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Ms. Smith spoke at the Office of Indian Education Project Directors Meeting earlier this year about fostering resilience. Young people, she said, need someone who sees their potential and “speaks their future.” Adults can work together to create an "umbrella of resilience to protect children from some of the dark clouds dropping rain from the skies above them.” Here’s her advice on fostering resilience by creating a community of care and connection within your program:
“Love is medicine…. When there are students who have or are experiencing trauma, or are getting triggered back into trauma, they have this hypersensitivity, and they can feel it in a room…. Filling that space with love, for students who are having a difficult time, will help to lower their cortisol and increase their dopamine and their oxytocin so that their brain allows and helps them to thrive in being present with you…. When you’re working with students who have a history of trauma, or who are experiencing stress, remember — and the pandemic has made this so clear — the importance of connection before curriculum…. You can design the most beautiful lesson plans, but if there isn’t connection, they’re not going to land in the same way.”
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Disclaimer: This newsletter may contain links to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for the user’s convenience. The U.S. Department of Education does not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness or completeness of this outside information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to particular items is not intended to reflect their importance, nor is it intended to endorse any views expressed, donation solicitations or products or services offered, on these outside sites, nor any organizations sponsoring the sites, whether financially or by website hosting.
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