The Y4Y Insider - September 2022 |
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New Content on Y4Y
Y4Y’s newest microlearning opportunity will equip your program with the tools to develop an effective makerspace by understanding your learners, evaluating existing program offerings and school-day curricula, considering global trends and best practices, developing a theme, and gathering your resources. View Click & Go.
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Whether you’re struggling to put one foot in front of the other some days, or you feel like you’re caught up in rushing rapids over jagged rocks, the forward motion of your 21st CCLC program is unmistakable. When you come back to intentionality in all that you do, forward motion can be assured, managed, and even steered. Y4Y is here to help!
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Boost Out-of-School Time! — A 16-year study, America After 3PM, confirms that parents are already receptive to out-of-school time programs. You can use these findings, along with Y4Y resources, to strengthen your program and reach out to partners so you can take your program to the masses.
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Moving Forward by Stopping to Reflect — Self-Evaluation Maintenance is a model of social behavior that explains how relationships with peers affect a child’s self-esteem and self-image. Learn about ways to incorporate self-love and positivity into your program!
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Taking Social and Emotional Learning Along With You — The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) reported on 10 years of systemic social and emotional learning implementation in urban settings. Learn about important takeaways from the report and get Y4Y resources to support social and emotional learning in your program.
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Busy? Y4Y Offers New Bite-Size Learning! — Y4Y is excited to introduce a new online professional development option for 21st CCLCs. Quality Program Quickstarter (QPQs) are self-paced learning modules you can complete in about an hour.
- Y4Y’s Voices From the Field guest, Sonya Westerman, shares insights based on her experiences as a parent, teacher, and advocate for students with autism.
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Sept. 27, 1 – 2:30 p.m. ET
Get ideas to help you create a family-friendly environment, serve family needs, plan activities for engagement, and solicit family input and leadership.
Sept. 29, 1 – 2:30 p.m. ET
Financial literacy skills are concentrated in the middle and upper socioeconomic classes, which exacerbates economic inequality. Yet research shows that everyone can learn these important life skills. Attend this webinar for tools and ideas to build financial literacy into your program activities for every age group.
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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.
Be sure to check out these Y4Y sessions:
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Gathering STEAM
Powering Your STEM/STEAM Initiatives
Recycle Your Own Paper!
Placing an empty can into a recycle bin is seldom intrinsically satisfying because we often don’t see the end result, which is why we love this science activity from The Franklin Institute. It teaches children how to make recycled paper from old homework assignments. It turns out that everything old truly can be made new again! Use this opportunity to have conversations about what it means to be environmentally conscious. How can your students reuse their “new” paper? What’s one step your students could take to lead a more eco-conscious lifestyle?
That’s the Way the Ball Bounces
NASA’s Artemis I Launch: One Small Step — or a Giant Leap?
NASA’s Artemis I, an expedition that will send an uncrewed spacecraft thousands of miles beyond the moon, is scheduled to launch on Sept.27. Take this opportunity to have a discussion about past space explorations while incorporating NASA’s Artemis I STEM Learning Pathway resources and content, with eight weekly themes. Encourage predictions about future explorations: Where do you think NASA will explore next? Could you see yourself pursuing any careers related to space exploration? |
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Tech Tip
Select “News and Views” on the navigation bar on the Y4Y home page for instant access to Y4Y’s newsletter, blog, Voices From the Field interviews/podcasts, and Summer Symposium archives. |
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State Coordinators Corner
Quality Program Quickstarters (QPQs)
You spoke. Y4Y listened. This month, Y4Y is rolling out Quality Program Quickstarters (QPQs) in direct response to a need for bite-size professional learning expressed by 21st CCLC leaders across the country. Just in time for your new program directors and site coordinators to launch their fall programming, each of these one-hour interactive modules addresses a fundamental aspect of designing and implementing a quality program. Consider sending an email to subgrantees, posting a link to these new resources on your website, advertising on social media, and mentioning these resources in your new grantee packets.
Post of the Month
Are you looking for an efficient way to help new 21st CCLC program staff in your state get the professional development and support they need? Feel free to share the following Post of the Month on your social media accounts:
If you’re new to 21 st CCLC, check out the free webinars, online courses, Click & Go’s, and downloadable tools on the U.S. Department of Education’s You for Youth site.
Training of the Month
Looking for a booster shot of information and inspiration to share with current and potential program leaders? Consider these:
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New Leaders Academy — This archived webinar series features a 90-minute introduction to 21st CCLC programming and three 2-hour sessions on program management, intentional activity design, and staff recruitment and retention.
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Summer Symposium Session Archives — Share this link to the virtual lobby and invite program leaders to browse dozens of recorded sessions for one that will help them grow.
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Y4Y Webinars — Attend a live webinar to get a certificate of completion or sample the archived webinars to quickly get up to speed on an issue that matters to you. Recent topics include fiscal management, positive staff cultures and learning environments, digital literacy, family engagement, financial literacy, and project-based learning.
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Listen in on a Q&A session with Ms. Sonya Westerman, who draws on her personal and professional experience with students with autism to offer pointers on inclusion in 21st CCLC programs.
Sonya Westerman: Parent, Teacher, and Advocate for Students With Autism
Y4Y recently chatted with Sonya Westerman to gain some helpful insights on how 21st CCLC programs can understand and include students with autism in their out-of-school time programs.
Y4Y: Sonya, please tell us a little about your personal experience with autism.
SW: I became highly interested in autism and the spectrum when I noticed my son, John Paul, wouldn’t look at me or come when I called his name. I was afraid he might have a hearing impairment, but no matter where he was in the house when we started the intro music to a Disney video, he would come quickly. I had his hearing checked at nine months anyway, and it was normal. He was slow to learn to talk, and often just came to get me and put my hand on what he wanted help with. I noticed at 20 months John stopped using some of the words he previously had. I took him to his pediatrician, who had other patients that had autism. He suggested I take him to the Child Evaluation Center in Louisville. A month before he turned three, John Paul was evaluated. This process included a lengthy parent questionnaire about his development from birth to present at the time, a nonverbal intelligence test, and observation by the professionals there. At the end of the evaluation, we were told that John Paul was on the spectrum as a high-functioning person with autism. This meant that he tested average or above average in intelligence, but had autistic traits. He was below normal development in social, verbal, and fine motor skills. If that wasn’t daunting enough to hear, they went on to say many negative things. They asserted that he would not ever hold a job, drive, marry, or have normal friend relationships. I cried for a week. Then, I decided that they were wrong about the rest of his life. The professionals did not know John or his family.
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Sonya Westerman is the parent of a 32-year-old son with autism, and she’s also an advocate for children and adults with disabilities. She was a public educator for 27 years who made inclusion a priority in her classroom. |
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Oct. 1 is the 98th birthday of former president Jimmy Carter, who served from 1977 to 1981 — quite possibly before the parents of your students were even born! Discover with students not only his accomplishments in office, but his building of homes for the homeless through Habitat for Humanity (personally contributing to over 4,000 homes built, at last count).
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Oct. 2 marks 55 years since the first African American Justice, Thurgood Marshall, was sworn in to the United States Supreme Court. Take this opportunity to review news coverage of the historic summer swearing in of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and the trail she’s blazing for African American women.
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Oct. 4-10 is World Space Week. With recent excitement over the first images of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, and “mystery data” received from NASA’s Voyager 1 — launched in 1977 and now 14.5 billion miles from Earth (nearly 150 times as far as the sun) — there’s no shortage of fascinating discoveries to explore!
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Oct. 13 marks 230 years since George Washington laid the cornerstone of the White House, originally called the Presidential Palace. At 54,900 square feet, this building is less than one third the size of an average Walmart store. What facts about this seat of power are of interest to your students?
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Oct. 19 is Evaluate Your Life Day. Invite students to reflect on areas they feel strong in and areas where they’d like to grow. Check out this month’s blog post, “Moving Forward by Stopping to Reflect,” for Y4Y tools to help students reflect on their lives through a lens of kindness rather than harsh self-judgment.
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A Texas teacher, Margaret Oliveras, inspired her students from lower-income families to “dream big” by soliciting donated T-shirts from universities around the country for them to wear on their school’s college T-shirt Wednesdays.
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Topical Tool Kit
Continuous Improvement
This tool kit features Y4Y tools from various courses to help with continuous improvement.
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Use these strategies to structure academic support so it raises students’ productivity and lowers their stress levels — and yours!
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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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