On October 9, Dr. Michele Bowers, former LA County Superintendent of the Year and past CAAASA president hosted a webinar along with Dr. Helen Wang, CEO and Co-Founder of 6crickets. The two were joined by an all-star panel of pioneers in the expanded learning field including:
• Cherie Gann from Mt. Diablo (Contra Costa County)
• Michele Reid from Visalia USD (Tulare County County)
• Dr. Jerry Block from Simi Valley USD (Ventura County)
• Esther Garcia from Rowland USD (LA)
• Ofelia Fitzpatrick from Rialto USD (San Bernardino County)
• John Norton from Bonsall USD (San Diego County)
We will capture the highlights from the webinar in three newsletters: (1) Choice Driven, (2) Tapping into community partners and taming logistics, (3) Student Safety and Community Culture.
If you’d like to view it in its entirety, please request the full recording and presentation slides here. The key takeaway, as shared by John Norton, is that good things are happening for our kids.
Part 1 – Choice Driven
As stated above, expanded learning should be choice-driven, meaning it should be based on the unique interests of your student. But how is this achieved?
In recognizing that his schools and students are an integral part of the community John Norton of Bonsall emphasized that “we want to make sure that our ELO-P program reflected Bonsall Unified and our families, our community, and what their interests were”. Bonsall is a rural farming community and just last year brought on a provider that built a farm for students to work as an enrichment activity!
What impact might this choice-driven programming have on the student population? “Our students are increasing their academic achievement by participating in our enrichment programs. Our attendance rates are going up because they know that on Thursdays they get to go to the farm or on Tuesdays they have French classes. They’re showing up at school; coming out of the pandemic, that was a huge challenge for all districts–to get students back in the seats, to get parents back on campus and ELO-P has been our solution for that.”
Michele Reid of Visalia shared that this year she and her team also put the focus back on the families, “we’ve really looked at what our program is and what we’re offering and we’ve taken a step back and really looked at what we can do for our families…one of the best things we’ve decided to do with the idea of choice in mind, is to provide students and families with options.”
Dr. Jerry Block shared his similar experience at Simi Valley USD, “Parents are struggling to make ends meet, so to be able to have that safe place where kids get both enrichment and intervention support is so critical…this really is a way to level the playing field so that all kids get those extension opportunities and those intervention opportunities that they need to be successful”. In giving parents and students choice we are promoting interest, making families stakeholders in their children’s education, giving our kids a voice. Students can tap into their own agency to be able to pick extracurricular and enrichment activities and have choice-driven, interest-driven, and engaged learning with their peers. Their interests will be supported and their voices heard. By listening to our students and helping them feel seen, we equip them with buy-in and give them authority over their own education. We let student interests drive their learning and students are then able to invest in themselves.“
As the old adage goes, it takes a village to raise a child. This will be the topic for Part 2 of the webinar recap in the next newsletter: how these six California districts have leaned on their communities and education partners to power their expanded learning. Please stay tuned!
Yours in Education,
6crickets Team
