21st Century Community Learning Centers Study

Contract # ED-CFO-10-A-0110-0001

21^st Century Community Learning Centers: Lessons Learned Guides

Deliverable 8.3: Final ILT Interview Protocols

January 16, 2012

Revised January 31, 2012

Revised February 6, 2012

Revised April 27, 2012

Prepared for

Prepared by

Interview Protocol for Increased Learning Time

Project Director

Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. As you are aware, the purpose of this visit is to learn more about the 21^st CCLC program’s efforts to support structures to increase learning time (ILT). For this study, ILT is defined as the strategy of increasing the total number of hours dedicated to engagement in core academic subjects and enrichment activities, as well as to teacher/afterschool staff collaboration, joint planning, and professional development through the alignment of out-of-school time programs with the school day. Districts and schools can provide additional learning opportunities as part of a longer school day, week, or year; an out-of-school program can support ILT before or after school, on weekends, or during the summer months.

We are going to begin with some general questions about the 21^st CCLC program and then get more specific about issues that relate to your efforts in ILT programming. We understand that you may not be familiar enough with all aspects of the 21^st CCLC program to be able to answer all our questions, so let us know if that occurs. This interview is in no way linked to your funding, and your responses will not be reported individually. We will take every measure possible to protect the privacy of interviewees as well as to ensure the confidentiality of the data collected, to the extent possible. We would like to record this interview for note-taking purposes only. We won’t name you by name in the report, although your program will be featured in it. Is that OK?

SECTION 1 GENERAL PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

1. Project Director Background

Let’s start by talking about the 21^st CCLC program and your role in it.

1. Please tell me about your role and experience with the 21^st CCLC program. (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Responsibilities

• Programs and activities supervised or led

• Duration of tenure with 21^st CCLC

• Other positions held

• How many sites supervised

2. What is your professional background? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Previous teaching or youth work experience, including prior experience with 21^st CCLC programming

• Educational background

• Teaching credential or credential related to youth development or child and youth care

2. Program Overview

Now let’s talk about the 21^st CCLC program at this site in general. (Note: If this is a multi-site program, then be specific that you want the project director to talk about the site selected for this study, unless specifically asked otherwise.)

3. What are the most important program objectives of this site? How were those objectives developed? How do academics and academic goals fit within these overall objectives?

4. How do you see your role in a 21^st CCLC program as contributing to student learning? How does that fit with the school’s or parents’ roles?

5. If this is a multi-site program, how is this site different from other sites that you oversee? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Location

• Staffing

• Time frame

• Duration

• Student population

SECTION 2 PRACTICES SPECIFIC TO INCREASED LEARNING TIME

We have been talking about your program in general at this site, but now I want to turn to your ILT activities in particular.

3. Alignment With the School Day

Let’s start by talking about alignment with the school day. What mechanisms does this site have in place to align with the school day?

6. Does the program at this site coordinate targeted instruction with school day teachers to reinforce concepts that individual students may be struggling with? If so, how?

7. Does it use input from the school day teachers to modify the instructional approaches? If so, how?

8. Does your program align your curricula with any content standards? If so, how? (If not mentioned, probe for the following kinds of standards.)

• State standards

• Local standards

9. What kind of collaborative planning, if any, takes place between the program and the school day?

10. Is there someone whose job it is to ensure effective alignment between your program and the school day? If so, please describe that role and who performs it.

11. What are your top three strategies for alignment with the school day?

12. What challenges have you encountered in your efforts to align with the school day?

4. Staffing and Professional Development

We are interested in learning about the kinds of staff you have at your program and how they are trained to support increased learning time.

13. Please describe your staffing model (or structure).

14. Tell me about the professional backgrounds of the program staff. (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Roles for paid staff

• Roles for volunteers

• Educational and professional backgrounds of your paid staff

• Educational and professional backgrounds of your volunteers

• Educational and professional backgrounds of your community partners

15. What do you look for when hiring staff who can work to support ILT?

16. What kind of support, if any, do you provide your staff so that they are able to implement the programs properly?

17. Do you have staff who cross over between the program and the school day? If so, can you please describe their roles in both settings?

    • How many hours do staff work in both settings?

    • How are you able to fund the positions?

18. If there is crossover, what do you think are the benefits of a blended staffing model?

5. Program Monitoring and Assessment

Now let’s talk about how your program uses data to monitor student progress.

19. How does the site assess students’ learning needs? What kind of data/information do you collect on student progress?

20. How, if at all, does the site communicate with school day teachers about data/information on student progress?

21. Do you and your school partners have data-sharing agreements in place? If so, can you please tell me what those are and what data gets shared?

22. Do you have an external evaluator? If so, can you please describe the evaluation? If this is a multi-site program, how does the evaluation differ for this site?

23. What data do you require your site director to collect about this site? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Participation data

• Program quality data

• Staff evaluations

24. What structures, if any, are in place to enable staff to examine and discuss student data? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Weekly team meetings

• Written summaries of student progress

25. What barriers or challenges have you encountered in trying to use information to improve alignment with the school day and how have you overcome them?

6. Community Partnerships

26. What community partners do you work with and how do they promote ILT?

27. How do you select community partners that will support ILT?

28. If you run a multi-site program, please reflect on how, if at all, partners at this site differ from those at other sites.

7. Relationship Between the School Year and Summer Program (if applicable)¹

Let’s talk about the relationship between your school year program and your summer program with regard to your efforts to increase learning time.

29. How, if at all, do the summer program activities differ from school year activities in terms of providing structures to support ILT?

30. How, if at all, do you ensure continuity for students who participate in both the school year and summer program?

8. Funding

31. How, if at all, are your efforts to increase learning time affected by your funding?

32. If you run a multi-site program, is there a difference in the funding of this site as opposed to other sites? If so, please elaborate.

9. Challenges

33. In addition to the challenges already discussed, what barriers or challenges have you encountered in trying to create structures to increase learning time and how have you overcome them? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

10. Advice for Others

34. What suggestions do you have for other 21^st CCLC grantees or potential applicants to the 21^st CCLC program interested in supporting better integration to increase learning time?

11. Final Thoughts

35. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about this site’s efforts to increase learning time?

Interview Protocol for Increased Learning Time

Site Director

Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. As you are aware, the purpose of this visit is to learn more about the 21^st CCLC program’s efforts to support structures to increase learning time (ILT). For this study, ILT is defined as the strategy of increasing the total number of hours dedicated to engagement in core academic subjects and enrichment activities, as well as to teacher/afterschool staff collaboration, joint planning, and professional development through the alignment of out-of-school time programs with the school day. Districts and schools can provide additional learning opportunities as part of a longer school day, week, or year; an out-of-school program can support ILT before or after school, on weekends, or during the summer months.

We are going to begin with some general questions about the 21^st CCLC program and then get more specific about issues that relate to your efforts to increase learning time. We understand that you may not be familiar enough with all aspects of the 21^st CCLC program to be able to answer all our questions, so let us know if that occurs. This interview is in no way linked to your funding, and your responses will not be reported individually. We will take every measure possible to protect the privacy of interviewees as well as to ensure the confidentiality of the data collected, to the extent possible. We would like to record this interview for note-taking purposes only. We won’t name you by name in the report, although your program will be featured in it. Is that OK?

SECTION 1 GENERAL PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

1. Site Director Background

Let’s start by talking about your role in the 21^st CCLC program.

1. Please tell me about your role and experience at this program. (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Responsibilities

• Programs and activities supervised or led

• Hours per week worked here

• Duration of tenure at the site and in the organization

• Other positions held here

1. What is your professional background? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.}

• Previous teaching or youth work experience, including prior experience with 21^st CCLC programming

• Educational background

• Teaching credential or credential related to youth development or child and youth care

2. Program Overview

Now let’s talk about the program itself.

2. What are the most important objectives of this site? How were those objectives developed? How do academics and academic goals fit within these overall objectives?

3. How do you see your role in a 21^st CCLC program as contributing to student learning? How does that fit with the school’s or parents’ roles?

4. Let’s look over a typical weekly schedule. Tell me about these programs. How did/do you decide on which programs and activities to offer? How often, if at all, do you change the schedule or activities (e.g., seasonal changes, session changes)?

3. Student Attendance

Now let’s talk a little bit about the students who attend the program. How do you encourage participation to ensure that students attend a sufficient amount of time to maximize the benefit of participating in your program?

5. What, if any, are your student recruitment and enrollment processes? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following area.)

   • Written attendance policies

6. Do you have attendance goals? If so, what are they and how are they communicated to students?

7. How do you monitor attendance? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Activity

• Daily

• Weekly

8. What do you do if you notice that students who are enrolled in the program are chronically absent?

9. How do you deal with transportation issues?

10. How, if at all, do you communicate with parents about the importance of attendance?

SECTION 2 PRACTICES SPECIFIC TO INCREASED LEARNING TIME

We have been talking about your program in general at this site, but now I want to turn to your efforts to support increased learning time in particular.

4. Alignment With the School Day

Let’s talk about alignment with the school day.

12. How regularly do you or your staff communicate with teachers at the school (daily, weekly, or monthly) and what is the nature of those communications? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Logistics/space negotiations

• Sharing information about students

• Sharing about the progress of students

• Sharing curriculum and other resources

12. Do you coordinate targeted instruction with school day teachers to reinforce concepts that individual students may be struggling with? If so, how?

13. Do you use input from the school day teachers to modify your staff’s instructional approaches? If so, how?

14. Does your program align your curricula with any content standards? If so, how? (If not mentioned, probe for the following kinds of standards.)

• State standards

• Local standards

12. Please describe how, if at all, you and your staff coordinate and communicate with your students’ teachers.

13. Does any collaborative planning take place between your program and the school day? If so, what is it? Are you part of the instructional leadership team? If so, how do you participate in that group?

14. Do you and the school have a shared vision for student success? If so, what is it and how did you develop that?

15. What are your relationships like with school support staff, such as custodians, counselors, bus drivers, and lunchroom workers? How would you characterize your relationship with the school principal and other administrators?

16. Is there someone at the program or in the school whose job it is to ensure effective alignment between your program and the school day? If so, please describe that role and who performs it.

17. How, if at all, does your program support grade-level transitions from one year to the next?

18. What are your top three strategies for alignment with the school day?

19. What challenges have you encountered in your efforts to align with the school day?

5. Instructional Practices

We are interested in learning about the instructional practices aimed at promoting ILT.

12. How, if at all, are the instructional practices your site uses the same or different from those of the school day?

13. How do you or the staff decide what activities you’ll use (e.g., a curriculum, lesson plans from classroom teachers, instructors’ lesson plans)?

14. How, if at all, do you link students’ learning to real-world experiences?

15. Are you familiar with the term “project-based learning”? Is this a teaching strategy you use? Can you please give an example from the past ten days of an activity that utilized this approach?

16. What kinds of instructional arrangements do you use and how do you decide to use them? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• One-on-one

• Small group

• Large group

• Peer-to-peer

6. Staffing and Professional Development

We are interested in learning about the kinds of staff you have at your program and how they are trained to support the ILT program.

12. Please describe your staffing arrangements and staff backgrounds. (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Roles for paid staff

• Roles for volunteers

• Educational and professional backgrounds of your paid staff

• Educational and professional backgrounds of your volunteers

• Educational and professional backgrounds of your community partners

12. What special skills or talents do you look for when hiring staff who can work to support ILT?

13. What kind of support, if any, do you provide your staff so that they are able to implement the programs properly?

14. Do you have staff who cross over between your program and the school day? If so, can you please describe their roles in both settings?

• How many hours do staff work in both settings?

• How are you able to fund the positions?

12. Are you also in the school during the school day? If so, what do you do there?

13. If you have a blended staffing model, what advantages do you see it has in supporting ILT?

7. Student Engagement

Please describe the ways you ensure that your students are actively engaged and interested in your program’s activities to support ILT.

12. What opportunities exist for students to work with one another?

13. What efforts exist to build youth-adult relationships among program participants and staff?

14. How, if at all, does the program communicate with families about the importance of participation?

15. What, if any, opportunities exist for students to take responsibility for their own learning?

16. How, if at all, is student choice built into programming options?

8. Program Monitoring and Assessment

Now let’s talk about how your program uses data to monitor student progress and ensure that the activities your program is providing best support their learning needs.

12. How do you assess students’ learning needs? What kind of data do you collect on student progress?

13. How, if at all, do you and your staff communicate with school day teachers about data/information on student progress?

14. Do you and your school partners have data-sharing agreements in place? If so, can you please tell me what those are and what data gets shared?

15. Do you have an external evaluator? If so, can you please describe the evaluation?

16. What data do you collect about this site? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Participation data

• Program quality data

• Staff evaluations

12. What structures, if any, are in place to enable staff to examine and discuss student data? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Weekly team meetings

• Written summaries of student progress

12. What barriers or challenges have you encountered in trying to use information to improve alignment with the school day and how have you overcome them?

9. Community Partnerships

12. What community partners do you work with and how do they promote ILT?

13. How do you select community partners who will support ILT?

10. Relationship Between the School Year and Summer Program (if applicable)²

Let’s talk about the relationship between your school year program and your summer program with regard to efforts to increase learning time.

12. How, if at all, do the summer program activities differ from school year activities in terms of providing structures to support ILT?

13. How, if at all, do you ensure continuity for students who participate in both the school year and summer program?

11. Funding

12. How, if at all, are your efforts to increase learning time affected by your funding?

12. Challenges

In addition to the challenges already identified, what barriers or challenges have you encountered in trying to create structures to increase learning time and how have you overcome them?

13. Advice for Others

12. What suggestions do you have for other 21^st CCLC grantees or potential applicants to the 21^st CCLC program interested in supporting better integration to increase learning time?

14. Final Thoughts

12. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about the program’s efforts to increase learning time?

Interview Protocol for Increased Learning Time

Afterschool Staff

Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. As you are aware, the purpose of this visit is to learn more about the 21^st CCLC program’s efforts to support structures to increase learning time (ILT). For this study, ILT is defined as the strategy of increasing the total number of hours dedicated to engagement in core academic subjects and enrichment activities, as well as to teacher/afterschool staff collaboration, joint planning, and professional development through the alignment of out-of-school time programs with the school day. Districts and schools can provide additional learning opportunities as part of a longer school day, week, or year; an out-of-school program can support ILT before or after school, on weekends, or during the summer months.

We are going to begin with some general questions about the 21^st CCLC program and then get more specific about issues that relate to your efforts to increase learning time. We understand that you may not be familiar enough with all aspects of the 21^st CCLC program to be able to answer all our questions, so let us know if that occurs. This interview is in no way linked to your funding, and your responses will not be reported individually. We will take every measure possible to protect the privacy of interviewees as well as to ensure the confidentiality of the data collected, to the extent possible. We would like to record this interview for note-taking purposes only. We won’t name you by name in the report, although your program will be featured in it. Is that OK?

SECTION 1 GENERAL PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

1. Afterschool Staff Background

Let’s start by talking about your role in the 21^st CCLC program.

1. Please tell me about your role and experience with this program. (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Responsibilities

• Programs and activities supervised or led

• Hours per week worked here

• Duration of tenure at the site and in the organization

• Other positions held here

2. What is your professional background? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Previous teaching or youth work experience, including prior experience with 21^st CCLC programming

• Educational background

• Teaching credential or credential related to youth development or child and youth care

2. Program Overview

Now let’s talk about the 21^st CCLC program in general.

3. Let’s look over a typical weekly schedule. Tell me about these programs. How did/do you decide on which programs and activities to offer? How often, if at all, do you change the schedule or activities (e.g., seasonal changes, session changes)?

3. Student Attendance

Now let’s talk a little bit about the students who attend the program. How do you encourage participation to ensure that students attend a sufficient amount of time to maximize the benefit of participating in your program?

4. What do you do if you notice that students who are enrolled in the program are chronically absent from it?

5. How, if at all, do you communicate with parents about the importance of attendance?

SECTION 2 PRACTICES SPECIFIC TO INCREASED LEARNING TIME

We have been talking about your program in general at this site, but now I want to turn to your efforts to support ILT in particular.

4. Alignment With the School Day

Let’s start by talking about alignment with the school day. What mechanisms does your program have in place to align with the school day?

6. How regularly do you communicate with teachers at the school (daily, weekly, or monthly) and what is the nature of those communications? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Logistics/space negotiations

• Sharing information about students

• Sharing about the progress of students

• Sharing curriculum and other resources

7. Do you use input from the school day teachers to modify your instructional approaches? If so, how?

8. Does your program align your curricula with any content standards? If so, how? (If not mentioned, probe for the following kinds of standards.)

• State standards

• Local standards

9. Does any collaborative planning take place between your program and the school day? If so, what is it? Are you part of the instructional leadership team? If so, how do you participate in that group?

10. What are your relationships like with the many people who work at the school, such as custodians, counselors, bus drivers, and lunchroom workers? How would you characterize your relationship with the school principal and other administrators?

11. How, if at all, does your program support grade-level transitions from one year to the next?

12. What are your top three strategies for alignment with the school day?

13. What challenges have you encountered in your efforts to align with the school day?

5. Instructional Practices

We are interested in learning about the instructional practices aimed at supporting ILT.

14. How, if at all, are the instructional practices you use the same or different from those of the school day?

15. How do you decide what activities you’ll use (e.g., a curriculum, lesson plans from classroom teachers, instructors’ lesson plans)?

16. What kind of instructional settings do you use and how do you decide to use them? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• One-on-one

• Small group

• Large group

• Peer-to-peer

17. How, if at all, do you link students’ learning to real-world experiences?

18. Are you familiar with the term “project-based learning”? Is this a teaching strategy you use? Can you please give an example from the past ten days of an activity that utilized this approach?

VI. Staffing and Professional Development

We are interested in learning about the kinds of staff who work at the program and how they are trained to support ILT.

19. Are you also in the school during the school day? If so, what do you do there?

20. What kind of support, if any, do you receive so that you are able to implement the program to effectively increase learning time?

21. Do you participate in joint professional development experiences with school day personnel?

22. If you are also a teacher during the school day, how is your teaching the same or different between the classroom and program settings?

23. If you are a teacher during the school day, what do you think are the benefits of working in both settings?

7. Student Engagement

Please describe the ways you ensure that your students are actively engaged and interested in your program’s activities that promote ILT.

24. What opportunities exist for students to work with one another?

25. What efforts exist to build youth-adult relationships between program participants and yourself?

26. How, if at all, do you communicate with families about the importance of participation?

27. What, if any, opportunities exist for students to take responsibility for their own learning?

28. How, if at all, is student choice built into programming options?

7. Program Monitoring and Assessment

Now let’s talk about how your program uses data to monitor student progress and ensure that the activities your program is providing best support their learning needs.

29. How do you assess students’ learning needs? What kind of data/information do you collect on student progress?

30. How, if at all, do you communicate with school day teachers about data/information on student progress?

31. What structures, if any, are in place to enable you and your colleagues to examine and discuss student data? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Weekly team meetings

• Written summaries of student progress

32. What barriers or challenges have you encountered in trying to use information to improve alignment with the school day and how have you overcome them?

7. Relationship Between the School Year and Summer Program (if applicable)³

Let’s talk about the relationship between your school year program and your summer program with regard to efforts to increase learning time.

33. Do you work in the summer program? If so, how, if at all, do the summer program activities that you provide differ from school year activities in terms of providing structures to support ILT?

34. How, if at all, do you ensure continuity for students who participate in both the school year and summer program?

7. Challenges

35. In addition to the challenges already discussed, what barriers or challenges have you encountered in trying to create structures to increase learning time and how have you overcome them?)

7. Advice for Others

36. What suggestions do you have for other 21^st CCLC program staff who are interested in supporting better integration with the school day to increase learning time?

7. Final Thoughts

37. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about the program’s efforts to increase learning time?

Interview Protocol for Increased Learning Time

Principal

Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. As you are aware, the purpose of this visit is to learn more about the 21^st CCLC program’s efforts to support structures to increase learning time (ILT). For this study, ILT is defined as the strategy of increasing the total number of hours dedicated to engagement in core academic subjects and enrichment activities, as well as to teacher/afterschool staff collaboration, joint planning, and professional development through the alignment of out-of-school time programs with the school day. Districts and schools can provide additional learning opportunities as part of a longer school day, week, or year; an out-of-school program can support ILT before or after school, on weekends, or during the summer months.

We are going to begin with some general questions about the 21^st CCLC program and then get more specific about issues that relate to your efforts to increase learning time. We understand that you may not be familiar enough with all aspects of the 21^st CCLC program to be able to answer all our questions, so let us know if that occurs. This interview is in no way linked to funding for the 21^st CCLC program, and your responses will not be reported individually. We will take every measure possible to protect the privacy of interviewees as well as to ensure the confidentiality of the data collected, to the extent possible. We would like to record this interview for note-taking purposes only. We won’t name you by name in the report, although your program will be featured in it. Is that OK?

SECTION 1 GENERAL PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

1. Program Overview

Let’s start by talking about the 21^st CCLC program in general.

1. How long have you had a 21^st CCLC program at your school?

What are the advantages you see to having a 21^st CCLC program at your school?

SECTION 2 PRACTICES SPECIFIC TO INCREASED LEARNING TIME

We have been talking about the program in general at this site, but now I want to turn to your efforts to support increased learning time in particular.

2. Alignment With the School Day

Let’s start by talking about alignment with the school day. What mechanisms are in place to align afterschool programming with what happens during the school day?

2. What kind of collaborative planning, if any, takes place between the program and the school day?

3. Do you and the program have a shared vision for student success? If so, what is it and how did you develop that?

4. Do school day teachers coordinate targeted instruction with program staff to reinforce concepts that individual students may be struggling with? If so, how?

5. How would you characterize your relationship with the site director and afterschool staff?

6. Is there someone at the school whose job it is to ensure effective alignment between your program and the school day? If so, please describe that role and who performs it.

7. How regularly do you or your staff communicate with program staff (daily, weekly, or monthly) and what is the nature of those communications? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Logistics/space negotiations

• Sharing information about students

• Sharing about the progress of students

• Sharing curriculum and other resources

3. Instructional Practices

We are interested in learning how the instructional practices at the program support ILT.

9. Do you play a role in deciding what activities the program offers? If so, what specifically do you do?

10. What do you see as the main similarities and differences between instruction in the afterschool program and instruction during the school day?

4. Staffing and Professional Development

We are interested in learning about the kinds of staff you have at the program and how they are trained to support ILT.

9. Do you have teachers who work in the program after school? If so, how do you see their teaching as being the same or different between the classroom and program settings?

10. If there is crossover, what do you think are the benefits of a blended staffing model?

5. Program Monitoring and Assessment

Now let’s talk about how the program uses data to monitor student progress and ensure that the activities that the program is providing best support their learning needs.

9. How, if at all, do school day teachers communicate with the afterschool staff about student progress?

10. Do the school and program have data-sharing agreements in place? If so, can you please tell me what those are and what data gets shared?

11. What structures, if any, are in place to enable teachers and program staff to examine and discuss student data? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Weekly team meetings

• Written summaries of student progress

9. What barriers or challenges have you encountered in trying to share information about student progress with the afterschool program and how have you overcome them?

6. Relationship Between the School Year and Summer Program (if applicable)⁴

Let’s talk about the relationship between the school year program and the summer program with regard to efforts to increase learning time.

9. What is the relationship between your school and the summer 21^st CCLC program?

10. Are there differences in how you work with the 21^st CCLC program in the summer, as compared to during the school year, to increase learning time? If so, what are they?

7. Challenges

9. In addition to the challenges already discussed, what barriers or challenges have you encountered in working with the 21^st CCLC program to creating structures to increase learning time and how have you overcome them?

8. Advice for Others

9. What suggestions do you have for other principals who want to work with 21^st CCLC programs to support better integration with the school day to increase learning time?

9. Final Thoughts

9. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about the program’s efforts to increase learning time?

Interview Protocol for Increased Learning Time

Teacher (NOT working in the program)

Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. As you are aware, the purpose of this visit is to learn more about the 21^st CCLC program’s efforts to support structures to increase learning time (ILT). For this study, ILT is defined as the strategy of increasing the total number of hours dedicated to engagement in core academic subjects and enrichment activities, as well as to teacher/afterschool staff collaboration, joint planning, and professional development through the alignment of out-of-school time programs with the school day. Districts and schools can provide additional learning opportunities as part of a longer school day, week, or year; an out-of-school program can support ILT before or after school, on weekends, or during the summer months.

We are going to begin with some general questions about the 21^st CCLC program and then get more specific about issues that relate to your efforts to increase learning time. We understand that you may not be familiar enough with all aspects of the 21^st CCLC program to be able to answer all our questions, so let us know if that occurs. This interview is in no way linked to the program’s funding, and your responses will not be recorded individually. We will take every measure possible to protect the privacy of interviewees as well as to ensure the confidentiality of the data collected, to the extent possible. We would like to record this interview for note-taking purposes only. We won’t name you by name in the report, although the program will be featured in it. Is that OK?

SECTION 1 GENERAL PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

1. Program Overview

Let’s start by talking about the 21^st CCLC program in general.

1. How, if at all, do you interact with the 21^st CCLC program at your school?

2. What are the advantages you see to having a 21^st CCLC program at your school? (

2. Student Attendance

Now let’s talk a little bit about the students who attend the program.

3. How, if at all, do you help the program with recruitment and enrollment? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Refer/recommend students to program

• Post brochures/flyers in my classroom

• Include information about the program at my back-to-school night for families

SECTION 2 PRACTICES SPECIFIC TO INCREASED LEARNING TIME

We have been talking about the program in general at this site, but now I want to turn to your efforts to support increased learning time in particular.

3. Alignment With the School Day

Let’s start by talking about alignment with the school day. What mechanisms are in place to align afterschool programming with what happens during the school day?

4. What kind of collaborative planning, if any, takes place between you and the afterschool staff?

5. How would you characterize your relationship with the site director and afterschool staff?

6. How regularly do you communicate with the afterschool staff (daily, weekly, or monthly) and what is the nature of those communications? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Logistics/space negotiations

• Sharing information about students

• Sharing about the progress of students

• Sharing curriculum and other resources

• How do you relay information regarding students’ progress in ILT?

• Do you coordinate targeted instruction with program staff to reinforce concepts that individual students may be struggling with? If so, how?

4. Instructional Practices

We are interested in learning how the instructional practices at the program support ILT.

7. Do you play a role in deciding what activities the program offers? If so, what specifically do you do?

8. What do you see as the main similarities and differences between instruction in the afterschool program and instruction during the school day?

5. Program Monitoring and Assessment

Now let’s talk about how the program uses data to monitor student progress and ensure that the activities your program is providing best support their learning needs.

7. How, if at all, do you communicate with afterschool staff about student progress?

8. What information do you share with the afterschool program? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Grades and report cards

• Testing data

• Informal observations of students

• None

7. What structures, if any, are in place to enable you to examine and discuss student data with the afterschool staff? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

1. Weekly team meetings

2. Written summaries of student progress

6. Challenges

7. What barriers or challenges have you encountered in working with the afterschool program to create structures to increase learning time and how have you overcome them?

7. Advice for Others

7. What suggestions do you have for other classroom teachers who might want to work with a 21^st CCLC program to support better integration to increase learning time?

8. Final Thoughts

7. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about the program’s efforts to increase learning time?

Interview Protocol for Increased Learning Time

Community Partner

Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. As you are aware, the purpose of this visit is to learn more about the 21^st CCLC program’s efforts to support structures to increase learning time (ILT). For this study, ILT is defined as the strategy of increasing the total number of hours dedicated to engagement in core academic subjects and enrichment activities, as well as to teacher/afterschool staff collaboration, joint planning, and professional development through the alignment of out-of-school time programs with the school day. Districts and schools can provide additional learning opportunities as part of a longer school day, week, or year; an out-of-school program can support ILT before or after school, on weekends, or during the summer months.

We are going to begin with some general questions about the 21^st CCLC program and then get more specific about issues that relate to your efforts to increase learning time. We understand that you may not be familiar enough with all aspects of the 21^st CCLC program to be able to answer all our questions, so let us know if that occurs. This interview is in no way linked to the program’s funding, and your responses will not be reported individually. We will take every measure possible to protect the privacy of interviewees as well as to ensure the confidentiality of the data collected, to the extent possible. We would like to record this interview for note-taking purposes only. We won’t name you by name in the report, although the program will be featured in it. Is that OK?

SECTION 1 GENERAL PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

1. Community Partner Background

Let’s start by talking about the 21^st CCLC program and your role in it.

1. Please tell me about your role and experience with this program. (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Responsibilities

• Programs and activities supervised or led

• Hours per week worked here

• Duration of tenure at the site and in the organization

• Other positions held here

2. What is your professional background? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Previous teaching or youth work experience, including prior experience with 21st CCLC programming

• Educational background

• Teaching credential or credential related to youth development or child and youth care

3. As a community partner, what specific expertise do you provide to the program?

4. How, if at all, do you think your presence at the program supports ILT?

2. Student Attendance

Now let’s talk a little bit about the students who attend the program.

5. How, if at all, does your organization help the program with recruitment and enrollment? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Refer/recommend students to program

• Post brochures/flyers in the community

SECTION 2 PRACTICES SPECIFIC TO INCREASED LEARNING TIME

We have been talking about the program in general at this site, but now I want to turn to the activities to support increased learning time in particular.

3. Alignment With the School Day

Let’s start by talking about alignment with the school day. What mechanisms do you or your organization have in place to align with the school day?

6. Are you or your organization engaged with what happens during the school day? If so, what do you do there?

7. How would you characterize your relationship with classroom teachers?

8. How regularly do you communicate with classroom teachers (daily, weekly, or monthly) and what is the nature of those communications? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• Logistics/space negotiations

• Sharing information about students

• Sharing about the progress of students

• Sharing curriculum and other resources

9. What are your relationships like with the many people who work at the school—e.g., custodians, counselors, bus drivers, lunchroom workers? How would you characterize your relationship with the school principal and other administrators?

4. Instructional Practices

We are interested in learning how the instructional practices at the program support ILT. Please describe the kinds of instructional settings that you work in at the program as you are familiar with them.

10. How, if at all, do you decide what ILT activities to implement at the program (e.g., a curriculum, lesson plans from classroom teachers, instructors’ lesson plans)?

11. How, if at all, do you coordinate targeted instruction with school day teachers to reinforce concepts that individual students may be struggling with? How, if at all, do you use input from the school day teachers to modify your instructional approaches?

12. How do you link students’ learning to real-world experiences?

13. Are you familiar with the term “project-based learning”? Is this a teaching strategy you use? Can you please give an example from the past ten days of an activity that utilized this approach?

14. What kind of instructional settings do you use and how do you decide to use them? (If not mentioned, probe for details in the following areas.)

• One-on-one

• Small group

• Large group

• Peer-to-peer

5. Student Engagement

Please describe the ways you ensure that your students are actively engaged and interested in the program’s activities that support ILT.

15. What opportunities exist for students to work with one another?

16. What efforts exist to build youth-adult relationships between program participants and yourself?

17. What, if any, opportunities exist for students to take responsibility for their own learning?

18. How, if at all, is student choice built into programming options?

6. Challenges

19. What barriers or challenges have you encountered in trying to create structures to increase learning time and how hove you overcome them?.)

7. Advice for Others

20. What suggestions do you have for other community partners who want to work in a 21^st CCLC program aimed at supporting better integration to increase learning time?

8. Final Thoughts

21. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about the program’s efforts to increase learning time?

1 Please note: This section will be included for all summer programs that are visited that also operate school year programs and for all school year programs that are visited that also operate summer programs.

2 Please note: This section will be included for all summer programs that are visited that also operate school year programs and for all school year programs that are visited that also operate summer programs.

3 Please note: This section will be included for all summer programs that are visited that also operate school year programs and for all school year programs that are visited that also operate summer programs.

4 Please note: This section will be included for all summer programs that are visited that also operate school year programs and for all school year programs that are visited that also operate summer programs.