For many nonprofits, the ability to come together in-person – to hold hands, to hug, to connect is mission-critical. Inherently, nonprofits are in the business of human connectedness. Yet, since March, we have been challenged to create meaningful connections online. I am proud of the work Community Tampa Bay has done to pivot its in-person programming to an online world and cultivate meaningful human connection.

At Community Tampa Bay, we create space for difficult conversations and empower people with the tools to have hard conversations with others who don’t look like them, live like them, or love like them. We envision a community free from discrimination in which every individual is treated with dignity and respect, with regard to their race, ethnicity, citizenship, sex, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, ability, faith, and age.

Our work is inherently interpersonal, and until this year, was done entirely in person. For years, with the rise of email as a communication tool, and social media for everything from connectedness to advocacy, we’ve learned that difficult conversations are better had face to face. Imagine the challenge then to move our programming online with virtually no notice.

And our work took on even greater meaning as our nation collectively responded to the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor.

Accordingly, four cornerstones served as the foundation for our virtual programming: 1) the need for anti-discrimination work is essential as conversations about racial injustice have heightened and virus response has had a disparate impact on marginalized communities, 2) marginalized humans (especially the youth we’ve come to know through our programming) need safe and affirming spaces, 3), many humans have lost their usual routines and support structures – our program offerings must be consistent and reliable, 4) every human needs space to connect, grow, and maybe even have a little fun.

With these cornerstones in mind, Community Tampa Bay created the following initiatives. We hope our framework might affirm or inspire what other non-profits are doing to make their extraordinarily important (usually in-person) work go virtual.

CREATING SPACE

Creating Space, an Instagram Live program, creates space for dialogue about communities most affected by COVID-19 and how decades of systemic discrimination reveal themselves in challenging times.

HARD CONVERSATIONS

Hard Conversations, a YouTube program, emulates how to engage in difficult conversations around topics such as identity, privilege, and systems of oppression.

VIRTUAL COMMUNITY CIRCLE

Virtual Community Circle, a daily Zoom community, creates an online community so we can all energize each other in the morning and reflect together in the evening.

ANTI-BLACK RACISM WORKSHOPS

Community Tampa Bay created anti-Black racism workshops to assist individual learners who desire to engage in anti-racism work.

While online learning may provide a new set of challenges, it also provides space for genuine and necessary human connection.

For more information about Community Tampa Bay visit www.communitytampabay.org. You may reach the author and Chief Executive Officer of Community Tampa Bay, Tammy Briant Spratling by emailing tammy@communitytampabay.org.

We’ve been running our flagship summer day camp, Camp EDMO®, and year-round after school programs in Northern California since 2004. When COVID-19 forced the closures of California schools in March of 2020, our EDMO team took on the design challenge of a lifetime. In the span of ten days, we designed and prototyped a live, online, interactive learning platform. We revamped our programs to ensure that our integrated STEAM and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) curriculum was delivered virtually in a fun and engaging way for kids whose homes vary in size, space, and availability of materials.

Most importantly, we introduced our revolutionary Honor System Pricing model, to address inequities in accessing high-quality education programs. As a non-profit organization, we are committed to removing barriers that prevent all children from accessing our programs. Honor System Pricing allows families to choose whether they pay full price, donate more, or apply a 50% off or 80% off Honor Code if they need financial assistance. There are no financial aid forms, no wait times, or hurdles to overcome.

It was a whirlwind to remodel and restructure all of our programs to keep our organization going. With a dedicated volunteer staff, The EDMO Method, and a little faith in humanity, we made it happen. In fact, we were so successful that our online camps engaged over 5,000 kids from 45 states and 7 countries this summer. Want to know the secret of our success? Here are four quick tips we learned that can help your online classroom thrive, too.

Four EDMO Tips for Online Learning

1) Learn in Small Groups

Similar to what some schools planned for hybrid in-person classes, splitting students into smaller groups with either a morning or afternoon session works great for distance learning, too. We recommend 8-15 kids per session, max. This lets instructors see the whole class on-screen and provides an opportunity for a personal connection with each student.

2) Establish a Check-in Goal for Yourself

Ideally, you are checking in with all of your students during class to build rapport and ensure that they feel seen. However, this can be difficult when you are not in the same room as them. One way to address this is to establish a goal for how often you will check in with them. We found that setting a timer for every 5-10 minutes works well. You can use a variety of methods from spotlighting kids one at a time on the screen (if your video conferencing app allows) to asking them questions about their interests or what their day looks like when they are not in class.

3) Use Sign Language

Remember that kids don’t have to speak to engage. At EDMO we teach them three common ASL signs to use when their microphones are on mute:

• Me, too: Like a hang loose sign. Stick out your thumb and pinky, wave back and forth.
• Clap: Jazz hands, this looks great in the Zoom gallery view.
• Thumbs up/thumbs down: “Are we good to go on to the next step? Do you understand the direction? Give me a thumbs up!” Allow for thumbs down and middle thumbs.

4) Integrate SEL skill-building into your lessons

• Start your class with a feelings check-in every day to gauge where everyone is emotionally.
• Provide opportunities for kids to practice using their SEL skills so that they can develop their “emotional intelligence” or “EQ”.
• At EDMO, we use our own Social Emotional Learning (SEL) framework, The EDMO Method which helps children develop character traits such as responsibility, empathy, initiative, problem-solving, and emotion management – skills that last a lifetime.

We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished so quickly. We successfully revamped EDMO from an in-person camp to an online learning organization that provides programs that fit any schedule or budget. It took a lot of thoughtfulness to adapt systems we already had in place, like The EDMO Method, and to re-design the way we approached equity into Honor System Pricing. Now we’re taking what we’ve learned year-round, to support schools, districts, and organizations along with families through our Clubs and Coach programs for kids. Come check our programs out at campedmo.org.

Eduardo Caballero is executive director and co-founder of EDMO, a non-profit on a mission to make equitable, high-quality STEAM & SEL education programs accessible to all communities in order to cultivate curious, courageous, and kind humans everywhere. If you’d like to learn more about EDMO’s live, online, interactive learning platform, please visit https://campedmo.org/.

“Receiving the Excellence Award for the 2nd time was a tremendous honor for Aim High. It validated our commitment to relentless improvement and quality/deliberate expansion in the service of youth with limited opportunities but unlimited potential. The award also celebrated our distinctive model.” – Alec Lee, executive director, Aim High

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Is there anything better than making lists? I love crossing things off the to-do list, reminding myself of what’s coming my way and always, always anticipating the magic of summer. Because of Aim High, summer is my full-time job. I’m Alec Lee, executive director and co-founder of the Bay Area’s largest summer learning program for low-income middle school students. Below are a few reminders for me and my team about the power of summer learning, as we prepare for “Summer Number 35!”—because we all know that time of year will be here before we know it! 

I. Dare to Be Different

High-quality summer programs improve math and reading skills and also build critical social-emotional skills of students. These are skills that will help them not only in school but also in their careers and life. Summer also is a time to show students that learning—especially in the summer—can be joyful, adventurous, and fun. Our high-quality, multi-summer model utilizes project-based learning, a social/emotional curriculum, small class sizes, and tons of collaborative experiences to engage students and prepare them to thrive during the academic year. If you’d like to dig deeper, ask about our Issues and Choices class, which is more critical than ever during these fragile times.

II. Role Models Matter

Each summer, Aim High grads (high school and college students) make up 50 percent of interns and assistant teachers—evidence that our alumni are energized, rooted and committed to our program for the long-haul. These staff members play a pivotal role for our first-generation college-bound youth, reminding them that high school success and college matriculation is not just possible, it’s achievable.

Watch Deena’s Story to learn more about our incredible group of graduates and teaching interns. Ask us about our Aspiring Teachers Program.

III. Know Your Values

Aim High’s CORE Values: Community, Opportunity, Respect, and High Expectations, are infused into every aspect of our summer program. As one of our students said recently: “Aim High staff made me feel like I mattered at a time when I felt worthless. They showed me it was okay to be who I really am, to love who I am, and to not be ashamed of myself.” Restorative practices, community building, and open dialogue ensure that our middle schoolers feel seen, heard, and valued in safe and supportive environments.

IV. Honoring Our Families Voices and Choices

Family involvement is central to Aim High’s model. We hold three parent events during our five-week program: Family Orientation, Futures Night and Celebration Night. At these events, families explore high school and college options, learn about financial aid opportunities, and connect with our community-based partners (College Track, Legal Aid, etc.). We also are responsive to the needs of our families and take their feedback seriously. To learn more, ask us about Future’s Night and Opportunity Coaches.

V. Investing in Quality Educators

Aim High relies on over 550 educators each summer. Over the last two years, our organization has made a commitment to increase their salaries. Our program simply would not exist without our summer staff’s expertise, passion, and dedication to summer learning. Full disclosure: Finding enough quality teachers is our greatest organizational challenge. We hope by offering higher pay, alongside flexible schedules and embedded professional development will strengthen our teacher recruitment efforts.

If you’re reading this blog post, it’s because you recognize the power and potential of quality summer learning. I’m always looking for ways to make the case for magic and impact of summer. Please take a few minutes to listen to this episode of “Get Schooled”: https://www.soapboxproject.org/getschooled/aimhigh

We invite you to visit our website at https://www.aimhigh.org to learn more about our organization and our work to create life-changing opportunities for youth in our communities during the summer and beyond.

About the Authors

Alec Lee is an accomplished educator who co-founded Aim High in 1986 and serves as full-time Executive Director. Alec has an M.A. in Education from Harvard University, and received a Klingenstein Fellowship from Columbia Teachers College. He taught history at Lick-Wilmerding High School, a college preparatory high school in San Francisco, for 17 years.

Alix Joslyn recently leapt West from Portland, Maine and landed at Aim High in April 2018 and serves as a Grants Associate. In the cozy New England city she called home for nearly five years, she served as an AmeriCorps VISTA member and assistant director of a halfway house. She received her B.A. in Music History and M.S. in Professional Communication from Clark University in Worcester, MA.

What NSLA’s Trend Data Tells Us About Excellence Award Winners Over the Last Decade
(click the image to expand)

Posted: September 17, 2019
Author: Wallace editorial team

National Summer Learning Association CEO Aaron Dworkin on making summer a time of opportunity for kids, adults and communities

My high school basketball coach used to say, ‘No one gets better once the season starts. If you really want to get better, you put in time and effort over the summer.’” Aaron Dworkin took that lesson to heart. In June, he was named chief executive officer of the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA), which helped put summer on the map as a time for young people to sharpen their academic skills and discover new interests. Dworkin, a veteran of the nonprofit youth development field, is stepping into his new role at an exciting time for NSLA. The organization recently celebrated its 25th anniversary and is preparing to move its headquarters to Washington, D.C., where it will seek to persuade policymakers that providing a high-quality summer learning experience to every child is, in Dworkin’s words, “something we can cross off America’s to-do list.”

We talked to Dworkin about the journey that got him where he is today, how the conversation about summer learning has changed over time, and the work NSLA is doing now.*

How did you get interested in youth development? How has your background prepared you for this new position?

I’ve always been passionate about education and closing opportunity gaps. As a young person, I was in a range of schools and settings where I saw what some kids had and some didn’t. When you see that, it stays with you. I had a great appreciation for the opportunities I was given and a great commitment to making sure all young people have similar opportunities. I started a youth leadership program in New York City called Hoops and Leaders to recruit mostly men of color to be big brothers and mentors to teenage boys. That led me to study education and public policy formally at Harvard and Columbia, where I learned more about the broader nonprofit and education landscape. When I was a grad student, I was part of the team that helped start a sports-based youth development coalition called Up2Us Sports, which focuses on training youth sports coaches in youth development. I gained a national perspective to go with my local grassroots experience, and all that brought me to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s charity After-School All-Stars, first as their inaugural national program director and then as president of their national network of 20 chapters. When I was at After-School All-Stars, we created and scaled lots of different summer learning programs. They were great for the for kids but doubled as terrific professional development for staff. Summer has always been one of these spaces where you can innovate and partner more to better serve kids and communities.

How is NSLA helping organizations connect their priorities to summer learning?

In the American education system, we make a commitment to kids from September to June. Then, you get to summer, and I’m not going to say it’s the wild west, but it’s a quarter of the school year, and some kids are going to camp and museums and traveling and learning around the world, while too many have little or nothing to do besides sitting on the couch or looking at their phone. There’s research to prove that over the summer months low-income students fall behind academically. They’re not as physically active, they gain weight and eat less healthily. They may not have access to meals.There are safety issues. And the effects of this are cumulative from summer to summer.

So we partner with lots of different organizations, from funders like The Wallace Foundation to school districts, libraries, housing authorities, parks and recreation centers, nonprofits and CBOs. We want to make sure they have whatever evidenced-based resources they need, whether it’s staff training, best practices for running a program, or research so they’re able to make the case locally that this matters. We work with people to draft legislation. We have a national conference every year with 500 to 700 education leaders. We also give national recognition to model programs with our Excellence in Summer Learning Awards, which are very rigorous. Hundreds of groups apply every year, and we only honor three to four programs as examples of what’s possible.

Read the Full Article Here