Breakfast Club Blog
The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is a curated space where bloggers from around the world contribute content on a continual basis about a variety of topics relevant to in and out-of-school time. The BOOST Breakfast Club blog is at the heart of an ongoing dialogue where expanded learning and education professionals share their personal thoughts and stories from the in and out-of-school time field. They also tell us what they ate for breakfast!
The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is Brain Food for In and Out-of-School Time Leaders!
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Knowing My Why Is The Root Of My Success
In 2008, I got the courage to start my own professional development company. I have been designing my purpose for this company for the last 11 years. “Dignity of Children believes that all children are born with inherent dignity. They have a right to be loved, nurtured, and valued. Children and youth deserve to be kept safe. They are entitled to a proper education. Children thrive when adults understand their developmental needs, recognize their strengths, and foster their resilience. To evoke t...Read More
Webinar 4: 25 Engaging Tools in 60 Minutes
Editor’s Note: A special thank you to author @jillgordon for sharing the last of four of Youth Philanthropy Initiative of Indiana’s webinar series. Today’s post focuses on engaging tools you can use in your program too! Click on the webinar link below “Engaging Tools in 60 Minutes” for the full program. And keep your eyes open, Jill will be adding to this series with additional content from Youth Philanthropy Initiative of Indiana. The Youth Philanthropy Initiative of Indiana (YPII)...Read More
More Than 5 Smart Ideas for Professional Development on a Shoestring Budget
Last week I received an email about an upcoming staff development opportunity for my team. It sounded so good. It met our goals, it spoke directly to our growth areas, it was what staff were asking for… and then I saw the price. $7,500! YIKES! That is pretty much all of the staff development budget for the year, and then some. I have always found it a fine line to walk, to be able to provide the quality and quantity of staff development opportunities for my team and still maintaining the b...Read More
How Do You Reach Frontline Staff?
I cringed, big-time when I realized that part of my role as LA’s BEST Director of Staff Development was to develop an online learning and resource hub for our 2,000+ staff. Based on my previous experiences, I knew we were up against a lot—creating ‘that thing’ for compliance or ‘that thing’ we have to use online. It’s not easy to make an online learning platform engaging and relevant. Our internal Learning Management System (LMS) was mostly PowerPoint presentations with recorded voice-overs, use...Read More
Coding Club: What High School Students Can Teach Us About Leading Afterschool Programs
None of the high school or elementary students noticed me when I slipped into their after-school classroom last fall. The room buzzed with happy energy as the older students crouched at computers, coaching their younger peers on using Scratch to create animated games. This after-school Coding Club was the first of its kind for my organization, Ann Arbor Public Schools Community Education and Recreation (“Rec & Ed”). We have a decades-long history of providing after-school programs in our sch...Read More
The Flawed Leader… Follow Up 6 Months Later
Social Power is defined as the degree of influence that an individual or organization has among their peers and within their society as a whole. 6 months ago, I shared in this blog my challenges with my own leadership and that of the organization I started and grew over the past 15 years. I poured out on the table the comments my staff made in relation to my leadership flaws, and the ways I needed to be better for my team. Since then I have openly spoken in three different states in front of lar...Read More
5 Ways To Prepare For Your Summer Program
If you are an educator responsible for providing a high quality summer program for children and youth in your community, you are probably busy right now with planning for summer. It is easy to fall into the routine of this busy time and you want to make sure you finish the school year strong. Take just a moment to consider some of the proactive things you can do to take your summer program to the next level. 1. Brainstorm ideas for your unique program culture High quality summer learning program...Read More
Student Recruitment Tactics: Part Two
This is the second installment of our two-part blog series focused on practical student recruitment strategies. You can read the first part blog here. #6: Think socially Create opportunities for participants to bring their friends. It’s not always about your students coming to their class everyday. Create events or opportunities for registered students to go through a little bit of your program’s experience. It could be team building games at lunch, or a scavenger hunt after school,...Read More
Student Recruitment Tactics: Part One
This is a two-part blog series focused on practical student recruitment strategies. This first installment features five tips and five more tips will be shared on Friday. Here are some common strategies when dealing with recruiting students for your program. Remember, you HAVE to be comfortable with the idea of the numbers game if you are going to succeed in achieving your attendance goals. Great programs worry about quality AND quantity. The New Yorker wrote an article shortly after the 2008 p...Read More
BOOST Breakfast Club 2015 Recap
Thank you for sharing 2015 with us! We look forward to this coming year and creating opportunities for change in educational and social services agencies serving youth in the out-of-school time hours. Our blog has a wealth of resources you and your organization from professionals in out-school-time, youth development, and education from across the globe. Our topics include: 21st Century Learning, Advocacy & Policy, Building Relationships, Closing the Achievement Gap, Common Core, Community C...Read More
Reflections on Inclusion from 21st CCLC Site Directors
I recently presented a workshop on inclusion at the 21st Century Community Learning Center Summer Institute in July. In preparing for the workshop I spoke with two local 21st CCLC site directors about how they included students with special needs. As the local evaluator I knew that these programs had successfully included students with various disabilities in their programs. Here are some best practices that I want to share with you: Port Norris School, small school in rural New Jersey 75 kids i...Read More
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