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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Together We Make a Difference – FREE DOWNLOAD
Many years ago, I arrived at a middle school to evaluate an after school program. As with all site visits, I checked in to the school office and asked where the after school program was located. They were unsure of which “after school program” I was actually looking for. This school, like most, had over a dozen programs happening simultaneously throughout their campus during after school hours. I found the state-funded after school program (that I was on campus to evaluate) and quickly learned t...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
How Clue and The 4C’s Inspire Connection, Community and Creativity
How DO board games inspire Connection, Community, and Creativity, you ask? Last week, eight middle school girls were consumed with the details related to who murdered Mr. Boddy. This wasn’t the latest episode of a crime drama, and thankfully wasn’t something in the news, but instead was the culminating event wrapping up their Secret Agent badge-an intense game of Clue. I’m lucky enough to be the troop leader for my daughter’s Girl Scout troop, an out-of-school time activity that she and mo...Read More
Not Your Mother’s Meeting: 4 Ways to Creating Meaningful Meetings (PT 1)
Do you ever go to a meeting and wonder why you came? Do your meetings lack the fun and energy that keep people engaged and ready to participate? Personally, I think meetings should be limited to an hour max (whenever possible). This year, I’ve had the pleasure of organizing and moderating our 2017 Youth Philanthropy Webinar Series, a four-part series designed to support next-gen leadership and giving opportunities through real-world examples and resources from experts all over the country. Th...Read More
Working Together: Heroes Through Collaboration
Quick, name any movie you can think of about education. Here are a few that immediately come to my mind: To Sir With Love…Stand and Deliver…Dangerous Minds…Dead Poets Society...Freedom Writers. As you made your list did you notice that they all tell a similar story – the story of a dedicated educator who essentially works alone, often against great odds, to reach out and inspire students? The individual hero-teacher appears not just in movies, but also on television shows, in t...Read More
Part 2: The Great ASES Augmentation of 2017 – A Children’s Story
In 2015, Sir Mark Leno from the village of San Francisco introduced a bill to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour. By now, the full resources of CA3 were focused on the issue, but that still amounted to very little in comparison to the magnitude of the quest. The Partnership for Children and Youth, a longtime member of CA3 led by Lady Jennifer of Peck, was called upon to lead the campaign and she assigned her most renowned policy warrior to the task, Jessica Gunderson the Tenacious. The gr...Read More
Part 1: The Great ASES Augmentation of 2017 – A Children’s Story
Gather around, children, and I’ll tell you a story. What kind of story, you ask? Is it a scary story? Is it a funny story? A magical story? No. It’s better than that. It’s the best kind of story there is. It’s a story about policy change. ASES to be exact. Our story begins way back in the year 2006. Do any of you remember that year? Some of you may have been quite young. A traveling minstrel named Justin Timberlake performed a song called SexyBack. Children were introduced to a delightful talkin...Read More
STEM and Wellness: Colliding Galaxies
My fellow BOOST Breakfast Club blogger, Erika Petrelli of The Leadership Program recently wrote an article that explored the “beauty of galaxies colliding.” My inner Galileo loves the thought of swirling stars and as partnership director for a national children’s health nonprofit, social justice movements working together to accelerate and grow is even more thrilling. For galaxies to collide and movements to join forces, there has to be space. A recent Harvard Business Review article, The Benefi...Read More
Tips from 7 Experts on School-Community Collaboration
This month the Alliance for a Healthier Generation is celebrating America’s Healthiest Schools. Schools recognized by the Alliance have met stringent guidelines for serving healthier meals and snacks, getting all children active and empowering school leaders to become healthy role models. Schools are essential partners for out-of-school time organizations. According to the Afterschool Alliance, 73% of parents report that their child’s afterschool program is located in a public school...Read More
Project-Based Learning (PBL) in Out-of-School Time
Projects that unfold outside the regular school day create opportunities for students to explore personal interests, tackle challenges, build new skills, and sometimes even improve their communities in the process. I’ve seen students use this rich learning time to monitor local air quality, invent devices to improve life for children with disabilities, design digital games and apps, and run their own multimedia publishing centers. “It’s all about what kids want to do,” on...Read More
Why Integrate Learning Standards?
As an afterschool and expanded learning professional, you have a lot going on in your day-to-day life. As you try to juggle the million little things that come up throughout your day, you’re also trying to pay attention to best practices in the field. You’ve probably heard about the importance of being “intentional” and “planful” in your program design, but what exactly does that mean? And why is it important? There has been a shift in the focus of our field o...Read More