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 views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Enjoy the brain food.

The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is Brain Food for In and Out-of-School Time Leaders!

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Incorporating Equity into Evaluation: Tools to Use

For many out-of-school time professionals, evaluation feels separate from the heart of the program. Data collection is an administrative chore like refilling paper in the copier: necessary, but not all that meaningful. This is, in part, because data and evaluation are often described as value-neutral, which doesn’t connect very well with people and programs who are values-driven. Who wants to put time and effort into something that isn’t aligned with your purpose? By acknowledging that values in...Read More

You Shouldn’t Play With Your Food, But You Should Play With Your Data!

I’ve worked with many expanded learning programs in many settings over the years, making me one of the luckier researchers out there. Too often, though, I see program staff dedicating a lot of time and effort to collecting data, and almost none to learning from it. What a bummer. One reason why data goes in, but doesn’t come back out, is because teams have too few experiences with exploratory, low stakes, playful explorations of their data. Instead, data is used in a last-minute rush to get the ...Read More

Finding The Right Visual For Explaining Data

When I’m not writing blog posts for BOOST, I help mission-driven organizations use data to get better at what they do. I collaborate with really terrific organizations that are making a big difference in the lives of their communities, and their teams are dedicated to continuous improvement. And yet, sometimes when we say, “let’s look at your data!” our clients react like we’d just suggested a self-administered root canal. Too few members of mission-driven organizations have had good experiences...Read More

The California School Dashboard – A Resource For Partnership

This year’s California School Dashboard was just released.  What does that have to do with you?  A lot. It has to do with forging a real partnership with your school district around the kids you care about. The California School Dashboard Since I left the Partnership for Children & Youth, I’ve been working with the school day, and have learned a lot about California’s emerging System of Support for K-12 education. Here’s what I know (I promise this is eventually relevant to you): The Califor...Read More

Make Your Surveys and Enrollment Forms More Inclusive

Equity and inclusion are on everyone’s minds these days. Out-of-school time professionals across the nation are taking a good look at their practices with an eye toward assuring that all young people and their families feel welcome. Don’t forget to review your program’s enrollment forms and surveys as part of this process – it’s a common, yet overlooked, spot for unconscious bias to have a field day. Small changes to the words you use in these materials can make a difference in the experiences y...Read More

Hate Your Data? There’s A Toolkit For That!

We’ve all been there. Frustrated with maintaining 15 different spreadsheets, 30-word documents, and 19 Survey Monkey Surveys, a nonprofit leader says, “Enough! Let’s just get a database.” Yes! Finally! A centralized place for all the program’s data will help the team serve clients better and make reporting to funders a breeze. Joy and excitement fade to sadness as the team struggles to fathom how to go about getting a new database, much less implementing one. And the stakes couldn’t be higher: n...Read More

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Infographics 101

About a year ago, I was talking with a coworker about how to present some (relatively boring) information for an internal meeting. We were working with a lot of numbers and trying to find a way to make it more engaging. She said, “How about an infographic?” and I’m pretty sure I looked at her with a blank stare. I asked her to explain what an infographic was and I remember her response: “I don’t know, but I think they’re fun.” Since then, as I’m su...Read More