Behind the Scenes: Staffing at High Functioning Afterschool Programs

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Behind the Scenes Staffing at High Functioning
Afterschool Programs
Denise Huang, Deborah La Torre, Christine Oh
California Educational Research
AssociationAnnual Meeting CERA Effective
Teaching and LearningRancho Las Palmas, CA
December 4, 2008
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The National Partnership for Quality Afterschool
Learning

• SEDL
• National Center for Research on Evaluation,
  Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST)
• Mid-Continent Resources for Education and
  Learning (MCREL)
• Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL)
• SERVE
• WGBH Educational Foundation
• US Department of Education Office of Secondary
  and Elementary Education

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Purpose

• To examine what works in high functioning
  programs and to provide models, tools, and
  assistance that 21st CCLC programs need so that
  they can offer high quality research-based
  academic content while attracting high levels of
  student participation.

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Goals of the National Partnership for Quality
Afterschool Learning

• The Partnership has five goals targeted at
  helping improve academic content, teaching, and
  training in afterschool programs.

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Goal 1 Site Identification

• Identify afterschool sites across the U.S. that
  are demonstrating exemplary or promising
  practices in
• reading
• math
• science
• arts
• technology
• homework help

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Goals

• 2. Validate afterschool success in these content
  areas through site visitation and data analysis
• 3. Develop tools, models, expertise, and other
  assistance to increase the quality of afterschool
  sites across the United States
• 4. Provides Technical Assistance to state
  education agencies to build their TA capacity in
  assisting grantees in that process.
• 5. Partner with US Department of Education, the
  National Center for Community Education (NCCE),
  and state education agencies to provide training
  opportunities for afterschool sites in adopting
  high quality practices to increase student
  achievement and attract high levels of student
  participation.

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Validation Model
Indicators Design Process
Immediate Outcome Expected Outcome
Linkage with School
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Staff Education
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Staff Experience
Years Experience in Afterschool Instructors
Less than 1 year 13
1 to 2 years 15
3 to 5 years 41
6 to 9 years 17
10 years 10
Did not report 4
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Staff Participation in PD

• Over 50 reported program offered training over 4
  times a year
• Only 10 of the staff participated in these
  trainings 2 or more times
• 58 to 78 indicated they never participated in
  PD offered by program
• 32 reported they rarely participated
• Technology had the highest participation rate
  (50 two or more times a year, 42 never)

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Common Features of High Quality Programs

• Clear goals
• Aligned program structure and content to meet
  those goals
• Established relationship with the day school
• Curriculum in general reflect a linkage to
  Standards, some more obvious than others
• Most programs used research based strategies
• Maintain some form of evaluative structures
• staff members related well to the students
• Build rapport, maintain high expectations, keep
  students motivated and engaged

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Research Questions

• What are the qualifications of the staff at
  high-quality afterschool programs?
• How are relationships characterized in
  high-quality afterschool programs?
• What is the role of professional development in
  high quality afterschool programs?

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Study Sample

• Criteria for site selection
• Services elementary and or middle school students
• 21st CCLC grantee
• Improvement in student achievement in reading and
  math for the school years 20052006 and 20062007
  (data derived from PPICS or state achievement
  test data)
• Afterschool program goals are met for the 2 years
  prior (2006 and 2007)
• Geographically diverse (i.e., north, south, east,
  and west as well as urban and rural areas)
• Diversity of grantee type (i.e., school district
  related and community-based organizations CBO)

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Resulting Sample

• Four Programs
• California
• Florida
• Texas
• Indiana

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Number of Participants
Programs Number of Participants Number of Participants Number of Participants
Programs Program Administrators Site-Level Staff Parents
Indiana 1 8 5
Florida 2 12 5
Texas 3 8 4
California 2 10 10
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Methods

• Intruments were developed collaboratively with
  SEDL
• Including interview protocols for project
  directors, site coordinators, site instructors,
  and parents
• Qualitative analyses were performed using Atlas.
  Ti
• Coding were conducted , themes were extracted and
  analyzed using the constant comparison methods
  (Strauss Corbin, 1990)
• Cross case analyses were then conducted by program

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Program Background and Structure
Afterschool programs Operation length Student to staff ratio Urban/rural Program affiliation
California 3 years 201 Urban Community based organization
California 4 years 201 Urban Community based organization
Florida 5 years 151 Urban/low density School district
Florida 4 years 151 Urban/low density School district
Indiana 5 years 151 Urban/low density School district
Indiana 3 years 101 Urban/low density School district
Texas 4 years 201 Urban School district
Texas 4 years 201 Urban School district
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Demographics of Student Population
Program Number of students Grade levels Ethnicities
California 8085 K6 Mostly Latino/Hispanic
California 78 15 Mostly Latino/Hispanic
Florida 80100 35 Mostly African American
Florida 80150 25 Mostly African American
Indiana 129 15 Mostly Caucasian African American some Hispanic Asian American
Indiana 4050 68 Mostly Caucasian, African American
Texas 160180 K4 Mostly Latino/Hispanic
Texas 150 68 Mostly Latino/Hispanic
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Staff
Mean Number of Years in Current Position at the
Afterschool Program Site, by State.
Program Project director Site coordinator Instructor
California 2 3.6 4.8
Florida 4 2.75 2.6
Indiana 1 2 2.5
Texas 6 months 1.5 3.4
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Staff Recruitment

• Structured Hiring process
• The application process was managed by the
  administration of the afterschool program, the
  school district, or County agency
• Application forms were completed online on the
  afterschool programs website or a hard copy was
  submitted to the administrative offices of the
  afterschool program.
• Most staff members (i.e., program directors, site
  coordinators, and instructors) reported that the
  process included a background check and
  verifications of three to four references.

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Hierarchal Review System

• Pool of applicants were first reviewed and
  narrowed by the Human Resources department of the
  program, then the project director, site
  coordinator, and day school principal
• The principals involvement in the hiring process
  for the site coordinators were highly valued and
  often required by the project directors

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Recruiting Strategies

• Informal recruiting was done personally, either
  by another colleague who was also an afterschool
  instructor or by the principal of the school site
• Formal recruiting strategies consisted of an
  e-mail to the entire school faculty, notifying
  the day school administration, or posting the
  open job at the school site
• Program administrations preferred to recruit from
  the sites day school teachers

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Desired Qualifications

• Some of the minimum qualifications consisted of
  character or personality traits, work
  experiences, and education levels
• More than the educational background and prior
  professional experience of the instructors,
  management staff and parents desired a prior
  relationship of the afterschool instructor to the
  students
• Some program directors and site coordinators
  listed personality traits such as humble,
  friendly, responsible, energetic, and inquisitive
  to learning.
• Commonly voiced preferences were interest in the
  education field and dedication and passion in
  working with children,
• Many of the supervisors also prefer instructors
  who had classroom management skills.

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Staff Retention

• All staff across the four afterschool programs
  consistently reported an intrinsic reason for
  working in their program
• The desire to make a difference in the lives of
  the students was a shared sentiment among the
  staff members
• Most of the staff reported that they planned to
  stay in the afterschool setting indefinitely, or
  as funding allowed
• Other more practical reasons convenience,
  additional income, learning experiences

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Incentives

• A majority of the interviewees stated that the
  pay offered was not an incentive, whether the pay
  was viewed as good or inadequate
• Site directors used career ladder, recognition,
  and positive working environment as additional
  incentives to retain staff

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I. The Nature of Relationships

• A. Staff Relationships
• 1. Managerial and site-level staff relationships
• -Project directors and afterschool staff
• I consider it a friendship. And when I started
  in this position that was one of my fearsI
  didnt want to come in and have them see me as
  a threat, or you know somebody who is just going
  to come in and tell you how to do everything.
  Thats not the way I wanted to be and thats not
  the way it should be

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2. Upper-Managerial Relations

• -Project directors, site coordinators and
  principals
• I could pick up the phone and talk to any one
  of them todayWere on the first name basis,
  where were very collegial. It could be just a ,
  How do you think we could do this better? Or
  theyll call and ask, Can we do this? Do you
  think I should do this? So I think its a two-way
  street. Its not my way or the highway.

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B. Staff-Student Relationships

• 1. Afterschool managerial staff and student
  relationships
• -project director, students, parents
• When I go out to evening functions, I do sit
  with the parents, talk with the children. But as
  far as knowing the children on a first name
  basisIm thinking, do I actually know these
  children? I know their scoresdata. I know their
  numbers. I know how each schoolbut Im not on
  the site as much as I used to be.

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-site coordinators, students and parents

• I know every single student. I know them by
  name and I know all about themWe give lots of
  hugs and lots of praise. And I get little from
  notes from them, little pictures from them.
  Theyre what make the difference. Theyre why
  were here.

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2. Afterschool instructor and student
relationships

• Their relationship with the students is
  professional. These are teachers and they stay in
  a teacher/ educators mode. Whereas with me, they
  are a little bit more relaxed. They know Im not
  one of their regular teachers.

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C. Staff-parent relationships

• I was a little concerned about her algebra and I
  talked to her afterschool instructor. I called
  here, left a message, and he called me back
  within an hour and then we talked for about 20
  minutes, so the afterschool program staff are
  very responsive. The afterschool program is
  like home to me, I have never felt uncomfortable.
  Every issue Ive had has been addressed right
  then.

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II. Team Building Strategies

• A. Building Teamwork
• Sometimes well get together.like I said,
  were all pretty flexible and easy goingLets
  say a student is struggling with science, theyll
  let me know. You know, Can you go ahead and work
  on them with this? Well get together and see
  what we can do for the child that will benefit
  them.

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B. Linkage with Day School, and Establishing
Liaisons

• This year, I helped the site coordinator set
  up some expectations for behavior so that our
  expectation is with the day school is followed up
  and is consistent with the afterschool program.
  There were some issues where the rules of the day
  werent being enforced in the afternoon. So we
  kind of coordinated that and helped her
  facilitate a way to communicate with the parents
  so that the parents understood what the
  expectations were and what the consequences were
  from thiseveryone is on the same page.

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C. Conflict Resolution

• -w/ staff
• Okay, we have stepswe have this processIts
  basically, this is how I feel, this is what I
  feel that you did and this is what you said
  Then the other person responds with okay, so
  what youre saying is that you feel that Ive
  been X and Y and Z, whatever it may be and then
  thats the time for, if the issue was with me,
  for them then to open up and say okay my
  intentions werent like that but if thats what
  happened because thats what Im hearing, Im
  apologizing, Im sorry and so forth.

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-w parents

• Well, I talk with the parent. Find out exactly
  what the situation was and what happened. Because
  a lot of times parents may get upset and they
  dont really realize that, you know, there are
  procedures and policies that we have to follow,
  you know, not just in this school building, but
  were under corporationSo we just try to work
  with everybody to figure out, okay how can we
  resolve this problem? Was there a
  misunderstanding on your part? Was there a
  misunderstanding on the schools part? How can we
  address this issue?

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Professional Development and Training

• Continual process including
• Preparing new employees
• Identifying professional development needs
• Providing professional development and training
  to existing employees

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Preparing New Employees

• Two types of new employee orientation
• Program-level
• Site-level
• Job specific preparation for
• Site coordinators
• Instructors

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Program-Level Orientation

• Primarily conducted by the human resources
  departments
• Primarily took place upon hiring
• Offered to all new program employees
• Focused on human resources issues

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Site-Level Orientation

• Conducted by the site coordinators
• Took place upon hiring and/or the beginning of
  the school year
• Offered to most new site staff
• Focused on site information and procedures

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Job Preparation for Site Coordinators

• Provided at three of the four afterschool
  programs
• Conducted by the program administrators
• Took place during the same time period as the
  program-level orientation
• Two programs provided site-level job preparation
  as well
• Focused on site management

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Job Preparation for Instructors

• Provided at most of the afterschool sites
• Provided by the site coordinator and/or certified
  instructors
• Timing of the job preparation varied
• Two programs provided site-level job preparation
  as well
• Focused on working with students

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Identifying Professional Development Needs

• Identify needs at two levels
• Program-level
• Site-level

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Program-Level Needs

• Focus on program-wide needs
• Determine what professional development and
  training to offer
• Data-based methods often combined with informal
  feedback

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Site-Level Needs

• Focus on site needs
• Determine what professional development and
  training to have individual staff attend
• Informal conversations often combined with
  data-based methods

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Professional Development for Existing Employees

• Formal professional development and training
• Afterschool programs
• School districts
• External sources
• Informal opportunities

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Professional Development offered by the
Afterschool Programs

• Primary source of formal professional development
  and training
• Timing varied among the programs
• Mainly provided by the site coordinators and/or
  certified instructors
• Focus based on job position

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Professional Development offered by the School
Districts

• Primarily made available to certified instructors
• Focused on classroom management and programming

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Professional Development offered by External
Sources

• Primarily made available to site coordinators and
  their supervisors at the program-level
• Timing ranged from periodic to monthly
• Provided by national, state, and county
  organizations
• Focused on similar topics to the professional
  development offered by the afterschool programs
  and districts

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Informal Professional Development

• Used to enhance day-to-day knowledge and
  experience
• Provided to
• Site coordinators at the program-level
• Site staff at the site-level
• Mainly structured as staff meetings

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latorre_at_cse.ucla.edu