Community Schools - Expanded Learning Time

According to leading educators and researchers, students living in poverty are likely to see a 6,000 hour learning gap compared to their middle class peers. The bulk of those missing hours stem from a lack of access to enrichment opportunity that happens beyond the traditional school day.

The Strategy

NYC Community Schools employ Expanded Learning Time (ELT) as a strategy to provide all students more learning time. Through ELT, schools together with Community School partners create robust school-day schedules and learning and enrichment opportunities for students that begin before school starts, occur throughout the school day, and end late in the evening.

The additional time permits educators and CBO partners to be creative in meeting student academic and social-emotional needs and helping them discover their full potential as engaged and civic-minded citizens.

ELT Resources for All Schools

Many researchers have studied the impact of ELT on learning and their research underscores a central point: that while more time in schools is valuable, time is a resource that must be used well to realize its full potential. To this end, here are resources to help guide schools in a robust adoption of Expanded Learning Time:

http://www.expandedschools.org/tools/three-ways-expand-learning#sthash.68bgQT3q.dpbs

Community Engagement

Community Schools in New York City are hosting large-scale Community School Forums whereby families can get involved and participate in conversations about Expanded Learning Time in their Community School.

The Forum Planning Toolkit has helpful tools and resources to help schools community-centered meeting.

Expanding School Days

With your community School partner, plan a robust school day that maximizes combined school and CBO partner resources.

For ideas, try ExpandED

Integrated Learning

Robust learning models are deployed in Community Schools that employ Expanded Learning Time, including small group instruction and interactive activities. These learning models can be used to drive attendance is schools with high rates of chronic absenteeism. See here for details.

Renewal Hour Policy and Guidance

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B48qQ5lIJ4qgNndBYXVDblpkRWM/view?usp=sharing

For Principals and CBO Partners

Additional guidance on employing the Renewal Hours is available here.

For CBO Partners

Guidance on how to budget and implement the Renewal Hours can be found in The Fiscal and Operations Manual and in the ORS presentation on scheduling ELT: ES or MS/HS

For Parents

Guidance sent to parents about Renewal Hour

Renewal Hours Resources

While all Community Schools provide after school or expanded learning opportunities for subsets of students, Renewal Schools must provide a minimum of an additional five hours of learning time per week for every student. These five hours are referred to as “Renewal Hours.”

Elementary School

Webinar Presentation on Renewal Hours Implementation in Elementary Schools, 2016-17

View the Slide Presentation from the webinar

Middle/High School

Webinar Presentation on Renewal Hours Implementation in Middle/High Schools, 2016-17

View the Slide Presentation from the webinar

Additional Resources

OCS Guide to School and CBO Afterschool Program Partnerships
National Center on Time and Learning supports schools to increase the quality and quantity of learning time for students and collaboration time for teachers. Guided by our work with successful schools that strive to ensure that every minute in school is well spent, we partner with districts and schools to empower teachers to optimize time for students and themselves.
Youth Development Institute supports the growth and development of young people by strengthening the quality and increasing the availability of experiences offered by the organizations that serve them.
Partnership for After School Education (PASE) is a child-focused organization that promotes and supports quality afterschool programs, particularly those serving young people from underserved communities.

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