Strategic Plan Guidance

ENRICHMENT

Offering a range of high-quality enrichment activities is an effective strategy for achieving program goals. Often, school districts look to community-based partners for expertise in activities like sports, fine arts, design, and cooking. They may also hire instructors internally for these activities.

Best Practice: Narrow enrichment options based on student interests and available expertise.

Planning Tips

Gather information from students on their interests. Consider asking them to rank a set of prospective enrichment offerings in order of preference.
Assess available staff expertise and training capacity.

Best Practice: Assign responsibility for enrichment selection to staff with expertise in high-quality enrichment programs, such as fine arts, physical education, or STEM.

Planning Tips

Assess the pros and cons of various enrichment scenarios: self-develop curriculum for program staff to deliver; purchase curriculum for program staff to deliver; hire an external partner to develop and deliver curriculum; or mix of previous options.
Request proposals from any potential external partners that respond to the program’s enrichment selection criteria.
Use the Enrichment Selection Rubric to assess various curriculum options.

Best Practice: Whether internally or externally led, ensure that enrichment activities are SAFE: sequenced, active, focused, and explicit.

Planning Tips

Consider breaking enrichment topics into shorter skill-based units, perhaps 1-2 weeks in duration.
Use SAFE features to structure each lesson plan. Sequenced: step-by-step training approach; Active: emphasize active forms of learning by having youth practice new skills; Focused: focus specific time and attention on skill development; Explicit: explicit in defining the skills the activity promotes.

Best Practice: Ensure that enrichment staff are well prepared.

Planning Tips

RFPs and MOUs can help recruit providers that best fit the program’s mission and vision by defining clear expectations, roles, and responsibilities.
Recruit and hire enrichment instructors with strong content knowledge, provide behavior management training, and keep class sizes small.
Be realistic about the time instructors will need to practice and prepare, ensuring that enrichment is sequenced similarly to academics.

Resource

VIDEOS

In the following video clips, presented on February 9, 2023, ADSY PEP Summer LEAs share various strategies for providing high-quality enrichment activities in their summer programs.

Enrichment in a small,
rural district