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The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.

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Program Description

Overview The California 21st Century High School After School Safety and Enrichment for Teens (ASSETs) Program funds school–community partnerships to establish out-of-school time (OST) programs that provide high school students in California with academic support, enrichment, and family activities. Funding priority is given to programs that serve students who attended schools with the poorest academic ranking in the state.
Start Date 2003 (reauthorized by the California Legislature in 2006)
Scope state
Type afterschool, before school, summer, weekends
Location urban, suburban, rural
Setting public school, private school, community-based organization, religious institution, private facility, recreation center
Participants high school students
Number of Sites/Grantees ASSETs funds have been awarded to 43 grantees serving 57 high schools in three cohorts. Across cohorts, grantees included: 25 local education agencies (LEAs), 4 county offices of education, 4 public entities (e.g., city/county government, higher education), and 10 private entities (e.g., community-based organizations, faith-based organizations, private education institutions).
Number Served 27,900 youth (2005–2006 school year)
Components ASSETs grantees are required to provide three components to support high school students: (a) academic assistance, including activities that support meeting state academic standards (e.g., tutoring, homework help, high school exit exam prep, and college prep); (b) enrichment activities (e.g., community service, service learning, opportunities to mentor and tutor younger pupils, career and technical education, job readiness, arts, computer and technology training, physical fitness, and recreation activities); and (c) family literacy services. These components must be embedded within a developmental framework supporting the acquisition of personal and social assets that promote adolescent well-being and a successful transition to adulthood.
Funding Level $2.5 million annually, as of 2003
Funding Sources California Department of Education (CDE), through federal 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) Initiative funding

Evaluation

Overview A multi-year, mixed-methods evaluation examined program participation, activity implementation, and program outcomes.
Evaluator WestEd
Evaluations Profiled Interim Report

ASSETs Final Evaluation Report
Evaluations Planned None.
Report Availability Hipps, J., Diaz, M., & Wingren, G. (2006). California 21st Century High School After School Safety and Enrichment for Teens (ASSETs) Program independent evaluation: Interim report. San Francisco: WestEd. Available at: www.wested.org/online_pubs/assets_interim_report.pdf

Hipps, J., & Diaz, M. (2007). ASSETs final evaluation report: California 21st Century High School After School Safety and Enrichment for Teens (ASSETs) Program. San Francisco: WestEd. Available at: www.wested.org/cs/we/view/rs/840


Contacts

Evaluation Jerome Hipps
Project Director
WestEd
300 Lakeside Drive, 25th Floor
Oakland, CA 94612-3534
Tel: 510-302-4227
Fax: 510-302-4242
Email: jhipps@wested.org
Program Patricia Terry
Consultant
California Department of Education
After School Partnerships Office
1430 “N” Street, 6th Floor
Sacramento, CA 95814
Tel: 916-319-0329
Email: pterry@cde.ca.gov
Profile Updated May 9, 2011

Evaluation 1: Interim Report


Evaluation Description

Evaluation Purpose To examine outcomes for Cohort 1 related to coordination with the school day, staff quality, links to community organizations, and environments that support positive youth development.
Evaluation Design Non-Experimental: Data were collected on the nine Cohort 1 grantee programs during visits to each of the sites in Spring 2005. Evaluators interviewed 9 program directors, 14 program coordinators, 30 program staff, 11 principals, 5 local evaluators, and 5 collaborative partners, and also conducted focus groups with 151 youth (101 participants and 50 nonparticipants).
Data Collection Methods Document Review: Grantees completed the ASSETs Program Evaluation Guidebook which included program data on: youth participant demographics and participation levels; assessed needs and goals; activities and their links to goals and standards; links to the school-day curriculum; administration and staffing characteristics; professional development; family literacy; institutional capacity; youth involvement; youth’s physical, intellectual, emotional, psychological, and social development; advisory group implementation; sustainability; collaborating organizations; and evaluation narrative (challenges, supporting data, and next steps).

Interviews/Focus Groups: Interviews focused on grantee goals, enrollment, staffing, programming, activities, links to the school day, program sustainability, and challenges/successes. Youth focus groups examined youth’s perspectives on the program.

Secondary Source/Data Review: CDE collected youth data on program attendance, demographics, academic test scores, school absences/suspensions, and high school enrollment. 21st CCLC Profile and Performance Information Collection System (PPICS) data were used to obtain data about program enrollment.
Data Collection Timeframe Data were collected for the 2004–2005 program year, with PPICS data collected for both the 2003–2004 and 2004–2005 program years.


Findings:
Formative/Process Findings

Activity Implementation Grantees offered a total of 152 activities, for an average of 6.5 hours per week, lasting just under 26 weeks, on average.

While most activities occurred after school, four grantees offered summer programming, three offered before school activities, and two offered weekend activities.

Of the eight grantees with available data on program activities, visual/performing arts, homework help, mentoring, and computers/technology were each offered by seven programs; physical fitness, math, and CAHSEE preparation were each offered at seven programs; activities in tutoring, recreation, career/technical education, job readiness/skills development, mentoring/tutoring of younger children, and science were each offered at seven programs; activities for college prep and English language learners were each offered at four programs; reading/literacy activities were each offered at three programs; and activities related to SAT prep, cultural enrichment, community service, parent programs, counseling, nutrition education, and school health services were each offered at one program.

At several sites, youth mentored elementary school students. Some of these mentors identified this activity as an area of interest while others received service learning credit that they could include in college applications.
Parent/Community Involvement The seven grantees with available data identified a total of 60 collaborative partners, including 14 community-based organizations (e.g., youth development organizations), 10 national nonprofit organizations (e.g., Boys & Girls Clubs), 8 school districts, 8 county education offices, 7 colleges and universities, 6 private for-profit organizations, 4 city agencies, 2 county agencies, and 1 state agency. Grantees estimated that these partners contributed over 11,920 hours to programs in a variety of roles, including service delivery, sharing/contributing resources, program planning and design, sustainability, and management oversight.

The seven grantees that reported having a family literacy component believed that offering courses in multiple areas helped attract parents to literacy programs. In addition to literacy courses, these grantees offered courses for adults on topics such as adolescent development, nutrition, parenting, legal issues, financial literacy, and computer literacy, as well as offering extended library hours.

In an effort to connect with parents, programs held evening events for families such as English-as-a-Second Language classes and parent orientations. However, many grantees had difficulty making lasting connections with parents and found this component particularly challenging.
Program Context/ Infrastructure Across schools, Hispanics were the largest ethnic group (32–99%) at all but one school. African Americans were the second largest ethnic group at four schools. Seven schools had large proportions (over 15% of students) of Asian, Pacific Islander, and Filipino youth, although none exceeded 30% of the student body. Four schools identified 15% or more of their students as White, none of which had more than 30% White students.

Grantees identified goals related to improving test scores and linking programming to curricular standards; reducing absenteeism and behavior problems like violence and drug use; increasing student motivation; building a college-going culture and providing youth with career development opportunities; and increasing involvement both of parents and community partners in planning, implementing, and sustaining the program.

Many grantee statements of needs and goals were unclear; grantees often presented too many concepts in a single statement. Further, individual grantee goals did not always closely match their stated needs. Most grantees also offered activities unrelated to their stated objectives.

Program staff were crucial in communicating and modeling behavioral norms and expectations to youth.

Programs offered opportunities for youth voice to inform programming. Youth often weighed in on daily activities. Six grantees conducted surveys of youth about their interests and satisfaction with activities, something which youth in the focus group said they appreciated but wanted to be done more regularly. At some sites, youth helped establish and enforce the program’s operating norms.

Opportunities for youth voice often took the form of leadership activities and roles. Youth participated in leadership groups that discussed programmatic issues, with some even taking their concerns to the program and school administration. Youth at two sites participated in advisory groups that guided the overall direction of afterschool programming. At a few sites, staff organized youth training around leadership skills and teambuilding activities. At two sites, youth officers (elected by their peers) made decisions about activity offerings and program policies, only consulting adults for feedback and approval.

Physical safety was a prime concern for programs—adults who worked with youth observed how drug use and gang activities occurred near the schools. Each program addressed this concern by providing a physically safe location in a school building or youth center where youth could stay after school. Some sites also had security guards on the premises.

Grantees reinforced psychological safety by opening communication lines with youth. Several programs had dedicated rooms at schools where furniture was arranged to create a relaxed, welcoming environment.

Programs made various efforts to encourage a sense of belonging. For example, youth at one site decorated the room to their liking, which youth and adults reported helped foster a sense of belonging. Most students at this site came to the program room during breaks in the school day.

Compared to the school day, afterschool time at several sites looked and felt different for youth due to the program room’s physical space and a welcoming climate created by program staff that gave youth more freedom and flexibility to have voice and perform activities at their own pace.

In program activities (especially field trips away from the school), youth reported interacting with other youth who were different from themselves and with whom they would normally not interact, and found they had similar interests.
Program–School Linkages At sites where programming took place on school grounds and school-day staff were also program staff, behavior rules were rather seamless.

Programs encouraged school attendance since students could not participate in afterschool programs without attending the regular school day.

The program benefit that youth in focus groups cited most often was academic supports through activities such as homework assistance or tutorials, which connected to what they learned in school.

Most principals generally supported the programs, but varied in their levels of involvement in them. Principals at three schools were very involved—they participated on program advisory groups, observed program activities, recruited teachers as activity leaders, and chaperoned field trips. Some took a less active role, assigning program supervision duties to another school administrator. Others had sufficient confidence in the program’s site coordinator to allow the coordinator to work fairly independently.

Principals and site coordinators varied in their communication levels. At some schools, principals and coordinators had regularly scheduled meetings as often as weekly, although informal meeting arrangements were more common. Principals reported that these arrangements left them feeling very informed about the program. Principal involvement and communication appeared to be low at only one program, which served 10 learning communities, each with its own principal; the site coordinator found it challenging to communicate with all of these principals.

The number of schoolteachers employed by programs varied greatly, depending on the program’s structure and relationship to the school, as well as the demands of the school-day on teachers. At one school, more than a third of the school’s teachers also served as program staff. At another program, almost none of the school’s teachers staffed the program.

Involving schoolteachers in programs carried the risk of teacher burnout. One program addressed this issue by limiting the time required of teachers, scheduling activities that only needed a 4-week time commitment (rather than the whole semester), which this program’s director also believed benefited students by exposing them to multiple teaching styles.

Some programs increased school-day links by hiring schoolteachers as site coordinators, or by engaging key school staff in program planning with site coordinators. For example, program coordinators at several schools participated in faculty meetings or on the school’s site council.

In some programs, teachers worked with students from their school-day classes, and thus were already familiar with students’ academic skills. Afterschool became a time to strengthen abilities or challenge students; it also allowed teachers to work with smaller groups, on different kinds of projects and areas of interest, and with greater flexibility than during the school day.

The programs’ structure allowed for less formal interactions between youth and schoolteachers (who served as program staff) than were possible during the school day. In focus groups, youth said they got to know teachers as people, more like friends. Both program staff and participants at many of the schools agreed that teachers’ involvement in the program demonstrated that teachers cared about students and allowed students to develop healthy relationships with these teachers.

Some grantees fostered program–school links by working jointly to establish formalized connections. For example, one site used a common individual student plan to coordinate each student’s school day and afterschool educational experience. Another program required students to make up all school absences by attending program activities.
Recruitment/ Participation During the 2003–2004 year, 6,351 youth attended programs across the 15 schools (25% of host schools’ students, ranging from 1% to 86% per school). The program with the highest percentage of students involved, reflected the school’s integration of afterschool activities into school reform efforts. All four schools with enrollments under 1,000 drew more than 40% of students to their programs, while only two of the eleven larger high schools had over 40% of students attend programs. Of program participants, 24% attended 30 days or more.

During the 2004–2005 year, data available for 14 of the 15 schools indicated that 8,700 youth attended programs (32% of host schools’ students, ranging from 6% to 88% per school). Of the five schools with enrollments under 1,000, four drew more than 50% of students to programs, while three of the ten schools with enrollments over 1,000 involved over 50% of the school’s students. Overall, 32% of participants attended a program 30 days or more.

Program participation increased from 2003–2004 to 2004–2005. Of the 14 schools with available data, 13 increased the number of youth participating at least 30 days, and 11 increased the number of attendees overall. Total attendance increased by 37%, exceeding school enrollment growth, which was up 6%.

Although program participant demographics tended to reflect those of the host schools, the proportion of program participants from a specific ethnic group differed from that group’s representation in the school by more than 10 percentage points at a few schools.

Youth at some sites helped recruit youth participants as well as teachers to lead program activities. At one site, youth in charge of recruitment described “hyping up” the program by visiting homerooms and giving presentations about program activities.

In their first year, grantees created drop-in programs and did not enforce strict attendance. However, if youth set academic goals, such as passing a class, frequent attendance in academic tutoring was necessary to achieve their goals.

In focus groups, a number of youth referenced eligibility for sports activities as an incentive to attend the afterschool program and keep up their grades.
Satisfaction Youth reported excitement about access to resources and opportunities provided by programs, including academic, recreational, and cultural enrichment activities that many could not afford otherwise. Many also liked having computer access since they did not have a computer at home.
Staffing/Training During the school year, grantees employed an average of 45 paid and volunteer staff. Across the four grantees that offered summer programs, paid and volunteer summer staff sizes ranged from 2 to 28. Most program staff were paid; grantees generally reported difficulty recruiting and retaining volunteers.

Staff consisted of schoolteachers (32% of school-year staff and 48% of summer staff), other community members (27% of school-year staff and 24% of summer staff), high school students (15%), nonteaching school staff (8% of school-year staff and 12% of summer staff), college students (8% of school-year staff and 4% of summer staff), youth development workers (2% of school-year staff and 7% of summer staff), parents (2% of school-year staff), and other (5% for both school-year and summer staff).

During site visits, youth reported that program adults cared about them and their success, and that adults conveyed that care by such means as looking youth in the eyes or asking their opinion. Youth also reported that adults conveyed the message that “they were there to help” by staying after school to tutor or teach a skill about which they were passionate.

Grantees trained staff in multiple areas, most commonly in areas related to the program’s academic component. Grantees’ heavy reliance on school- and district-provided professional development tools to train program staff often meant that other areas of youth’s lives were left out of trainings (e.g., youth development skills).

The district, county education offices, and community-based organizations provided much of the grantees’ staff training. Program staff training was integrated with school-day staff training. Many grantees leveraged their professional development with the school- and district-provided workshops.

While a few grantees provided training to all staff, most grantees targeted one to four staff, using a trainer-of-trainers model, where trained staff return to their sites to train their colleagues in the strategies learned. However, finding time when all staff were available to discuss the training was a challenge. Further, with high staff turnover, trained staff sometimes left before funneling the information learned to remaining staff.

Programs sometimes established clear boundaries between staff and participants, which was particularly important when staff were college students or recent high school or college graduates who looked much like the youth with whom they worked.
Systemic Infrastructure Although the majority of grantees had an advisory group in place, some were still in the process of creating one, and others worked to improve their established groups. An intra-program structure (i.e., groups with members drawn from one program’s stakeholders, such as regular school-day administrators, staff and teachers; afterschool administrators; owners of community businesses; parents; and youth) was the most common type of advisory group; six grantees had such arrangements.

Most grantees had considered ways to sustain programming, including intentions to devote more attention to developing a sustainability plan. Some grantees considered plans to increase community awareness and ties by connecting with private sector employees and parents.


Summative/Outcome Findings

Academic According to the adults interviewed, program participation led youth to consider and act on postsecondary education options they had not previously considered.

Of the cited benefits of program participation, youth overwhelmingly pointed to academic support and life skills.
Youth Development According to stakeholders (i.e., regular school-day administrators, staff and teachers; afterschool administrators; owners of community businesses; parents; and youth), programs reinforced life skills that youth could use beyond the school. Through program activities, youth interacted with other youth, adults, and the world outside school. They also learned to ask questions, manage projects, and take on responsibility. In interviews, program staff commended youth’s ability to juggle multiple tasks and, at the same time, provide the diligence necessary to complete their assignments.

© 2016 Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College
Published by Harvard Family Research Project