Snow Day Blog

The Hasbro Summer Learning Initiative Program is a program to help students stay on top of their game over summer vacation. It helps them maintain skills they previously learned prior to break and hopefully lead into the school year with some new skills. This program also helps students learn how to explore outside of their classrooms. One example they gave was children learning about the agriculture cycle and how they got to apply what they had learned with a hands on activity. Sometimes we don't always get the opportunity to do this in the classroom or our classroom space is just not set up for it. The program focuses on the academic time lost during school vacation and helps the students by creating various activities they can do outside of the classroom. I feel as though this program aligns with positive youth development and purposeful play.

I did not see specific requirements listed for being able to join the program, but I wonder how they go about selecting the children that are placed into the program for the summer. This program recieves funding from United Way, Hasbro and the General Assembly. United Way gives about $100,000 each summer while the General Assembly has been donating $250,000 every year since 2012. This program has partnership and collaboration with Live United which funds summer learning programs at three different funding levels (if I read that correctly). 

Main components that are required for a grant proposal are: 

- Data and Outcomes: be able to advanced Live United 2020 goals and results

- Collaboration: collaborate with a main partner to achieve shared goals

- Curriculum Structure: demonstrate how they will co-create and co-deliver a summer learning curriculum that builds academic, social-emotional, and essential skills, and is delivered in hands-on, experiential ways (5 days a week, 6 weeks, 7 hours a day, 35 hours per week)

- Professional Development: required to participate in PD sessions connected to the HSLI summer learning model

- Sustainability: demonstrate a sustainable funding plan for current and proposed levels of

services

- Demonstrated Success: organization must have a successful track record in projects and

demonstrate the capacity, competency, and qualifications to plan, implement, and manage this

project

- Documentation: letter of 503c status, current 990 form, recent audit

Plus/Minus/Delta:

+: I think the program can have a really positive effect on youth in helping to maintain skills while doing hands on activites

-: I don't necessarily agree with testing for a summer program. I understand everyone comes in at different levels and from different backgrounds. But at the end of the day it is their summer vacation and they should be able to have fun and learn new things throughout this program not having to worry about a test. 

Delta: My delta is just more of a question. I would like to know how they decide who is able to participate in this program and how many children are they able to accept a year? Another question I have is do children stay in the program for the full 6 weeks or do some end up dropping out?