141 - Supporting Our Local Expanded Learning Ecosystem: Examples from a University-School District-Community Partnership

Abstract Information: Local expanded learning ecosystems shape opportunities and outcomes of formal K-12 learning settings. This session will describe a formal research and evaluation partnership between a university-based center, the school district, and local out-of-school-time (OST) providers. We will describe the research consortium and the information system we co-developed that allow us to share data about student needs and achievements across in and out of school settings, as well as results from a multi-year and city-wide approach to supporting summer programming. This session will address how local partners are activating and enhancing our local learning ecosystem through collaborative research-practice partnerships and improvement-oriented evaluation. The session will describe the Consortium on Educational Research and Improvement (CERI), the Dallas City of Learning (DCOL) and the Expanded Learning Information System (ELIS) and the way these three initiatives interact to support the local learning ecosystem. A discussant will comment on implications for systems-level thinking and statewide applicability, scalability and re-imagining educational opportunities. Each example of the partnership work is unique, yet themes across them include: intentional collaboration for equity, the utility of formal partnerships and role of the university in contributing to data infrastructure, and use of data paired with customized professional development for rapid improvements as well as long term impact monitoring and collaborating for advocacy and equity.

Relevance Statement: Youth learn and develop in all kinds of settings and spaces , yet formal K-12 education receives the bulk of researchers’ and evaluators’ attention and the bulk of public funding. Importantly, the intersections between in and out of school learning are poorly understood. The out of school time (OST) and expanded learning arenas offer wide yet largely untapped potential not only for addressing acute academic, socio-emotional and skills-building gaps but also for reconceptualizing the structure and long-term sustainability of partnerships between K-12 local education agencies and networks of local educational non-profits. Conceptualizing schools and local education agencies (LEAs) as key players in a larger expanded learning ecosystem means that many more partners in a community are called to the table to be part of a solution and youth access to rich learning and development activities expand.
Critical to the success of learning ecosystems, to the predictable delivery of programs with these key components, and certainly to the ability to integrate support, is information sharing across members of given community, or local ecosystem. Consensus about what constitutes quality programs, the diversity of programs to be offered and to whom, are all results of collective and collaborative decision-making, all of which is contingent on strong collaborative relationships and information-sharing across partners. Information and data sharing is particularly critical for ensuring that those in the in-school/K-12 environment know what students are receiving afterschool and during the summer months, and conversely ensuring that OST providers are able to access actionable school-based data about how the students they serve afterschool and during the summer are doing, and what they need. We conceptualize this work as bridging information between in and out of school settings and see it as critical to ensuring equitable access and iteratively improving program quality and therefore long-term impacts.
This multi-paper presentation will focus on a local expanded learning ecosystem, and will highlight the roles of three key players: a university based research and evaluation center, the local independent school district (7th largest in the nation) and a local OST intermediary who coordinates city-wide afterschool and summer programming. Together, these three partners are developing infrastructure for information-sharing, iterative improvement and studying long term city-wide impacts. Three key aspects of our ecosystem work will be described: (1) a research consortium between the university and school district that provides important infrastructure, collaboration and data sharing, (2) a local network of OST providers who have been monitoring outcomes of summer programming in particular for seven summers, and (3) an information system and dashboard designed for use by multiple partners in the ecosystem.