Sample Program Plan

Goals
o Establishing clear goals and desired outcomes are important because they are the
cornerstones of afterschool program success. Nearly all programs have
established unambiguous goals and structured their programs to meet those goals.
Also, most programs recognized the importance of considering student voices
when making decisions regarding program activities and content, therefore, many
programs allowed students to provide their input. Which results in students
becoming engaged and excited to be in their afterschool programs. (Huang &
Dietel, 2011).
o Key Findings (Huang & Dietel, 2011)
The best programs had clearly defined goals in a written plan; curricular
design and specific practices aligned to program goals; and internal and
external evaluations.
Achievement focused programs, often district affiliated, were usually
more structured than other afterschool program types; stressed
improvement of academic performance, hired more certified teachers; and
maintained a more consistent linkage with the day school then less
achievement-focused programs.
Goals of many high quality afterschool programs also had a specific
emphasis (ex., science, technology, homework support, community
involvement, or the arts)
o Personal Program Plan
The goals that I would have for my program would be to provide an
environment where students are excited and motivated to attend, and to
help them develop positively and academically. Larson mentions in his
article how honor students were as likely as those involved in delinquent
activities to be among those reporting high rates of boredom, in many
cases for more than 50% of the random moments (Larson, 2000). I want
my after school program to eliminate this boredom feeling that most
students are experiencing, because regardless of whether they are an
honors student are not, when they are not motivated or excited to learn,
they will lose their will and focus to do well in school. All with an end
goal related to the STEM program and building their knowledge towards
those areas. I would share these goals with all of my staff members, the
community, and even the students. So they have an idea of what I am
trying to strive for and achieve by the end of each year. I would write my
goals down and post it in the staffroom, so the teachers can constantly be
reminded what we are striving for. Also, I would put at least one sheet in
every classroom to help keep that motivation going. I would create
monthly evaluations and assessments to help ensure that everything is
going according to plan. This would be a time also to see if the teacher has
anyone concerns or needs that we could attend to, in order to achieve our
goals. In terms of measuring whether the students are reaching the goals
we need, I would have them take a test before they entered the program, in

order to assess their educational level and how excited they are about
learning certain topics. By the end of each month or two, I would ask them
the same questions and see how they have grown throughout the program.
The answers that we receive will be our measure as to whether or not we
are heading in the right direction to our goals. Goals are important in order
to give our program a focus on what we want to and hope to achieve.
Leadership
o Leadership is a key component in after school programs because studies have
found that directors and managers of high functions afterschool programs usually
had many years of experience in after school programs. The leaders are the ones
who are going to be leading and motivating the staff to achieve their goals.
Therefore, leaders always share their decision making with their staff across
afterschool goals, programs, and evaluation (Huang & Dietel, 2011).
o Key Findings (Huang & Dietel, 2011)
The best program had leaders who:
Articulated a clear program mission, vision statement, and goals;
decentralized decision making; used a bottoms up leadership style;
trusted in the knowledge and skills of staff regarding curriculum
and instruction.
Consistently described the value of staffs content-specific skills
and expertise; as a result, curriculum development was a group
proves in which leaders gave staff members a strong voice in
designing instruction.
Maintained good relationships with the day school personnel.
o Personal Program Plan
As the leader of my program, I would make sure that all the goals that I
have set to accomplish are being carried out. In order to do that, I would
maintain regular communication with my staff team so that they can
always keep me up to date with how the students are doing, and I would
keep them up to date with any new information regarding our program
plan. As well as maintain communication with the principal and teachers
of the school in order to ensure I am following their curriculum and
providing their students with the necessary help they need. In Tracy
Bennetts article, she states how schools in which the principal and the
after school staff reported higher levels of alignment, as compared to not
being in communication with each other (Bennett, 2012). By ensuring that
my communication with my staff team and the school is strong and
consistent, my program will yield much stronger and better results. I
believe this is very important to have because maintaining that
communication helps foster and sustain a healthy relationship between the
school and an afterschool program, which will be essential in being able to
help our students to the best of our abilities. As a leader, I would try my
best to make sure all of this is flowing smoothly and promote the emphasis
of STEM, so the students are reinforcing and gaining their knowledge in
these areas. Some key things I would do to make sure this all happens

correctly would be hold weekly meetings with my staff and assess what
has been going on and how are we reaching our goal. As a leader, I will be
there to communicate and help my staff team in any way that I can, in
order to provide the best quality program for the students.
Staff
o High quality programs recruited qualified staff and created collegial environments
supporting their programs missions. Its also necessary to have lower turnover
rates so you can retain most of your staff. In order to do this, you want your staff
to feel respected, supported, autonomous, and confident in their ability to reach
their students. They often are role models for the students, help enforce better
work habits, and create a positive attitude towards learning.
o Key Findings
Staff generally had high educational levels
Staff usually had substantial afterschool experience
High quality programs had positive relationships between the staff and the
students.
o Personal Program Plan
When hiring my staff, the qualities that I would immediately look for are
great work ethic, motivating, a passion towards this job, the belief in the
idea of STEM, and the ability to be able to teach and help students in the
STEM areas of education. So I would be searching typically for teachers
with at least a bachelors degree (even though I would prefer someone
with a masters or PHD), just so I know that they have the capability to
help these students. The main thing though out of those qualities I listed
above, that I would search for the most, is the teachers belief in the
importance of STEM. In the article written by Vandell, Simzar, OCadiz,
Hall, and Karsh, they found that if the higher the staff believed in the
importance of STEM and implementing STEM activities, then it would
result in higher student outcome, such as work habits, career aspirations,
science interests, etc. I believe this to be very important when selecting
my staff because the ability to influence a child in this way is one of the
main goals that I would be trying to reach. The goal of having children
become more motivated and interested in not only STEM but in school
and their future. As a leader, some key competencies I think I should have
in order to be effective is the ability to notice if a staff member is not
doing their job either correctly or to the best of their abilities, and be able
to work with them and help them improve. However if that fails and they
just dont seem to click with my program plan or with the other staff
members or students, then I would have to let them go. As leader, to help
ensure that my program staff is being effective, would be to hold
evaluations of each staff member to see how each staff member may be
doing in comparison to another. Also, I would hold workshops every 2
weeks and provide that as a time to bring in any new ideas that would help
the program or get rid of something that may not seem to be working. I
would also use it as a time to help motivate some of the teachers so that
they remember our main goal and why we are doing this. Because as I

stated before, the more the staff believes in the importance of STEM, the
better student outcomes we will receive.
Program
o High quality programs typically offer three or more activities each day, ranging
from homework help to recreational activities. Observation reports indicate that
these programs help keep students engaged, attentive, and enjoying the activities.
Nearly all programs allow a substantial amount of time for recreational and crafts
activities, in order to keep their students engaged while exercising other parts of
their brains.
o Key Findings that the best programs:
Employed unique and innovative strategies to engage students in the
afterschool setting, particularly trying to make it fun
Shared similar methods of disseminating information to parents, as well as
a means of encouraging their involvement in the afterschool programs
Took field trips to enhance student learning and motivation
Had social or character development in their curriculum, as well as a
community involvement component
Technology, science, arts, and homework programs appeared to be more
focused on developing higher order thinking skills, where as reading and
math programs were more focused on direct skills instruction
o Personal Program Plan
The key activities and curriculum focus are that I will implement into my
program is STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).
These focus areas relate to my goals because my programs goal is to help
educate students and build their understanding and knowledge in those
particular areas. So having STEM is my key activity and curriculum focus
would help move our program forward towards our goals. I would
maintain constant communication with the teachers of the school and ask
them for the syllabuses that they provide for their students in the
beginning of the year. I would try to construct my program to help
compliment and align to their curriculum. Also, I would try to my best to
hold weekly meetings so I can check with the teachers that everything is
still going according to the syllabus, because I know that the syllabus can
change depending on the speed the class is moving, so I would make sure
that they are still on the same track and speed so that we may move at that
speed as well. According to Huang & Dietel, they say how field trips can
enhance student learning and motivation, so the one strategy that I will use
to keep my students engaged in this program is to offer them the
opportunity to go on educational field trips. Field trips not only create
excitement within the students, it also gives them ability to get some real
hands on experience. For all those visual learners, this is something that
can really help them understand certain concepts better. Because it is one
thing to explain how scientists mix chemicals to create something new,
and then its another thing to physically and visually show them how its
done. How my daily schedule will look from specifically 3pm 6pm, will
be that students will have homework time during the first hour. During

this time they will be given the opportunity to ask questions, if they have
any, regarding their homework. They may go over their homework with
an instructor to make sure that they did it correctly and receive any
individual help they may need. After this hour is over, the next two hours
would be different according to the day. For example, Monday would
consist of focusing on one of the areas of STEM, like science. So for
Monday we would spend the next two hours learning and talking about
science, by engaging in some hands on activities and lessons. Then
Tuesday will be technology, Wednesday will be engineering, Thursday
will be mathematics, and then that trend will continue. The only break in
that schedule would be the occasional field trips that we will be going on,
and whenever we start to work on a project, in which Tuesdays and
Thursdays will be the two days they are able to work with their group until
they present on Fridays. Overall, this will give students the opportunity to
learn about STEM and to be able to get hands on experience and work
with their peers in order to reach a final project.
Evaluation
o Ongoing evaluation is necessary to measure program performance and make
continuous improvement. Evaluation data serves to help identify any strengths or
weaknesses that the programs may have. Which is important so the program
knows what is working and not working in their plan, and how they are going to
adjust their program plan.
o Key Findings that the best programs:
Reported having conducted both internal and external evaluations
Conducted pre-post testing or classroom evaluation for external evaluation
methodologies
Reported positive results from external evaluations
o Personal Program Plan
The 3 main questions that my evaluation would address are: Are students
feeling more motivated and interested in the subjects they are learning?
Are the students showing positive signs of development towards their
academics and STEM? Is our staff passionate in the subjects they are
teaching and are motivating our students to want to learn more and do well
in school? The tools I will use to measure success are to implement a prepost testing in which we measure the students academics level as soon as
they join our program, and then another test when theyre about to leave
our program to see how much they developed. Also, for the staff, I will
use anonymous evaluations and surveys to see how the staff felt about this
program and what they think we should continue or get rid of. The results
that I receive from the students testing and the staffs evaluations and
surveys will help me as a leader of the program to see what Im doing
wrong and what I can do to make it better. Which help me understand
whether or not I am hitting the goals that I intend to achieve throughout
the year, and if Im not reaching those goals, I will find out ways as to
how to reach those goals. I will hold staff meetings as well to maintain
communication and receive input from them.