This guide to Rhode Island After-School Quality standards helps providers, parents and youth understand what quality looks like in afterschool programs. In conversations about afterschool opportunities, afterschool providers across Rhode Island expressed the need for a common language to use for setting goals and measuring progress, which resulted in the development of these quality standards.
Providence After School Alliance
The Providence After School Alliance (PASA) aims to improve and increase quality after-school opportunities for the children and youth of Providence. PASA received initial funding from The Wallace Foundation and Bank of American to expand and improve after-school opportunities for the youth of Providence by organizing a system of after-school supports. This system will ensure access for all Providence youth to high quality after-school programs and learning opportunities. PASA was created and formed through the collective efforts of more than 150 public and nonprofit after-school providers in a planning process led by Mayor David N. Cicilline.
Since its founding in 2004, PASA and the Mayor have successfully built a city-wide after-school system comprising a core AfterZone model, Quality Improvement Strategy, baseline systems and unprecedented levels of public-private partnership. The innovative AfterZone model serves more than 1,000 youth per year through five school-centered, community "campuses" that provide a variety of programs for middle-school youth in the areas of the arts, sports, science and life skills.
Guide to Rhode Island After-School Quality Standards
Rhode Island After School Plus Alliance
AfterZones: Creating a Citywide System to Support and Sustain High-Quality After-School Programs
This evaluation provides an in-depth analysis of PASA’s AfterZone, a model based on a neighborhood “campus” structure where services are offered at multiple sites in a geographically clustered area.
AfterZone: Outcomes for Youth Participating in Providence’s Citywide After-School System
This study sheds light on the potential of afterschool systems to produce benefits for youth by evaluating AfterZone’s effects on participants, as well as one of the few rigorous (quasi-experimental) evaluations of an afterschool system.
Expanded Learning in Providence
This guide provides an overview of PASA’s AfterZone and High School ELO for Credit Programs.
AfterZone Scholars School Year Program
This one-pager summarizes PASA’s expanded learning pilot at Roger Williams Middle School.
The Hub School Year Program
This web-resource and blog are dedicated to ELO student learning.
Video Series on Expanded Learning in Providence
PASA's expanded learning approach is all about connecting the Providence community with schools and teachers. To accomplish this, PASA uses a collaborative teaching practice that brings together informal educators from some of Providence's most dynamic youth-serving organizations with formal educators from schools. For the past three years, PASA has used its summer learning program—the AfterZone Summer Scholars—to bring these collaborative teaching teams together to engage our city's middle school students in hands-on, inquiry-based learning experiences that strengthen STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills. These videos show the evolution of that work, as well as its effect on both educators and young people.
Why Expanded Learning Opportunities?
In this video, The Providence After School Alliance showcases their high school work. The video focuses on how partnerships between PASA, the Providence Public School District and community-based organizations support credit-bearing ELOs.