School after: After School Matters Chicago | ASM

After School Programs | AustinTexas.gov

The Austin Parks and Recreation Department offers after school programs for the community that foster youth development in a safe and caring environment. The four core components include a healthy snack, active play, enrichment and homework help. Hours of operation are Monday-Friday from 2:45-6:00pm, except on City of Austin or school holidays. 

Important Announcement

Our top priority remains the safety, health and well-being of all participants, staff and the Austin Community. Please continue to remain vigilant and take all necessary steps to ensure you and your family remain healthy and are reducing the risk of illness across the Parks and Recreation Department and at home.  We are grateful for your participation in our programs and services. If you have questions regarding the information in this letter, please contact us. For more information on the symptoms of COVID-19 and resources to keep you safe, please visit COVID-19 in Austin | AustinTexas. gov or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) | CDC.

To view our current modified guidelines and procedures visit the Forms and Documents page. 

North Austin 

Central Austin 

Givens Recreation Center	Ortega Elementary, Sims/Norman Elementary, Oak Springs Elementary, and Blakshear Elementary
Rodolfo “Rudy” Mendez Recreation Center	Metz Elementary, Sanchez Elementary, and UT Elementary
Oswaldo A. B. Cantu/Pan Am Recreation Center	UT Elementary and Zavala Elementary
Parque Zaragoza Recreation Center	Blackshear Elementary and Govalle Elementary
Delores Duffie Recreation Center	Maplewood Elementary and Campbell Elementary

South Austin

March 16, 2020

Cemetery Operations Modified Procedures

Maud Anna Berry Fuller

Mari Yoriko Sabusawa Michener

Jean Shepard Houlihan

Joe Austell “Hosstail” Small Sr.

Dr. Evelyn Maurine Carrington

View all blog posts

After-School / After School Programs

• 
  After School Programs
  
• 
  FAQs for Families
  
• 
  Funding
  
• 
  Contact Us
  
• 
  Requests for Qualifications (RFQ)
  
• 
  Evaluation Reports
  

•  

  FAQs (Families)   |   Funding    |   Contact Us   |   RFQs   |   Evaluation Reports   |   Coordinators

• Afterschool programs are dedicated to OUSD’s Community Schools vision through our focus on Youth Development programming, including:

• 
  

  Service Learning

  Youth are actively engaged through community-based projects. Youth will continue learning and having fun after school, and meaningfully engage with their communities. We are aligned with the Oakland Community Schools vision: that all students graduate college, career, and community ready.

  Youth Leadership

  Youth and adults come together in the community to create change. Youth will be leaders in their community and for their voices to be heard. When youth are the ones creating change, and when adults partner with youth to help create that change, the entire community benefits.

  Social & Emotional Learning

  Youth are safe and supported through positive relationships. Youth are safe and supported in all of their programs, and all programs emphasize social and emotional learning in addition to academic learning. Through this focus, we can ensure our youth graduate with the essential life skills needed to succeed in college, career, and community.

• Additionally, we are dedicated to OUSD’s commitment to continuous improvement and accountability through:

• 
  

  Diverse School & Community Partnerships

  Our school partners are experienced community organizations that specialize in youth development. Together with the Afterschool Programs office, each organization annually completes a Youth Program Quality Intervention cycle by reviewing data, developing quality action plans, and implementing action plans for improvement.

  Quality Standards & Continuous Improvement

  We use a research-based Program Quality Assessment tool to design and evaluate our programs. With this tool, we measure each of our program’s quality of youth experience, learning environment, and staff practices. The PQA is designed to identify developmental experiences that young people need to thrive and grow into healthy adulthood.

  Leadership & Staff

  Development

  We collaborate with afterschool staff to continuously improve practices through training and support. We have a comprehensive system of staff supports, including professional development, collaboration toward authentic self-assessment processes, and an afterschool staff to teacher pipeline. Additionally, the Afterschool Programs Office utilizes social and emotional learning standards in facilitation of meetings and professional learning.

“Already now the boss is not fulfilling its functions.” What will the school lose after the introduction of unified textbooks

Disputes and talks about unified textbooks in schools have been going on for a long time. But it seems that the same textbooks across the country can become a reality. Our blogger Nikolai Arkharov reflects on how a single standard will affect education and what we will eventually lose.

On September 24, 2022, a law was adopted that amends the Federal Law “On Education”. Its essence is that Russia is introducing a federal basic general education program and, accordingly, unified textbooks. Textbooks should be ready by December 31, 2022, and they will appear in schools (as planned) from September 1, 2023. In the beginning it will be Russian, literature and the world around. The desire to introduce unified textbooks is explained very simply: it will be easier for children to move from one school to another.

What will be in these textbooks? So far no one knows. It’s like a cat in a poke. What will he be? Will it scratch or purr? Will you be catching mice? What breed is he? Or maybe it will be a purebred cat from the street? What will happen to the cats that now live in the Ministry of Education?

Education system

So, what about the breed of our cat? That is, with the system on the basis of which this textbook was created. It depends on her what the training will be like. If any training (full-time, home, remote) is based on an unfinished system, the results will be poor. What systems do we have? Yes, none. There is no such concept in the Ministry of Education. There is a phenomenon, but it is ignored. But what is there? There is a Federal State Educational Standard, which defines everything and everything. But GEF is not a system of education, but concepts that are not based on the laws of pedagogy and psychology. According to these concepts, modern education functions.

What is “education according to GEF” in terms of pedagogy? This is a mixture of two mutually exclusive training systems: traditional and Elkonin-Davydov. It simultaneously provides for the deployment of material from the general to the particular and from the particular to the general. Action according to the model with simultaneous logical reasoning, the development of scientific theoretical and practical thinking (yes, also simultaneous).

The basic concept of the developing system of education – “activity” – actually has a special meaning. But in the Federal State Educational Standard, it is reduced to a simple listing of everything that a student does.

You cannot travel north and south at the same time. I think that education according to the Federal State Educational Standard is non-systematic and contradictory

We have a lot of teaching materials. All of them seem to comply with the Federal State Educational Standard. Two of them represented independent learning systems (developing Elkonin – Davydova and Zankov’s system). The rest of the teaching materials are based on the traditional system and, thanks to the Federal State Educational Standard, have inclusions from the developing system that are incompatible with it. In some WCUs, you can additionally find inclusions from other systems, which worsens the situation even more. These UMC are not suitable for use.

A unified textbook cannot be based on developmental learning systems, if only because teaching in them requires specific knowledge. Under the current conditions, the Ministry of Education will hardly be able to retrain teachers. Cats of a developing breed will be thrown into the trash. There remains a crumpled “tradition”, which for 30 years has not developed, but degraded.

What is the threat? Even now, the elementary school does not fulfill its functions. The introduction of unified textbooks based on “Education according to the Federal State Educational Standard” will further reduce the quality of education and make it even more difficult for children to assimilate the material.

Due to the lack of developmental training systems, people with theoretical thinking will be sorely lacking. There will soon be no one to carry out creative projects. Elkonin-Davydov’s developmental education system, thrown into the trash, provided for the development of the foundations of theoretical thinking already in the beginning. The classical traditional system of education moved in step with the age stages of the development of thinking, defined by Jean Piaget, and the development of theoretical thinking was carried out in high school at the age of 11-15 years.

As practice has shown, “education according to the Federal State Educational Standard” does not allow even verbal-logical thinking to be mastered by the end of the 4th grade, visual-figurative thinking remains prevalent in them. The development of theoretical thinking is postponed indefinitely, and the prospects for practical thinking are not very good. The impossibility of qualitatively developing thinking will lead to the only possible method of learning: action according to a model (template).

What systems are no more (sorry)

Developing system L. V. Zankova

Zankov introduced the concept of the overall development of the child as the overall goal of education in primary school. Theoretical knowledge plays a leading role in learning here. The system was complex, you had to learn quickly.

In this system, a mechanism for the development of both weak and strong students was developed, the teaching methodology is variable. Organizational forms of education are flexible, there are many excursions and crafts, observations. Learning should generate questions that the child can solve with the help of the teacher. Focus on self-learning and broadening one’s horizons. The pace and quality of development of each student is monitored.

System of V. F. Shatalov

Education at a high level of complexity. Large blocks. Rapid forward movement. Conflict-free. Reliance on constant repetition. Theoretical knowledge plays a leading role. The system is meticulously worked out in detail. Techniques have been developed to facilitate the work of both the student and the teacher. First of all, supporting notes that develop associative and logical thinking, simplify the reproduction of the material. In mathematics, the emphasis is on problem solving. Daily, rigorous monitoring and evaluation.

Developing system of D. B. Elkonin — V. V. Davydova

The word “developing” in the name of this system means that the formation of theoretical thinking begins already in elementary school.

The study of the material takes place in a mirror, not from the particular to the general, as in other teaching systems, but from the general to the particular. This allows you to deeply understand the theoretical essence of any section of knowledge, and on the basis of this understanding, independently understand the particulars. In this system of education there are no explanations and demonstrations in the usual sense of these words. It may take enough time to study general patterns, but the particulars are comprehended by students independently and quickly enough. The content of education is a system of scientific concepts. The constant search for ways to solve educational problems develops the breadth and courage of thinking.

The student is considered as an independent person who sets tasks for himself, finds a solution to these tasks, evaluates his activities and the results of work.

The student conducts cognitive activity in constant interaction with the team. A methodology has been developed for working in groups, from pairs to the whole class. There are several types of organization of lessons, depending on the learning task. Children are taught to conduct a reasoned discussion. Get high communication skills.

The activity approach to learning is deeply developed and is the foundation of teaching methods. The control of the results of their activities is carried out by the student himself with the correction of his comrades and the teacher. This develops the ability to adequately evaluate oneself (reflection).

School of M.P. Shchetinin

Rejection of the class-lesson system of education. Immersion system. A fairly large number of types of immersion have been developed: by time, subjects, meta-subject, thematic, heuristic. Recommendations have been developed for changing one dive to another. Immersion allows you to increase the intensity of classes without tiring students.

Training in this system is carried out in a shorter time. In reality, individual lesson planning, which is carried out jointly with the teacher, is ensured either through advanced training at the department or in a team of different ages. When learning in a team, mutual learning of children is used. Systematization of knowledge with the help of compact structural and logical schemes – “concepts”. Variety of lesson forms. Diverse grading system.

The list of learning systems goes on.

And what’s next

The development of unified textbooks and the “gold standard” is carried out at the suggestion of the Ministry of Education, by the Ministry of Education and control will be carried out by the Ministry of Education. There is no information about the project and its progress. As always, teachers, parents and the scientific pedagogical community will only be allowed to read textbooks that are already ready.

Criticism, objections and suggestions will most likely not be taken into account. So, at least, it was with all the documents developed by the Ministry of Education, starting from the law 83-FZ of May 8, 2010, which legalized the division of education into elite and “for the rest”, and ending with the last Federal State Educational Standard, which, in my opinion, , degradation of education.

The Ministry of Education most likely does not have ready-made developments for creating unified textbooks for elementary school. This means that they will probably be molded on the basis of the teaching materials already known to us. And this will lead (if we turn to the Federal State Educational Standards) to the combination of incompatible training systems: traditional and developmental.

After the introduction of such textbooks, two developing systems of education – Zankov and Elkonin – Davydov – will disappear from the beginning. As a result, the number of primary school graduates who master the basic techniques of scientific-theoretical and logical thinking, are accustomed to think broadly and boldly, are not constrained by patterns and are capable of creative creativity will decrease.

And one more consequence of the innovation – pedagogical science, bound by the framework of the “gold standard”, will not be able to get out of the existing crisis.

As a result, the only place where education will remain at a high scientifically based pedagogical level will be private schools. They are able to attract highly qualified employees and not only from Russia. They are free to use any system of education. They are able to draw up curricula that allow them to meet all the requirements of the standards (and in a reduced time) and give children an education that meets the modern needs of society.

You are in the “Blogs” section. The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.

How to go back to school after the summer holidays?

How to go back to school after the summer holidays?

In the summer, school seems like something very far away, and vacations are endless. No alarm clocks, strict study schedules, constant homework, and not enough free time to play. For three months of rest, children completely wean from the learning rhythm. But by mid-August, the bustle of preparing for school begins, and parents are increasingly reminded that it’s time to stop sleeping until dinner. Returning to school after the holidays (even if you missed it) is not easy, because any sudden changes in the daily routine are stressful. Here are some tips to help you get into the learning process more easily and start the school year full of strength and energy.

• Start with mode.

Like it or not, but the daily routine is the basis of productivity and well-being. To avoid having to rip yourself off your pillow on the first of September, start going to bed earlier as early as a week before school starts. You don’t need drastic changes in one day (you can hardly fall asleep at 9 pm if you went to bed at 12 for three months before that): it’s better to shift your schedule by 10-15 minutes every day. Healthy sleep (at least 7-8 hours) and a regular balanced diet will help you stay alert and cope with the learning rhythm.

• Summarize.

Each academic year is a new stage, a new period of life. Most likely, your summer was filled with bright emotions and events, new acquaintances and travels. Try to analyze or share your impressions. Remember everything that happened to you this summer and take stock. You can write down your emotions, make a photo collage or post on social networks. It would be a good idea to somehow celebrate the end of summer: for example, get together with friends or classmates, have a family picnic or dinner, organize a day for yourself to relax.

• Get ready for the school year.

It will be much easier to start the school year if you prepare for it in advance. It is important to make this preparation as enjoyable as possible. Surely you have already chosen a school and sports uniform, stationery. Now it’s worth considering your image for September 1 and buying more things that will cheer you up while studying (for example, a bright diary). Do not forget to prepare the workplace in the room: remove unnecessary things from the table and make room for books and notebooks.

• State your goals.

Take the time to make a list of plans and goals for the school year. It will be better if you write them down. Formulate not only final goals (for example, to pass a math exam well), but also intermediate ones (for example, get 9 in the first quarter, study math with a tutor every week, solve 1 option from a collection of math problems every weekday). Try to keep your goals specific. Think about what you want to do outside of school and how long it will take, try to make a rough schedule so that you evenly distribute the load and leave time for rest.

• Find the positives.

Is it so bad that now you have to go to school again? Think about how much fun awaits you there. School is not only grades, the same form and homework, but also favorite classmates, new knowledge, interesting subjects, activities and events.

• Come back gradually.

There is no need to go headlong into studies on the very first day and try to fulfill all your plans for a quarter in one week. Everything is good in moderation. Gradually enter the learning process, but do not shelve what has already been asked. Give yourself a few days to readjust after a long break, be mindful of yourself during this time and keep a balance of rest and work.

• Enjoy every day.

Yes, summer is coming to an end, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t spend your free time as well as on vacation. Don’t put off active rest until your next vacation. Try to diversify your leisure time and make weekends no less memorable than summer. Fill with interesting events and favorite activities every day, and the time until the next vacation will fly by.

What if you don’t feel like going to school at all?

First of all, think about why this is happening and write down specific reasons.