With more than 400,000 students served by afterschool programs in California, the State of California has good reason to focus on the quality of its afterschool programs. SEDL, now an affiliate of AIR, worked with the California Department of Education to identify high-quality afterschool programs in the state and to establish technical assistance based on the promising practices of the programs identified. The project included the development of an RFP and process to recruit and assess applications for afterschool programs to be selected as demonstration programs for technical support in the state. SEDL assisted the California Department of Education with application reviews and site visits as a way to select the final nine high-quality demonstration programs.  

SEDL also worked with the identified programs to develop and deliver high-quality, research-based technical support for afterschool programs across the state. SEDL facilitated bi-monthly meetings with the California Department of Education and the nine demonstration programs to collaborate on the development of processes for effective technical support to afterschool programs across the state and to apply current afterschool research to practice. Resources included the development of an afterschool self-assessment tool for continuous improvement to be used across the state’s afterschool programs. The team also provided presentations on quality afterschool practices, the demonstration program, and quality afterschool assessment to the California Advisory Committee on Before and Afterschool Programs, at various state and national conferences, and to afterschool organizations in California.