Executive Summary

21^st CCLC Program Background

The overarching goal of the Kent Community Success program is to support students’ academic achievement and social-emotional development. The program is located at River Ridge Elementary School, Neely-O’Brien Elementary School, and Mill Creek Middle School and focuses on:

Increasing academic achievement
Improving attendance and behavior goals in the classroom
Strengthening family engagement
Providing high quality programming that prepares students for success.

Program Structure, Activities, and Community Partnerships

During the 2023-24 school year, Mill Creek, Neely-O’Brien, and River Ridge offered programming during the summer session, and fall and spring semesters, that ran for 2-3 hours per day, four days a week over the course of 30-34 weeks. 21st CCLC site coordinators worked in each of the three schools to oversee staff and programming and develop partnerships to implement the program. The Kent School District served as the primary partner, Kent Parks and Recreation provided and facilitated recreational activities at all three sites, and each site had additional partner organizations with which they worked. Student activities included academic supports, sports/fitness activities, arts/music, cultural/personal identity clubs, games, cooking and community services. Each site offered a variety of family activities for program participants and their families as well.

Program Implementation

Students Served
The size of each of the three 21st CCLC sites varies substantially from 62 participants at Neely-O’Brien, 71 participants at River Ridge, and 383 participants at Mill Creek. All three sites had an increase in total number of students from school year 2022-23 to 2023-24. None of the 21st CCLC sites met the objective for regular attendees (students attending 30 days or more), which is that at least 10% of the total school population regularly attend program.

Across the three sites, there were 88 regular attendees. This represents 17% of the total students enrolled. The program also had an objective that 60% of regular attendees attend program for 60 days or more. 26% of regular attendees attended for 60 days or more at Mill Creek; 76% at Neely-O’Brien; and 45% at River Ridge.

Family Engagement
Programs offered a wide range of family events during the 2023-24 school year, to strengthen family-school connection for families in the 21st CCLC program, with a focus on families furthest from educational opportunity. Site coordinators successfully integrated feedback into the family event opportunities, as family event attendees at all three sites reported interest in culturally centered programming. Additionally, Neely-O’Brien family event attendees expressed interest in dancing, opportunities for public speaking or reciting poems and River Ridge attendees were interested in mental health awareness and language classes.

Community Partnerships
The program aims to develop relationships with a variety of community partners for the 21st CCLC program by adding one partnership each year that reflects the population served at each school. During the 2023-24 year, none of the three school sites met this objective. Mill Creek reduced their partnerships from three to two organizations. Neely-O’Brien and River Ridge maintained their partnerships with four and five partnerships, respectively. A common partner shared among all three sites is Kent Parks and Recreation.

Program Quality
The Cohort 19 21st CCLC programs utilize the David P. Weikart Center’s Social and Emotional Learning Program Quality Assessment (SEL PQA) process to support program quality and improvement (known as Youth Program Quality Improvement, or YPQI). This includes internal and external assessments, which site coordinators use to inform program quality improvement goals. The program’s objective for program quality and the SEL PQA was to demonstrate “measurable improvement in relevant sections of the SEL PQA each year, at each site; or an average rating over 4.0.”

During the second year of Kent Community Success in 2023-24, site coordinators and site staff conducted self-observations, and the local evaluator conducted external observations in January-February 2024. The three school sites collectively scored 4 on “Safe Space”, 3.0 on “Supportive Environment”, 3.0 on “Interactive Environment” and 3.0 on “Engaging Environment,” meeting the program objective in one area (Safe Space) and not in the other three.

Impact for Students and Families

The program sought to positively impact both students and families in several ways, including meeting the students’ individual needs in the areas of math, reading, and social emotional learning, and strengthening family-school connection for families in the 21st CCLC program, with focus on families furthest from educational opportunity.

Reading
The program’s goal was for 50% of regular attendees to demonstrate progress in reading. 68% of regular attendees (n=66) across all three sites (Mill Creek, Neely-O’Brien, and River Ridge) met typical growth standards or stretch growth goals for iReady reading, as defined by the Kent School District.

Mill Creek students met typical growth at 33% (n=11) and 15% (n=5) met stretch growth.
Neely-O’Brien students met typical growth at 64% (n=9) and 36% (n=5) met stretch growth.
River Ridge students met typical growth at 58% (n=11) and 2% (n=4) met stretch growth.

Math
The program’s goal was for 50% of regular attendees to demonstrate progress in math. 73% of regular attendees (n=67) across all three sites (Mill Creek, Neely-O’Brien, and River Ridge) met typical growth standards or stretch growth goals for iReady math, as defined by the Kent School District.

Mill Creek students met typical growth at 39% (n=13) and 9% (N=3) met stretch growth.
Neely-O’Brien students (n=8) met typical growth at 53% (n=8) and 13% (n=2) met stretch growth.
River Ridge students met typical growth at 37% (n=7), and 84% (n=16) met stretch.

Classroom Behavior
Kent Community Success established a goal that 50% of regular attendees would improve classroom behavior. While the goal was specific to regular attendees, the available data included all youth attending program at the two elementary schools. Across the two school sites, Neely-O’Brien and River Ridge, 69% of students (n=26) demonstrated progress in “coming to school”, 56% (n=34) on “alertness and focus”, 56% (n=32) on “participation in learning activities”, and 47% (n=32) on “staying focused”.

Social Emotional Learning
Mill Creek Middle School students (n=40) shared their perspectives and experiences with the Kent Community Success program through a survey administered by OSPI’s statewide evaluation partner, American Institutes for Research. Students indicated that the program helped them:

“Make new friends” (68% of respondents),
“Feel good about myself” (41% of respondents),
“Find out what I like to do” (32% of respondents) and
“Find out what I’m good at doing” (24% of respondents).

Impact for Families
During the 2023-24 school year families provided feedback on family events, including overall satisfaction with the event, how the event helped the parent/family member feel connected to their child and the larger school/community and preferences for future events. Across three schools, family survey results were positive:

94% (102/109) of families expressed interest in future events.
87% (91/109) helped connect them to their child(ren)’s school.
83% (91/109) connected them to their child(ren)’s education.
82% (89/109) indicated that family events helped them learn something new about their students’ school.
76% (83/109) indicated that the family events equipped them with knowledge to support their students' success.

Strengths and Opportunities

Program strengths from the 2023-24 school year included:

Accessibility and Responsiveness of 21^st CCLC programs: Systems and organizational practices helped support each 21^st CCLC site’s ability to provide students with support through programming.
Student Activities: The range of activities provided to students through 21^st CCLC programming demonstrates a commitment to supporting student interests. The variety of student activities reflected the diverse interests and curiosities of participants.

Opportunities for improvement from the 2023-24 school year included: