I spent time this past week listening to nonprofit colleagues across the country who are sharing stories about how they are helping and learning from their national staff, their affiliates, local partners or schools, and the local staff, youth, and families they serve as they all adjust to this new normal.  The stress on this sector is real, but the responses are incredible as many of these organizations scramble to help families and schools figure out what happens when out-of-school time is all the time.

In Puebla, a city of about 1.5 million people in central Mexico, there’s a school with a name that may only sound familiar to people from southeast Michigan. With a combination of active, experiential learning, a strong focus on social and emotional skills, and opportunities for building connections with land and community, Colegio Ypsilanti has been providing high-quality education to children and youth from preschool through high school for the past 35 years.

In this Issue: Opportunity Index User Guide | The Promise of Adolescence | Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) | 180 Podcast

Close your eyes and imagine what an outstanding school looks and sounds like. What comes to mind? Young people collaborating and solving problems together? Or everyone at a desk memorizing facts for an upcoming test?

In this Issue: Thought Leader Conversation | 180 Podcast | Cross-Sector Collaborations for Education | Youth Certificate Program

In this Issue: Opportunity Index | Ready by 21 National Meeting | The 180 Podcast | Youth Employment

The Opportunity Index uses 20 indicators across four dimensions to provide users with a numerical measurement of opportunity across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The four dimensions of community well-being are: the economy, education, health, and community. To better understand how each dimension and its indicators help to craft this unique score, the Forum will take a deep dive into each, identifying its impact on opportunity, implications for change, and policies that could help communities move forward.

In this Issue: Opportunity Index | Summer | Community Schools | Every Hour Counts

There’s a growing consensus in the youth-serving field of the vital importance of social and emotional learning (SEL) for young people. Research over many years suggests that preparing children to be caring, ethical, contributing adults requires supporting them to develop social and emotional skills. These skills include focusing and deploying attention, understanding and managing emotions, empathizing with and respecting others, navigating social conflicts effectively, and standing up for principles of justice and fairness.

Karen Pittman Discussed Quality, Readiness, and Equity: Why a Commitment to All Three is Important to OST.