Published in ConnectED Newsletter - Volume 6 - Issue 1 - August 2022
Associate Professor Hazel M. Carter’s latest book is Leadership of Afterschool and Supplemental Education: Creating Seamless Pathways to Postsecondary Life. Published by Routledge, the ten-chapter book is organized around the key elements in designing, implementing, and sustaining effective supplementary education programs that best prepare students for post-secondary life. The key issues of retention, college and career readiness, educational leadership, school support personnel, and youth development staff frame the contents of the book. It explores the research literature and best practices on specific issues around supplementary and afterschool education, youth development, and school-college-community partnerships. Each chapter begins with the learning objectives and the appropriate professional standards for educational leaders, reflective exercises, author’s scenario, resource information, and portfolio building activities. Also, it uses afterschool and supplementary programs as case studies from New York, Washington, and California. The book offers a conceptual framework for those wishing to develop linkages between schools and the community, and to educational leaders and policy makers who are interested in developing stronger connections with the community and in developing structures to facilitate that collaboration. It selects certain areas of study (e.g., STEM, support staff, parents, and funding) that both educators and youth development agencies should address in preparing students for the 21st century.
Professor Carter has ample experience in the field of afterschool and supplemental education. As she says, it has provided her “the opportunity to connect with students in a way that classroom experiences can never do. They are an important corollary to in-school instruction.” Using youth developmental curriculum and building on the theme “schools cannot do it alone,” her book challenges readers to re-think traditional ideas about supplementary education and what is needed to improve schools and student success. It also addresses effective strategies for selecting the appropriate after-school and supplementary education agencies to work in a school building. While it presents innovative strategies, it allows readers to create partnerships that are best suited to their experiences.
Specifically addressing post-secondary readiness, Professor Carter firmly believes that “creating seamless pathways is not a singular journey between schools and students.” As key stakeholders, higher education institutions have had a long tradition of working with schools around college preparation of secondary school students. “Perhaps, the time is ripe for them to assume a more formal leadership role in the sphere of out-of-school learning.”
Leadership of Afterschool and Supplemental Education supports the vision of The City College of New York School of Education. It equips leadership and teacher education candidates with strategies to effectively complement and enrich school-day instruction including community partnerships. Also, staff of youth-serving community-based organizations will find this book helpful as they develop and implement sustainable collaborative initiatives with schools.
Professor Carter’s book is part of a larger project that looks at developing community partnerships to improve schools. It can be used as a companion text to her 2013 book, Creating Effective Community Partnerships for School Improvement: A Guide for School Leaders. A subsequent book project will address new models of engaging the community in teacher and leadership preparation, infusing after-school education into coursework, revisiting summer program offerings and year-round schooling, and reconfiguring the 12th grade.
Last Updated: 12/09/2022 09:56