The Expanded Classroom

Making the Case for Out-of-School Time Funding

The Opportunity: After the lost time learning during the COVID-19 era, state and federal funding helped expand access to Indiana’s out-of-school time programs, which serve K-12 students in hours outside of the traditional school day and year. As federal investment in pandemic recovery draws to a close, the funds are set to expire. The Mind Trust, which champions and runs key summer learning and tutoring programs in Indiana, sought to show the impact of these programs to help persuade policymakers to support their ongoing funding. They enlisted Pen+Principle to support this work.

Pen+Principle’s Approach: We sought to combine the evidence and data of programmatic impact with compelling storytelling about both rural and urban families in Indiana who have been positively impacted by out-of-school-time programs. Through interviews with 15 parents, teachers, and subject matter experts; site visits to schools and programs; and a review of existing research, we developed an engaging report that showed the value of out-of-school time programs. To expand the reach of the report, we distilled the findings into an executive summary and worked in partnership with Weatherhouse Company to create videos telling the stories of families interviewed. We also collaborated with a key partner on the report, Boys & Girls Club of St. Joseph County, to draft and place an opinion-editorial piece that ran in the South Bend Tribune during the legislative session.

Results: Legislation passed that paved the way to continue funding out-of-school time programs. Additional efforts are needed to secure funding in the budget, which the legislature will take up in 2025.