Citizen Schools California was recently awarded a $100,000 two year grant by the Koret Foundation. The generous support will enable the organization to expand its partnership with Aspire Public Schools to provide an extended school day through the Expanded Learning Time (ELT) model. A pilot of the charter school extended day strategy began this year and will continue through the next school year at Lionel Wilson College Preparatory Academy in Oakland, CA. With this grant, the pilot will ultimately expand to serve the entire 6^th – 8^th grade student body. Citizen Schools currently serves the entire 6^th grade and the program has excelled in multiple ways and achieved recognition as having consistent progress and gains in student achievement. With the support of the Koret Foundation, Citizen Schools’ extended day program at Aspire Lionel Wilson College Preparatory Academy (LWP) is participating in a rigorous evaluation of Citizen Schools Expanded Learning Time sites to more precisely isolate the best practices for implementation and assess student impact, including academic as well as behavioral and aspirational outcomes.  Citizen Schools has engaged the leading evaluation firm Abt Associates to conduct a Comparative Interrupted Time Series study that will analyze how schools are implementing and integrating expanded learning opportunities into their schools days, and examine the performance of Citizen Schools’ partner schools relative to their historical performance and the contemporaneous performance of a set of matched comparison schools.

We look forward to seeing the impact that this grant will have on the school, the community, the Teaching Fellows, and the students we collectively serve.