School Staff Perceptions of Community Afterschool Partnerships

Abundant research has covered the benefits of and barriers to partnerships between schools and community-based organizations (CBOs; Sanders, 2001; Valli et al., 2016). The aim is for schools and CBOs to come together to foster student growth, particularly during out-of-school time. If two independent organizations, such as a school and a nonprofit CBO, are to work together to provide out-of-school time (OST) programming, then they must have common goals and set clear expectations. This study conceptualizes school-CBO collaboration as coordination of services and resources for children and their families through transparent and open dialogue about children's specific needs. Although literature detailing the characteristics of healthy school-CBO partnerships is abundant, few studies focus specifically on school staff members' perceptions of these partnerships. The authors' study aims to fill this gap. It suggests that schools take an active role in determining what their student body needs regarding OST programming and continually evaluate the fit between the needs and the programming. The aim of this study is to understand how school staff perceived OST programming provided by a CBO in their schools. The authors focused on four public schools in a single district in the southern U.S. where a single nonprofit CBO offered three empowerment-focused OST programs.