Category: News

SOWA is excited to welcome Melannie Denise Cunningham to this year’s Bridge Conference, Forging Brighter Futures. Melannie is a Tacoma-based thought leader and practitioner who has excelled as an educator, social justice activist, scholar, entrepreneur, and humanitarian. Her leadership spans diverse industries, profoundly impacting college administration, youth development, government service, broadcast media, and more. Reflecting first, so that we can move toward connection and reimagining. Melannie will kick off Bridge Conference 2023 by grounding our experience in the initial theme of reflection. By inviting us to reflect on our biases and individual journeys, we can then embrace the learning and … [ ]

Overview For three decades, School’s Out Washington (SOWA) has served a critical role to advance equitable expanded learning ecosystems in Washington state. We work to ensure high-quality afterschool and summer programs are available so all of Washington’s youth—and especially low-income youth and youth of color—can have the opportunities they deserve to thrive. SOWA is dedicated to building responsive community systems to support quality afterschool, youth development and summer programs for Washington’s children and youth ages 5 through young adulthood. Position Summary SOWA administers the Refugee School Impact Program, which is funded through multiple contracts with Washington State.  SOWA funds and … [ ]

School’s Out Washington is currently seeking professionals to serve as contracted Program Quality Assessment (PQA) External Assessors utilizing the Social Emotional Learning PQA. Each External Assessor will be contracted as Independent Contractors for School’s Out Washington. External Assessors will gain valuable professional development opportunities and will be trained to conduct on-site observations using the Social Emotional Learning Program Quality Assessment (SEL PQA) tool in a variety of afterschool expanded learning opportunity programs in Washington State. As part of the onboarding process, new assessors will receive multiple trainings that focus on youth programming and on building relationships between young people and … [ ]

The Mastery Based Learning Collaborative is a community of schools across Washington State that choose to focus on mastery-based learning (also called competency-based) and culturally responsive-sustaining practices, with educational equity as their guiding value. In its first year, SOWA provided advice, training, site visits, and resources to support schools in the Collaborative to foster relationships and partnerships with community-based organizations, youth and families as they work to implement mastery-based learning (MBL) in a culturally responsive-sustaining manner. The State Board of Education is now preparing to launch the second cohort of the Mastery-based Learning Collaborative (MBLC)! Participating schools receive funding and … [ ]

Our 2023 Bridge Conference workshop request for proposals process is now open! We are seeking proposals that offer a high-quality and compelling workshops, conference alignment and relevance, and racial equity alignment.  Our goal is to bring together presenters and participants of different identities, perspectives, and backgrounds from the expanded learning opportunities field. We welcome and encourage people who speak multiple languages to participate.  This is an opportunity to reflect on your strengths and expertise and present ideas to the youth development field. We are seeking presenters to lead engaging presentations and/or interactive workshops. We welcome and encourage people who speak multiple languages to participate.  … [ ]