GSW Education Partners

The June edition of The Practitioner's Pulse is live.

If you run an after-school program, a 21st CCLC site, or any K-12 program through the summer, this one is worth reading before June 15.

It covers the summer learning slide (the data is more specific than most summaries suggest), the 21st CCLC funding news from Congress, and a practical fall planning guide.

Plus: the GSW Summer Giveaway is in full swing. One program leader wins a $5,799 consulting engagement. Details are in the issue.

Link is in the comments.

We are giving away our full Signature Transformation consulting package, valued at $5,799.

One winner. Announced August 4, 2026.

This is for K-12 program directors, after-school coordinators, OST leaders, and district program administrators who are doing the work every day and could use a genuine partner to help take their program to the next level.

What you win: 40 hours of embedded GSW consulting, full program assessment, curriculum review, staffing strategy, and a financial sustainability plan tailored to your program.

To enter:
Follow our page.
Share this post to your timeline.
Comment below with the one challenge your program is working through right now.

Winner announced August 4. Link in the comments.

Share or tag this with a program director who deserves it.

On Memorial Day, we are thinking about the people who dedicate their lives to something larger than themselves.

That includes, closer to home, every educator who shows up every day to shape what comes next for the students in their care.

We are grateful for the commitment that makes education work.

Rest, recharge. Summer is almost here.

Summer staffing tip worth sharing:

The educators who fill summer program roles fastest are the ones who received a personal call or message, not a job posting.

Your strongest candidates from last summer already know your program, your culture, and your kids. They are the most efficient hire you can make. A two minute check-in call now is worth more than three weeks of recruiting later.

This week, make five calls. Not emails. Calls.

What has worked for your program when it comes to finding reliable summer staff?

If your program runs on 21st CCLC funding, there are three things worth doing before June.

First: check whether your state has opened its FY2027 continuation grant cycle. Several states are running review processes right now and the deadlines are tighter than usual.

Second: pull your attendance and outcome data into a format that tells a clear story. Funders and state education agencies are looking for programs that can demonstrate impact per dollar. That case is much easier to make in May than in August.

Third: identify one alternative funding lane. Title IV-A is underutilized in many districts that qualify. Local levy and municipal co-funding have become more realistic since the ESSER cliff. Even a partial alternative reduces your single-source risk significantly.

The advocacy community is doing important work at the federal level. Your program still needs to plan as if the decision is not made yet.

Need help thinking through the funding picture? Drop a comment or check the link in the first comment for our free Budget Planner.

Every week we get to see something that reminds us why this work matters.

A program coordinator in a rural recreation department we support just wrapped her third year running an after-school literacy program. When she started, 42% of her students were reading below grade level. This spring, that number dropped to 19%.

She did not have extra resources. She had a clearer structure, a better onboarding process for her teaching staff, and a system for tracking which students needed what intervention.

That is the work.

To every program coordinator running programs on limited budgets with enormous expectations: we see you. The outcomes you are building matter.

Share this if someone in your network deserves recognition this week.

Tag someone in education who needs to see this.

GSW Education Partners built a free career board specifically for K-12, edtech, afterschool, and youth-serving professionals. Not a generic board. One built for this community.

As of today:

1,940 active positions
805 organizations hiring
All 50 states covered
134 remote roles

Updated every day, including weekends. Free to access. No form required to browse.

Roles include everything from Superintendent, school administration, and district leadership to program directors, coordinators, student success, operations, edtech, and OST leadership. Remote AND in-person positions across all 50 states.

If someone you know is looking right now, put this in front of them. Drop the link in your educator Facebook groups. Tag a colleague below.

Link is in the comments.

What role is hardest to find in education right now?

Question for program directors and school leaders:

What is the single biggest challenge you are facing with summer programming right now?

Is it staffing? Funding? Curriculum? Or something else entirely?

We are working with programs across the country this time of year and want to understand what is most pressing in your community.

Tell us below. We read every response and follow up on specific questions.

The ESSER funding cliff is not a future problem for most districts. It is a right now problem.

Schools that built programs on pandemic relief funding were told the cliff was coming. Many planned for it. But planning for a budget cut and absorbing it in the same year you are navigating a staffing shortage and federal policy uncertainty are two different things.

Across the districts we work with, the most common situation we are seeing is this: programs that are well designed and genuinely needed, running on budgets that do not match reality.

The answer is not always to cut. Sometimes it is to restructure, find a co-funding partner, or rebuild the cost model around what sustainable funding actually covers.

What is your program doing to navigate the funding gap this year? We want to hear what is working.

Something every K-12 program leader should know about right now:

FY2027 budget decisions are happening in most districts over the next 60 days. And the organizations entering those conversations with clean cost data and realistic funding scenarios are the ones coming out with intact programs.

We built a free Budget Planner specifically for K-12 and out-of-school time programs. It walks through staffing, curriculum, operations, and grant match in about 20 minutes and generates a summary you can take into any board or funder meeting.

It's free. No login, no subscription.

Drop a comment if you want the link, or check the first comment below.