What is 21CCLC?
21st Century Community Learning Centers (or 21CCLC) is a federal initiative dedicated to helping students succeed so they can compete on a global scale. Reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind Act and the Every Student Succeeds Act, the program targets low-performing schools with high poverty rates and provides them with federal funding to support their after-school programs.
These after-school programs may offer academic enrichment activities to help students meet state and local standards in core subjects like math, science, and reading. They may also feature additional supplemental services that complement academic enrichment, such as art and music education, drug and violence prevention, technology education, college and career readiness classes, and counseling and personal character education. In addition, some programs provide the families of enrolled youths with services like literacy classes, language classes, and other education.
21CCLC is a crucial government initiative, as it is dedicated to helping to close the gap between underserved communities and those communities that have greater resources at their disposal. These low-income areas also typically see parents and guardians working longer or nontraditional hours, making after-school programs an especially important source of academic and social support.
Ensuring compliance with 21CCLC
Because 21CCLC supplies federal funds, after-school program providers must submit reports that prove their compliance with 21CCLC guidelines. In particular, providers must submit an annual performance report (21APR), which includes in-depth data on the previous year’s program attendance, student performance, and student improvement. The 21APR also collects information that feeds into the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) performance indicators.
The required data is extensive, and it is difficult—or nearly impossible—to collect, track, and ensure the cleanliness of it using disparate spreadsheets or other tools. This approach is also labor-intensive and time-consuming for administrators, staff, and program directors, who are already juggling their full-time job responsibilities. For this reason, many after-school program providers seek out software solutions to help them manage data and make 21APR reporting more efficient.
Introducing EZReports
EZReports is a leading provider of comprehensive web-based software for timely, effective afterschool management. A cloud-based afterschool management software, it was specifically designed to be easy to deploy and to meet the complex data collection and reporting requirements of 21CCLC programs so program directors can ensure they are in compliance—without adding any unnecessary work.
How can it help?
Amassing the data, filling out the numerous forms, and successfully compiling the reports required for programs that were federally funded can take hours, time spent away from students and from program management. EZReports helps you meet the data collection and reporting requirements of the Federal 21st Century Community Learning Centers programs and can generate accurate GPR and APR data with just a few clicks. With all paperwork and manual practices handled through the platform, program directors are instead free to focus on providing quality education—instead of spending hours collecting data and reports and struggling to understand how to stay in compliance.
Our centralized management solution increases efficiency without increasing costs, and it’s the program of choice for nine State DOEs. In fact, more than 5,000+ schools and community-based programs nationwide prefer to use EZReports to alleviate the burden of ensuring compliance from educators’ shoulders.
Curious about how EZReports can help you spend less time on compliance? Request a Demo
Who is it meant for?
The in-depth nature of 21APR reports for 21CCLC compliance means that multiple user groups must coordinate to successfully submit or gather data and aggregate it. EZReports was specifically designed to be easily used by multiple groups of users within an after-school program, facilitating collaboration and ensuring transparency.
Site Coordinators
- Create and schedule after-school activities/sessions
- Print different types of rosters and sign-in sheets
- Record attendance quickly by using Mobile Application or Badge Scanning
- Run program management reports real-time
Program Directors
- Monitor and manage multiple after-school programs centrally
- Run real-time reports by grant, program, or site to make better decisions to meet objectives
- Provide detailed data to evaluators and funders about extent and type of program participation
- Reduce your overall cost of data collection and evaluation
Evaluators
- Collect data directly from the EZReports software versus having to rely on site staff or spreadsheets
- Generate 21CCLC and State DOE reports directly, eliminating time spent on data collection and compilation
- Print ad-hoc reports that facilitate evaluation
- Design and conduct surveys online to collect feedback for improvement
State DOE
- Monitor and manage 21CCLC program at all sites in real time
- Streamline program monitoring and reporting for all grantees/sites
- Manage and track grant cycles
- Generate 21APR reports centrally for all grantees/sites
Features
EZReports brings all of the features and capabilities that educators and program directors need into one comprehensive program management platform. Our user-friendly portal enables you to easily access data, track all students, and compile reports so you can save time and focus on meaningful work with the children and families that rely on your program—rather than on paperwork.