After School Matters: Strategic Plan, Performance Evaluation, and Retention Improvement

Beginning in February 2010, Civic Consulting Alliance worked with The Boston Consulting Group to develop a strategic plan to position After School Matters (ASM) for effective long-term growth. Following the creation of this strategic plan, Civic Consulting Alliance partnered with Deloitte to develop tools to monitor the performance of ASM programs. Civic Consulting staff also crafted a set of recommendations to improve student retention rates in ASM programming.

After School Matters offers high quality, hands-on, project-based apprenticeship programs in a variety of content areas, including the arts, science, sports, technology and communications. Students who consistently participate in ASM programs demonstrate improved educational outcomes.

Consultants from The Boston Consulting Group worked to develop methods to help ASM underscore their commitment to Chicago Public Schools high school students. Additionally, they identified strategies to help ASM use their resources more effectively.

Building on this strategic plan, team members from Deloitte produced a model to evaluate high performing ASM programs. This model weighted key programmatic factors to help ASM identify where they should commit the greatest share of their resources.

Civic Consulting Alliance also worked with ASM staff to promote student retention in ASM programming. Students who are retained in ASM programs for three or more semesters demonstrate greatly improved academic outcomes. To help ASM to achieve its goals, Civic Consulting Alliance identified a set of strategic and operational steps for ASM to encourage student retention across programs.