out-of-school learning

July 24, 2026 By RESCHOOL

Beyond Funding: What Colorado’s New Scholarship Opportunities Could Mean for Families

Infographic illustrating the shift from traditional education funding to a family-centered approach through Scholarship Granting Organizations, trusted navigation, community partnerships, and expanded learning opportunities.

As Colorado prepares for new scholarship opportunities, RESCHOOL explores why funding alone isn’t enough and how family-centered systems can help connect families to meaningful learning opportunities beyond the classroom.

As new scholarship funding opportunities prepare to launch across the country in 2027, the question is no longer whether more dollars will enter the education system; it is whether those dollars will reach the families and communities they were intended to serve.

Policymakers nationwide are rethinking how education dollars can support learning beyond the traditional school day through scholarships, education savings accounts, tax credits, and other mechanisms that fund after-school programs, summer camps, tutoring, arts, community-based experiences, and more. States are responding differently: some have moved quickly to participate, others are still weighing whether to opt in at all.

Those are important conversations. But they often overlook a more practical question that may ultimately determine whether these investments actually work: what happens after the funding becomes available?

What Happens After Funding Becomes Available?

The federal government’s new Education Freedom Tax Credit creates a framework where individual donors can give to Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs). These organizations will be responsible for receiving charitable contributions and distributing scholarships that families can use for eligible educational expenses under participating state programs. Donors receive a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for their contribution, up to $1,700.

As the program takes effect in 2027, states that choose to participate are expected to see new Scholarship Granting Organizations emerge. Some will focus primarily on expanding access to private school tuition. Others, including a new Scholarship Granting Organization RESCHOOL is developing, will focus on helping families access a broader range of learning opportunities beyond the traditional school day, including tutoring, summer programs, enrichment, and other eligible educational experiences.

States must opt in for residents to receive scholarships funded through the program, and responses have varied. As of July 2026, 29 states, including Colorado, have formally opted in. Colorado’s participation has generated thoughtful discussion about how the program should be implemented and how scholarship organizations can best serve families. It is anticipated that Colorado will ultimately have a number of SGOs operating across the state, serving both public and private school students.

For years, RESCHOOL has worked alongside families, community organizations, and out-of-school learning providers across Colorado to better understand how families discover opportunities, what barriers they encounter, and what makes learning accessible in practice.

One lesson has emerged consistently: Families are not looking for more complicated systems. They are looking for systems that help them access the opportunities already surrounding them. If scholarship programs are going to exist, families need a system that helps them actually use them.

Why RESCHOOL Is Building a Scholarship Granting Organization

As Colorado prepares to implement the Education Freedom Tax Credit, RESCHOOL is taking an important next step in its mission to expand learning opportunities beyond the classroom.

RESCHOOL has decided to establish a new Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO) in Colorado built specifically around out-of-school learning, not just private school tuition. Nationally, most conversations about the Education Freedom Tax Credit have centered on private school tuition. But the federal guidelines are broader: qualifying expenses also include tutoring, supplies, transportation, and “supplementary items and services, including extended day programs,” the same categories RESCHOOL has spent years helping Colorado families access through Learning Dollars.

Rather than starting from policy, it starts from practice: years of evidence that flexible funding works best when paired with trusted relationships and real navigation support. Families benefit from choice, but they also benefit from clear information, trusted support, and strong community partnerships that make those choices meaningful.

The new SGO organization is currently in formation, pending final state rules and registration, and is being built around three commitments from day one:

Accessible to public school families, not just households already outside the traditional system.
Prioritized for lower-income Colorado communities, consistent with how Learning Dollars has always operated.
Built around navigation, not just distribution, connecting scholarship dollars to the community-based providers and support families need to actually use them.

These commitments reflect a simple belief: scholarship funding is only one part of a healthy learning ecosystem. Strong community partnerships, trusted guidance, and responsive support will remain central to how RESCHOOL designs this work because expanding opportunity requires more than funding alone.

Families Need More Than Funding

RESCHOOL’s decision to establish a Scholarship Granting Organization is grounded in what we’ve learned through years of partnering with families across Colorado.

Over the past several years, RESCHOOL’s Learning Dollars initiatives have demonstrated that direct-to-family funding can dramatically expand access to learning experiences when families are trusted to make decisions that reflect their children’s interests, goals, and circumstances. Families have used flexible funding to participate in sports, arts programs, tutoring, cultural institutions, summer camps, technology learning, music instruction, outdoor experiences, and many other opportunities that support young people’s growth beyond school.

However, funding solves only one barrier. Families still rely on trusted relationships, clear information, responsive providers, community partnerships, and navigation support to transform available funding into meaningful participation. Community organizations need sustainable infrastructure to meet demand. Providers need visibility so families can find them. Smaller organizations need support to participate alongside larger institutions. Learning ecosystems must function as connected systems rather than isolated programs.

What We’ve Learned

For decades, discussions about education funding have largely centered on institutions. How should schools be funded? How should programs be funded? Which organizations should receive grants? How should public dollars be distributed?

Those questions matter, but they often overlook the people these investments are ultimately intended to serve. Parents don’t think about their children’s development in terms of funding streams or agency budgets. They are looking for a summer program that works with their schedule. They look for an after-school activity where their child feels safe and welcomed. They try to balance transportation, cost, siblings’ needs, work responsibilities, and their child’s interests, often all at once.

Some families invest in sports because their child needs confidence and connection. Others prioritize tutoring or academic enrichment. Some choose music lessons or cultural experiences. Others select camps that provide safe, engaging environments during the summer months. Many combine several opportunities throughout the year as their children’s interests evolve.

These decisions rarely fit neatly into a single category because they reflect what families know about their own children. That insight fundamentally changes how we think about educational opportunity. Rather than asking families to adapt to funding systems, funding systems should adapt to families.

Why This Matters Beyond Colorado

As states continue deciding whether and how to participate in new scholarship funding opportunities, the conversation is beginning to shift from legislation to implementation. The question is no longer simply whether funding should exist, but how it can be designed to create meaningful opportunities for families.

Colorado is one of 29 states that has formally opted into the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit program, while other states continue to weigh their options or debate participation. Regardless of where those conversations lead, one lesson remains consistent: funding alone is not enough. Families need trusted information, strong community partnerships, and systems that help them turn available resources into meaningful learning opportunities.

That is the perspective RESCHOOL brings to this conversation. Years of working alongside families have shown that expanding opportunity requires more than new funding mechanisms. It requires designing systems that put families at the center. As RESCHOOL builds its Scholarship Granting Organization, those lessons will continue to guide how we support Colorado families and contribute to the broader conversation about the future of learning.

You can follow our latest blogs and updates on our website, and sign up for RESCHOOL’s newsletter to receive future pieces like this in your inbox: [Subscribe to RESCHOOL’s newsletter]

June 19, 2026 By RESCHOOL

How Families Build Learning Beyond the Classroom

Infographic showing how families build learning ecosystems through transportation, caregiving, trusted adults, community spaces, peers, activities, resources, and culture

Families rarely experience learning one program at a time. This blog explores how families build learning ecosystems through relationships, trust, community, and everyday life, and why systems should be designed with those realities in mind.

What RESCHOOL is learning about the real-life ecosystems that support young people.

For many of us, the phrase “learning opportunities” brings to mind specific programs: summer camps, afterschool activities, tutoring sessions, internships, classes, or school-based enrichment. But families rarely experience learning one program at a time. They navigate work schedules, transportation, childcare, family responsibilities, neighborhood relationships, children’s interests, cultural identity, safety, cost, and trust. They do not simply choose from a menu of programs. They assemble learning around real life.

Across RESCHOOL’s work with families, one pattern continues to emerge: learning beyond the classroom is not separate from the everyday systems families rely on. It happens through relationships, routines, community spaces, trusted adults, shared responsibilities, and opportunities that help young people feel curious, capable, connected, and known.

If we want to build stronger learning ecosystems, we need to understand that families sit at the intersection of the relationships, resources, and realities that make learning possible.

Families Organize Life Around People, Not Programs

Education systems often organize learning into categories: school, afterschool, summer, enrichment, childcare, tutoring, transportation, and family engagement. These categories help institutions plan and fund services. But they do not necessarily reflect how families experience learning.

For families, a single decision about an out-of-school activity may involve many practical and personal questions at once. Is it close enough to home, school, or a relative’s house? Can siblings attend together? Is the schedule realistic? Is transportation possible? Will my child feel safe? Will the adults understand my child’s needs? Does the program affirm my child’s identity? Is there help with equipment, uniforms, or supplies? Will this experience help my child build confidence, make friends, or discover something new?

RESCHOOL’s Family Choice Journal was designed around this reality. Rather than asking families to select a program from a list, it begins by helping young people and families reflect on their values, hopes, needs, and priorities. Families consider what they hope their child will gain from a school or activity, from learning something new and building curiosity to feeling a sense of belonging, making friends, connecting with supportive adults, and preparing for what’s next. They also weigh practical considerations such as transportation, schedules, safety, cost, accommodations, equipment and supplies, and opportunities for continued involvement and growth.

This is a much fuller picture of learning choice than the one systems often use. It recognizes that families are not only evaluating whether an activity sounds enriching. They are evaluating whether it fits into the actual conditions of their lives. In other words, while systems tend to bundle learning into programs and institutions, families often assemble it through the realities of everyday life.

Families Build Learning Through Relationships, Trust, And Community Infrastructure

RESCHOOL’s work in the Globeville, Elyria, Swansea community offers a concrete example of what this looks like. In 2025, RESCHOOL supported families in G.E.S. through Learning Dollars, Pick-a-Pass programs, and Provider Dollar Grants. The report describes G.E.S. as a culturally diverse neighborhood with multilingual households, multigenerational families, strong family ties, and a history of community activism. It also notes that the neighborhood has been shaped by physical isolation, fragmented infrastructure, environmental conditions, limited walkable green space, and economic barriers that limit access to youth opportunities.

In that context, out-of-school learning is not simply about whether a program exists. It is about whether families can realistically use it, whether they trust it, and whether it reflects what they want for their children.

The collaboration with Cultivando is instructive. RESCHOOL and Cultivando have partnered for more than five years to support families with resources and learning experiences, including Learning Dollars, cultural institution memberships, and customized activity booklets that help families navigate their children’s learning. Cultivando’s Promotora Model, built around trained local leaders who serve as bridges between families and resources, matters because trust and navigation are part of the learning infrastructure.

The G.E.S. report shows that when families received flexible supports, they made intentional decisions. Through Pick-a-Pass, 20 families received year-long memberships to cultural institutions. The most popular choice was the Denver Aquarium. Families cited cost, educational value, nature and outdoor experiences, family time, and children’s preferences as reasons for choosing particular memberships. One parent explained that they did not want to have to choose between taking their children out and paying rent. Another described choosing the Museum of Nature and Science because there was a lot to learn and explore as a family, including history, origins, ancestors, and culture.

The point is not just that families accessed a museum or aquarium. These memberships became part of family life. They allowed families to return multiple times, explore together, include all family members, access spaces they had not visited before, and build shared experiences. The report notes that Pick-a-Pass memberships became more than individual family opportunities. Because many families selected the same institution, they also created a shared experience and helped build a sense of community.

Families weren’t simply accessing opportunities individually. Their choices created informal networks of shared experience, where children encountered one another outside of school, and cultural spaces became places of connection. In some cases, families also coordinated care and supported one another’s participation, reinforcing that the infrastructure of learning often includes the informal networks families build to help one another navigate daily life.

Learning Dollars revealed a similar pattern. Families used funds for learning materials, art and music supplies, computer skills, sports, educational toys, camp, and even driving lessons. One parent used Learning Dollars for driving lessons to help their son build confidence and motivation. Another used the funds for camp and camp clothing, as they were necessary for participation. These examples illustrate that some of the investments families prioritize may not look like “education” in a traditional sense. Yet they are deeply connected to how young people grow, participate, and experience the world around them.

Provider Dollar Grants extended this ecosystem further by supporting community-centered programming developed with family needs in mind. In G.E.S., grants supported a strength, conditioning, and mindfulness summer program and a music and literacy program designed by community-based educators working closely with participating families. These experiences helped young people build confidence, strengthen social connections, and engage positively in structured activities that reflected their interests and needs.

This is what family-centered learning ecosystems look like in practice. They are not built only through programs. They are built through trusted partners, flexible resources, local educators, cultural spaces, transportation realities, shared family priorities, and opportunities that respond to what young people and families say they need. In other words, families don’t experience learning as a collection of disconnected services. They experience it as part of the ongoing work of raising children, caring for one another, and building community.

What If Systems Started With Family Reality?

The stories and decisions emerging from the Family Choice Journal and the G.E.S. partnership point to a simple but important observation: families experience learning through the realities of everyday life, while systems often organize it into separate categories and disconnected services. Families don’t distinguish between transportation, childcare, enrichment, relationships, and learning in the same way institutions do. They are constantly weaving these pieces together, making decisions based on what is practical, meaningful, and possible for their children. In many ways, families are doing the work of building coherence across systems that were never designed to fit neatly together.

That reality places an enormous amount of invisible labor on families. Parents and caregivers become schedulers, transportation coordinators, information seekers, advocates, and opportunity brokers. They figure out which experiences align with their children’s interests, who can help with pickups, whether costs can be managed, and which environments feel safe and welcoming. The examples from G.E.S. illustrate that this work is not simply logistical. It is deeply relational. Families rely on trusted community members, exchange recommendations, learn from one another, and create informal networks of support that help opportunities become accessible and meaningful.

What RESCHOOL continues to learn is that supporting young people means paying attention to the conditions that shape family decision-making in the first place. These observations are consistent with national findings. According to the Afterschool Alliance’s 2026 America After 3PM Summer Report, parents prioritize experiences that provide safety, caring and knowledgeable adults, opportunities to build confidence, time with peers, physical activity, and opportunities for children to spend less time on screens and more time engaged with others. These priorities reflect a broad understanding of what helps young people thrive and closely mirror what families in G.E.S. prioritized through their own choices. Flexible funding matters. Trusted relationships matter. Community partnerships matter. But perhaps most importantly, families need systems that recognize the realities they are already navigating rather than expecting them to adapt to rigid structures that overlook the complexity of everyday life. The future of learning ecosystems may depend less on creating entirely new programs and more on designing with family reality at the center.

How Families Make Learning Work

Families have always been building learning beyond the classroom. They do it when they coordinate rides to activities, seek out trusted adults, revisit museums and community spaces, share recommendations with other parents, and make difficult decisions about how to invest limited time and resources in the experiences they believe will help their children thrive. Much of this work happens quietly and often goes unseen, but it is no less essential to young people’s growth and development.

If we want to build stronger learning ecosystems, we have to pay attention not only to the programs we create, but also to the realities families navigate every day. The stories emerging from the Family Choice Journal, the G.E.S. partnership, and communities across Colorado remind us that families are not passive recipients of opportunity. They are active participants in shaping it, assembling experiences through relationships, routines, trust, and care.

At RESCHOOL, that means continuing to learn alongside families, not simply designing for them. Because the future of learning may depend less on asking families to adapt to systems that were never built with them in mind, and more on building systems that recognize what families have been showing us all along: learning doesn’t happen separately from everyday life. It happens through it.

The families featured in this work remind us that learning doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens through relationships, community, and the everyday decisions that shape young people’s lives. We invite educators, providers, policymakers, funders, and community leaders to continue learning alongside families and to consider what it would look like to design with family reality at the center.

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May 12, 2026 By RESCHOOL

The Enrichment Gap Is a Funding Problem We Haven’t Solved

Students participating in out-of-school learning programs during summer

The enrichment gap is widening as funding for out-of-school learning becomes more unstable. RESCHOOL examines why access depends on funding systems and what it will take to create consistent opportunities for families.

The gap between what children from low- and high-socioeconomic families access outside of school is not new. What is new and urgent is that the funding systems designed to help close that gap are now under direct threat.

A 26-year longitudinal study tracking 814 children from birth through age 26 found that when children from low-income households went from zero to four enrichment opportunities, such as sports, arts programs, clubs, and meaningful after-school activities, their odds of graduating college increased from 10 to 50 percent. Their annual earnings by age 26 rose by roughly $10,000 (Source: Hechinger Report). By the end of high school, more than 90 percent of higher-income children had experienced four or more such opportunities, compared to fewer than 20 percent of lower-income children.

This is the enrichment gap. It is not a supplement to the education system. It is one of the most powerful predictors of long-term outcomes we have. And right now, the systems that support access to these opportunities are becoming less stable, not more.

Summer Is Where the Gap Becomes Visible

When school-based supports disappear, access to learning depends almost entirely on whether families can find, afford, and reach out-of-school programs. For many families, those options do not exist or are not accessible. This is when the enrichment gap widens fastest.

The barriers are not just financial. Families must navigate a fragmented system of programs, determine what is available, and find options that are geographically accessible. Even when programs exist, transportation and system complexity often prevent participation.

Summer is not just a break from school. It is a stress test of whether the system can deliver access at all.

A System Built for Fragmentation, Not Access

According to the Afterschool Alliance’s 2025 America After 3PM report, 22.6 million children want to participate in out-of-school programs, but are unable to due to barriers including cost, transportation, and lack of access to programs. (Source: Afterschool Alliance)

This gap has persisted despite decades of public investment intended to expand access. The 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, first authorized in 1994 and significantly expanded in 1998 and the early 2000s, was designed to provide after-school and summer learning opportunities for students in underserved communities. It remains the largest dedicated federal funding stream for out-of-school time, currently supporting 1.4 million children nationwide.

Even with this investment, access gaps have remained. Now, the proposed elimination of $1.33 billion in 21st Century Community Learning Centers funding would remove that federal support entirely, at the same time that Colorado has reduced its own state-level investment in out-of-school time. This makes 2026 a critical decision point for whether access expands or contracts. (Source: Afterschool Alliance)

This is not just a funding shortfall. It is a system design failure.

Out-of-school programs are expected to meet growing demand while relying on fragmented, short-term funding streams that were never designed to provide consistent access. Multiple funding sources operate independently, with no cohesive structure to ensure stability for providers or reliability for families.

Organizations piece together grants, philanthropy, and earned revenue year to year without the predictability needed to plan staffing, maintain capacity, or expand. When a single funding source disappears, programs shrink or close. When programs close, families lose access. This pattern disproportionately impacts those with the fewest alternatives.

Some states have begun to address this by establishing dedicated funding streams for out-of-school time, creating more predictable access for families and stability for providers. Colorado does not yet have a comparable system.

What Funding Failure Looks Like on the Ground

Across Colorado, providers are working to meet consistent demand for summer and after-school programming while navigating unstable funding. Organizations like Boys & Girls Clubs serve hundreds of young people across large geographic areas, offering academic support, enrichment, and safe spaces outside of school hours. Demand remains high, particularly during the summer months when school is not in session.

What is inconsistent is the system’s ability to sustain these programs year to year. Funding gaps limit capacity, reduce program availability, and create uncertainty for both providers and families.

What RESCHOOL’s Model Can and Cannot Solve

RESCHOOL’s Learning Dollars put funding directly in families’ hands to pay for the out-of-school learning that matters to them, including tutoring, arts programs, camps, and cultural experiences. This directly addresses affordability, one of the primary barriers to access.

But affordability is only one part of the system.

Direct-to-family funding addresses cost and gives families the ability to choose and prioritize the learning experiences that matter most to them. It reflects demand more accurately by putting resources in the hands of those navigating the system directly.

It does not solve provider sustainability or system fragmentation. If providers cannot afford to remain open, access disappears regardless of whether families have funding. And in communities where programs are already limited, affordability alone does not create supply.

The National Academies of Sciences has emphasized that youth development depends on consistent access to high-quality, relationship-based experiences across settings, not just isolated opportunities (Source: National Academies of Sciences). That level of consistency requires infrastructure that the current system does not provide.

What Needs to Change

If current funding patterns hold, access will continue to shrink even as demand from families remains high and increasingly visible. Addressing the enrichment gap requires structural changes that account for how supply, demand, and system infrastructure interact.

Three priorities are clear:

1. Sustained, dedicated funding streams for out-of-school time: Reduce reliance on fragmented, short-term funding that leaves providers unable to plan or scale. Without this, programs will continue operating in survival mode.

2. Direct-to-family funding mechanisms: Ensure families can access and choose learning experiences that align with their children’s needs. These mechanisms address affordability and surface real demand. Without them, cost remains a barrier, and systems lack visibility into what families actually need.

3. Investment in provider capacity: Ensure that community-based organizations can meet demand through stable staffing, programming, and operations. Without this, funding flows into a shrinking supply of programs.

What Comes Next

RESCHOOL is not just making the case for these changes. We are testing what works.

Our Learning Dollars model, provider-facing investments, Learner Advocate network, and broader ecosystem-building efforts are generating real-world evidence about what it takes to expand access in practice.

The evidence already exists. The risk is not that we do not know what to do. It is that funding decisions continue to ignore what is already working.

If you are a funder, policymaker, provider, or intermediary working on out-of-school learning, we invite you to stay connected and to be part of this conversation.

You can follow our latest blogs and updates on our website and sign up for RESCHOOL’s newsletter to receive future pieces like this in your inbox: [Subscribe to RESCHOOL’s newsletter]

April 9, 2026 By RESCHOOL

Real-World Learning Beyond the Classroom: Why Education Systems Must Adapt

Colorado students participating in real-world learning beyond the classroom

RESCHOOL Colorado shares what Phase 1 of Mapping Real World Learning revealed: the experiences that most shape young people’s identity, confidence, and future pathways often happen beyond the classroom, yet education systems still struggle to recognize and support them.

Mapping Real World Learning is a new RESCHOOL initiative grounded in a simple but often overlooked question: how do young people actually experience learning across their lives, and what does that mean for how we define readiness?

Most education systems measure the learning that happens inside the four walls of a classroom. But young people spend the majority of their time outside of them, developing skills, relationships, and a sense of direction through experiences that are rarely captured or valued in formal systems. Mapping Real World Learning aims to better understand this broader landscape of learning, document its impact, and explore how it might be more consistently recognized in the systems that shape opportunity, from education to workforce pathways.

In Phase 1, we partnered with two schools that intentionally integrate real-world learning into their models: Odyssey School of Denver and La Luz. Through interviews with students, families, and educators, we explored how young people are engaging in learning beyond the classroom and how they describe the impact of those experiences on their identity, confidence, and future pathways. What we heard was both consistent and revealing.

When asked where they learn something that matters to them, the answer is rarely “in math class.”

That is not an argument against schools. Schools are essential. But in conversations with young people, a clear pattern emerged: the experiences they describe as most formative, the ones that shape the sense of who they are and what they might become, are the ones happening beyond the classroom. Experiences when they’re engaged in real work with real people, and not just exercises in academics. After all, students are human beings, and like all of us, are motivated by the instinct to learn and to use what they learn to make a place for themselves in the world. Students described these experiences as transformative in building confidence, independence, and a stronger sense of identity. These experiences allow students to “try on” new roles such as leader, advocate, or collaborator, sparking deeper curiosity and giving them the confidence to pursue it independently. In after-school programs. On job sites. In community spaces and at home. With mentors, coaches, peers, and trusted adults who are not their teachers.

As one young person put it, “I’ve definitely developed the skill to advocate for myself… and if you advocate for yourself, you can get things done.”

What we heard points to a deeper issue: the experiences that most shape young people’s identity, confidence, and future pathways are still largely invisible to the systems designed to prepare them for life after school.

This is not news to anyone who works closely with young people. But it matters enormously for how we design learning systems, fund education, and think about who is responsible for supporting youth.

Phase 1: What We Heard

In Phase 1, we conducted in-depth interviews with students and families participating in school models that integrate real-world learning into the school day. Four findings emerged consistently across these conversations.

1. Out-of-school experiences are identity-shaping, not supplemental.

Young people describe out-of-school experiences as places where they build confidence, develop a stronger sense of self, and begin to understand what they are capable of. These environments place them in real situations with real expectations, real audiences, and real outcomes, where they can take meaningful risks while being supported by trusted adults and peers.

Through these experiences, young people begin to see themselves differently. They practice advocating for themselves, trying new roles, and navigating unfamiliar situations, often in ways that extend beyond what traditional classroom settings alone can offer.

These experiences are not peripheral.

Over time, this repeated exposure builds durable confidence and a greater willingness to take risks. As one student shared, “I am usually always anxious at the start and scared… but I just end up loving it… so what I’ve learned is just do it, even if you’re terrified.”

This reveals a fundamental misalignment: our systems tend to treat these experiences as enrichment, while young people experience them as core to who they are becoming.

2. Trusted relationships enable risk-taking and make learning meaningful.

When young people talked about the experiences that mattered most, they consistently pointed to a specific person, such as a teacher, mentor, or peer who helped them make sense of what they were doing and learning. Not a website. Not a brochure. A relationship.

In Phase 1, these relationships were most often with teachers who had built enough trust for students to take on the uncertainty and challenge these experiences required. That trust made risk-taking possible.

Parents observed this shift as well. One parent shared: “He’s himself now. He’s not scared to be himself… he is not afraid to make eye contact and share his voice with people.”

These relationships also help students build social capital, not just by expanding their networks, but by developing the skills to navigate them on their own.

This has direct implications for learner navigation. It is not just about access to options, but about sustained relationships that support risk-taking and sense-making over time.

3. No single adult or institution holds the full picture.

Schools see the school day. Program providers see program hours. Families see home. But no one sees it all.

Young people themselves are the only ones carrying the whole story of their learning lives—and they frequently lack the language, the tools, and the institutional support to make that story legible to others or even to themselves.

This reality reflects a broader structural mismatch: young people spend the majority of their waking hours outside of school, yet most systems remain anchored to what happens inside it.

This is not just a coordination challenge. It is a structural limitation. Our education systems were built around a single institution as the center of learning. They are not designed to recognize learning as distributed across people, places, and time.

4. “Readiness” and risk shape how families make decisions about learning

“Readiness” emerged as a consistent tension across interviews, particularly for families. While students demonstrated growth in confidence, independence, and problem-solving, many families continued to define readiness through traditional academic structures and benchmarks. This created an ongoing tradeoff in decision-making, where developmental gains were weighed against concerns about academic rigor and future preparedness.

At the same time, participation in real-world learning is shaped by risk tolerance and access to resources. Families with greater financial, social, or educational support were more likely to engage in nontraditional learning environments or extend these experiences beyond school. For others, perceived risks such as falling behind academically, financial cost, or uncertainty about outcomes limited participation.

Together, these dynamics highlight that real-world learning is not only a question of impact, but of access and belief. Expanding participation will require both stronger ways of demonstrating readiness and additional support for families navigating these decisions.

The Missing Piece: Access and Recognition

There is another reality embedded in these findings: access to these experiences is not evenly distributed.

Research shows that for every child in an afterschool program, several more are waiting to get in, with cost and availability acting as major barriers. At the same time, many forms of real-world learning—working in a family business, caring for siblings, contributing to community life—are happening every day but remain unrecognized and unsupported.

This creates a double inequity. Some young people lack access to high-quality opportunities. Others are already developing valuable skills through lived experience, but those skills are never named, documented, or valued in formal systems.

If we continue to treat real-world learning as optional or invisible, we risk reinforcing the very inequities we are trying to solve.

Why This Matters Right Now

The findings from the Mapping Real World Learning project arrive at an inflection point for American education.

Across the country, policy-driven mechanisms like Education Savings Accounts and the recently enacted federal Education Freedom Tax Credit, alongside shifts within public education such as career-connected learning, competency-based models, and microschools operating in both public and private contexts, are giving students more options than ever before. At the same time, the landscape is fragmenting. Young people are now more likely to be learning across a wider range of settings like public and private schools, afterschool programs, online platforms, community organizations, and workplaces, with less coordination across them than ever before.

The paradox of this moment is that as choice expands, the need for coherence grows. Families are being handed more options and less support for making sense of them. Young people, already navigating these experiences largely on their own, are being asked to do even more without an adult or system holding the full picture of their learning.

What Navigation Looks Like in Practice

This is exactly why RESCHOOL’s work on learner navigation and advocacy has never felt more urgent.

What we are learning from the Mapping Real World Learning project reinforces what we have seen in our direct work with families across Denver: that what young people need is not just access to more options, but someone who can help them connect those options into something coherent.

A learner advocate who helps a family “braid” the school day with afterschool, summer, and community learning. A navigator who understands that a young person’s internship experience and her history class are part of the same story.

This is not a small lift. It requires trust, time, and a relationship that is accountable to the learner, not to a school, not to a program, and not to a funder, but to the young person and family at the center.

What Comes Next

Phase 2 of the Mapping Real World Learning project is focused on a critical next step: making real-world learning more visible, measurable, and usable in ways that systems can actually recognize.

This includes:

Developing clearer ways to articulate what young people gain from these experiences, not just in terms of “confidence,” but in pathways, networks, and readiness for what comes next
Exploring how learning can be captured and tracked over time through more comprehensive student records, rather than one-time snapshots
Connecting these experiences to existing broader skill and readiness frameworks, or building new ones grounded in how young people actually learn
Helping young people and families translate these experiences into language that “counts” in applications, resumes, and future opportunities

This is about more than documentation. It is about building the connective tissue between lived experience and the systems that shape opportunity.

A System That Can See the Whole Learner

If we take young people seriously, we have to take their learning seriously, even when it happens outside the structures we are most comfortable measuring.

The question is no longer whether learning happens beyond school. We know that it does. The question is whether our systems are ready to recognize it, support it, and ensure that every young person has access to it.

These experiences are central to how young people build identity, develop agency, and navigate the world. Yet without systems to capture and recognize their impact, they will continue to be treated as enrichment rather than core to a young person’s development.

Because until we can see the full picture of how young people learn, we will continue to design systems that only support part of who they are, and only part of what they need to thrive.

You can follow our latest blogs and updates on our website and sign up for RESCHOOL’s newsletter to receive future pieces like this in your inbox: [Subscribe to RESCHOOL’s newsletter]

March 16, 2026 By RESCHOOL

Who Helps Families Navigate Learning When Choices Expand?

Youth participating in community-based learning with support from a trusted adult guide

As education choices expand, families need more than options, they need guidance. RESCHOOL Colorado explores why navigation and learner advocacy matter, and how trusted adults can help families connect school, out-of-school learning, and real-world opportunities into a more coherent path.

Across the country, families are hearing a familiar message: more education choices are coming.

Education savings accounts, tax credits, scholarships, work-based learning, early college, and expanded out-of-school programs. On paper, it looks like a wider set of opportunities for young people. In practice, it often looks like a more fragmented system that asks families to do even more work to find, evaluate, and piece together options.

That is the paradox at the heart of today’s education landscape. Choice is expanding, while the structure and accountability that families can rely on are thinning out. Many families now have more responsibility for navigating learning, but fewer supports to do it.

RESCHOOL sees this shift very clearly in Colorado. For more than a decade, we have worked alongside families, community organizations, and systems leaders to understand how young people actually experience learning across their days, years, and communities. What we hear again and again is simple:

Families do not just need more options. They need someone in their corner to help make sense of those options.

This is where navigation and learner advocacy come in.

From More Options To More Complexity

Two big shifts are happening at the same time.

First, learning is decentralizing. Young people spend roughly 80 percent of their waking hours outside of school. Those hours are filled, in very uneven ways, with sports, jobs, caregiving, community programs, cultural activities, and online experiences. New public and private funding tools are starting to acknowledge that learning happens across this wider ecosystem, not only inside school buildings.

Second, accountability is changing. Traditional systems often relied on a fairly rigid structure: one primary school, one set of tests, one district that holds most of the formal responsibility. In some new choice and tax credit programs, that structure is loosening or disappearing without something else in its place. Families are asked to make complex decisions, track learning, and coordinate schedules across multiple settings, often with little support.

Parents tell us they are excited about new possibilities, but they are also overwhelmed. They want to know:

Which options are a good fit for my child, not just in theory but in real life with our schedule, transportation, and responsibilities?

Who will help us connect school, out-of-school programs, and work-based learning so it adds up to something coherent?
If something goes wrong, who is responsible for fixing it?

These questions are not technical details; they are the daily reality for families trying to help their children thrive in a landscape that is changing faster than the support and governance structures around it.

What We Mean By “Learner Advocacy”

In this context, RESCHOOL has been exploring what it would look like to create a learner advocate network that can serve as a steady anchor for young people and their families.

A learner advocate is a trusted adult or team whose primary responsibility is to the learner, not to a single program or institution. That person or team:

Helps connect what happens in school, out-of-school time, and real-world experiences so it counts and builds toward something larger
Helps families understand the full range of learning options available to them
Supports them in making choices that reflect their values, goals, and constraints
Stays with the learner over time, checking in as needs and circumstances change.

This is not about replacing schools, counselors, or community organizations. It is about stitching together the work that many people are already doing and creating a clear point of accountability for the learner’s overall experience.

In a more dispersed system, where funding and learning are intertwined across multiple settings, someone needs to hold the full picture with the learner at the center. That is the role we see for learner advocates.

What Navigation Looks Like On The Ground

Navigation is easiest to understand in practice. In our work, learner advocacy has included things like:

Sitting with families as they use tools such as the Family Choice Journal to identify what matters most to them, including safety, culture, logistics, interests, and relationships
Walking them through application and scholarship processes for out-of-school programs, sports, tutoring, and cultural experiences
Helping them stack different opportunities so transportation and schedule work across school, after-school, and weekends
Connecting families to new programs that match their priorities, not just the most visible or best-funded options
Staying in touch over time, especially when a family’s work schedule changes, a young person’s interests shift, or a program closes

Families consistently describe how different it feels to have someone actively help them navigate, rather than simply sending a list of links or brochures.

For young people, navigation and advocacy can also show up as:

A trusted adult who asks about their interests and future plans, and then points them to programs, jobs, or courses that align with those interests
Someone who helps connect a job or internship to graduation requirements, industry credentials, or college credit
An advocate who notices when a student is overextended or under-supported, and helps adjust their mix of commitments
A guide who helps families and youth navigate system barriers such as language access, technology literacy, transportation, and access to supplies or equipment needed to fully participate

In short, navigation is not a static directory. It is a relationship-centered practice that helps families and youth move through a complex system without having to hold every detail on their own.

Why Navigation Matters Now

The need for navigation and learner advocacy is not new. Families have always relied on informal networks, individual teachers, and community leaders to help them find and access opportunities. What is new is the speed and scale of policy change.

With the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit moving toward implementation, and states like Colorado planning to participate, the number of possible programs, providers, and funding streams will likely grow. If that growth is not paired with navigation and learner advocacy, the benefits will tilt toward families who already have time, information, and connections.

In that scenario:

Families with flexible jobs and social networks will be more likely to hear about options, understand eligibility, and successfully apply
Families who speak languages other than English, work multiple jobs, or are less connected to formal systems will face higher barriers to participation
Out-of-school providers that already have development staff and administrative capacity will be better positioned to tap into new funding streams, while smaller community organizations struggle to keep up

Navigation and learner advocacy do not fix these inequities on their own. They do, however, make it more likely that new dollars reach the families and providers who have historically been left out, rather than simply layering more complexity on top of existing gaps.

How This Connects To Reschool’s Work In Colorado

RESCHOOL’s navigation and learner advocacy work is rooted in Colorado communities. Over the past decade, we have:

Supported funds that direct resources to families and providers for out-of-school learning
Invested in tools like the Denver Learning Ecosystem website to make opportunities more visible
Provided direct learner advocate support to working parents as an employee benefit
Worked alongside community partners who act as trusted navigators for families in their neighborhoods
Developed and tested resources such as the Family Choice Journal that help families reflect on their priorities and choices

Across these efforts, the throughline is clear. When families have both resources and navigation support, they can access experiences that match their children’s interests and needs. When out-of-school providers have stable, predictable funding and are included in program design, they can expand and sustain offerings that communities rely on. When someone is paying attention to how all of the pieces fit together for the learner, the system feels less like a maze and more like a network of possibilities. And when students can articulate what they have learned and how they have grown across these experiences, it can open doors to future opportunities in school, work, and beyond.

As new public funding tools come online, RESCHOOL will continue to share what we are learning with partners in Colorado and beyond. We see navigation and learner advocacy as essential parts of any serious effort to build and fund equitable learning ecosystems, not as optional extras.

Looking Ahead

Education systems are changing. The question is whether those changes will deepen or narrow access to meaningful learning for young people.

If we want more than a patchwork of programs, if we want ecosystems where all youth can discover their interests, build skills, and feel a sense of belonging, then navigation and learner advocacy have to be part of the design. Families should not be asked to carry the full weight of a more complex system on their own.

In the months ahead, RESCHOOL will be:

Continuing to resource navigation and advocacy models with community partners
Highlighting tools that support families as they make choices, including the Family Choice Journal
Sharing lessons from Colorado with policymakers, funders, and practitioners who are shaping new programs

If you are a funder, policymaker, provider, or intermediary working on out-of-school learning, we invite you to stay connected and to be part of this conversation.

You can follow our latest blogs and updates on our website and sign up for RESCHOOL’s newsletter to receive future pieces like this in your inbox: [Subscribe to RESCHOOL’s newsletter]

January 29, 2026 By RESCHOOL

From Programs to Ecosystems: How RESCHOOL Is Expanding Learning Opportunities in Colorado

RESCHOOL Colorado reflects on more than a decade of work to move from programs to learning ecosystems: directing dollars to families and providers, mapping opportunities, and building the infrastructure that makes out-of-school learning possible for more young people in Colorado.

Over the last thirteen years, RESCHOOL Colorado has been asking a simple but disruptive question:

What would it take for young people to learn everywhere, not just in school, and for families to have real power in shaping that learning?

Our 2025 Impact Report compiles some of our efforts to date in answering that question: directing dollars to families and community-based providers, developing tools that make learning opportunities more visible, and partnering with families to define what “good” looks like in a truly learner-centered ecosystem.

As we move into 2026, we’re deepening that work with a clearer focus on the infrastructure it takes to make expanded learning possible and sustainable. Below, you can read through a few of the key lessons that are shaping that focus.

When Dollars Follow Families And Providers, You See The System Differently

Much of RESCHOOL’s work has centered on a basic shift: move resources closer to the people and places where learning actually happens.

Through Learning Dollars, Provider Dollars, and Learner Advocates, we’ve directed more than $1 million into Colorado communities since 2013, in partnership with over 50 organizations and 15,000 youth and families. These funds have supported tutoring, summer camps, arts and cultural programs, sports, STEM experiences, and more.

Here are a few patterns that have become clear:

Families use flexible dollars to fill the “in-between” spaces of learning: after school, weekends, and summers, where enrichment is often out of reach without additional support.
Community-based providers use modest, targeted funding to expand or stabilize programs that are deeply rooted in local culture and relationships.
Learner Advocates help families navigate options, build trust, and connect dollars to opportunities in ways that match each child’s interests and needs.

This work has reinforced a simple insight: equity is not only about creating more programs; it is about who controls resources, who can actually access them, and who has support along the way.

Mapping And Listening Make An “Invisible” Ecosystem Visible

Another thread in our work has focused on making out-of-school learning ecosystems easier to see and understand.

Tools like the Denver Learning Ecosystem site start to answer basic questions for families and partners: Where are the opportunities? Who are they for? How do you get in the door?

At the same time, our Invest in Families briefs, co-authored with Outschool.org, uplift what families say they need from funding mechanisms and support systems: clearer information, help navigating options, and more flexible, dignified ways to access learning that fits their lives.

Taken together, this work points to two related truths:

Information matters. If families cannot easily see and compare opportunities, the ecosystem effectively doesn’t exist for them.
Navigation matters. When systems are complex or fragmented, families with the most time, money, and social capital can piece things together; others are left behind.

Mapping and listening do not solve those challenges on their own, but they give communities, funders, and policymakers a clearer picture of where the ecosystem is working and where it is not.

Out-Of-School Learning Needs Real Infrastructure, Not Just More Programs

As we’ve reflected with partners on what it actually takes to build equitable learning ecosystems, a pattern has emerged: we are not just talking about more programs. We are talking about infrastructure.

Drawing on RESCHOOL’s experience in Colorado and emerging field conversations, we see at least six components that matter for out-of-school learning infrastructure:

Human infrastructure: Families need people they trust to help make sense of options, funding, logistics, and fit. Learner Advocates and similar roles act as navigators who sit with families, ask good questions, and help remove barriers.
Information infrastructure: Communities need tools that keep information about opportunities current, localized, and easy to use. Mapping platforms and communication tools can bring providers into view and give families timely, language-accessible information.
Transportation infrastructure: Even the best program is irrelevant if a young person cannot physically get there. Transportation stipends, transit passes, mobile programming, and other community-designed solutions are essential for many families.
Financial infrastructure: Mechanisms like Learning Dollars and other direct-to-family funds put resources in families’ hands and allow them to choose what fits. Design details matter here: how funds are accessed, what they can be used for, and how easy they are to navigate all shape who benefits.
Credentialing infrastructure: If out-of-school experiences never show up in transcripts, applications, or credentials, their value is easier for systems to ignore. Communities need ways to document and recognize real-world learning so that skills and experiences travel with young people into future education and work.
Capacity infrastructure: Many of the most meaningful learning experiences happen in small, community-rooted organizations that are under-resourced. Funding, common frameworks, and professional learning can help these providers connect to larger systems without losing what makes them unique.

When these pieces are missing or underdeveloped, even well-designed programs struggle to reach the young people who could benefit most. When they are present, expanded learning ecosystems become more accessible, resilient, and fair.

How These Lessons Are Shaping Reschool’s 2026 Focus

These threads are not separate. They are shaping how we think about RESCHOOL’s role and priorities in 2026:

Policy and systems change: Our direct work with families, providers, and navigators gives us grounded insight into how public funding mechanisms could better support out-of-school learning. As conversations about tax credits, ESAs, and other family-directed funds evolve, we are focused on sharing what we’ve learned about design choices that advance equity rather than deepen gaps.
High school and postsecondary pathways: Mapping Real World Learning is helping older youth name, document, and build on the skills they gain in jobs, internships, and community programs. This connects directly to credentialing infrastructure and to questions about how systems recognize learning that happens outside of school.
Out-of-school time infrastructure: We are continuing to learn alongside families and partners about how human, information, transportation, financial, credentialing, and capacity infrastructure show up in different communities, and what it takes to strengthen them over time.
RESCHOOL as a lab and learning partner: We see RESCHOOL’s role as both builder and listener: testing models with families and providers, documenting what we learn, and sharing that learning with funders, policymakers, and other communities who are working on similar questions.

For now, the core insight is simple: if we want learning to happen everywhere, we have to build the infrastructure that makes that possible for every young person, not just a lucky few.

If you’d like to follow along as this work evolves, you can sign up for RESCHOOL’s email newsletter here: [Subscribe to RESCHOOL’s newsletter]