Eligibility Requirements

Engage Every Student Recognition Program

2024-2025 Eligibility Certification

1. All nominated organizations, local education agencies, or municipalities must provide an afterschool and/or summer learning program that has increased its total enrollment by 20%. Afterschool programs should demonstrate a 20% increase of their total enrollment number of K-12 students from SY23-24 to the 2024-2025 school year. Summer learning programs should demonstrate a 20% increase of their total enrollment number of K-12 students from Summer 2023 to Summer 2024.

2. All nominated organizations, local education agencies, or municipalities must serve a group of students that attend elementary, middle, or high schools, which must include at least a portion of students that attend schools with 40% or more students who qualify for the free and reduced lunch program at the beginning of the 2024-2025 academic school year.

3. All nominated organizations, local education agencies, or municipalities must provide high-quality afterschool or summer learning programming with a physical location in one of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Department of Defense Education Activity, or Tribal Nations Schools.

4. All nominated organizations, local education agencies, or municipalities must leverage a combination of federal, state and/or local funds to expand access to afterschool and summer learning programs for students.

5. To best accelerate learning, afterschool and/or summer learning programs should include evidence-based approaches. Nominated organizations, local education agencies, or municipalities ideally:

   1. target students needing additional support (including using information provided by diagnostic assessments);

   2. have certified teachers delivering the academic instruction and tutoring;

   3. engage students in using experiential learning that could include project-based learning, enrichment, career pathways, and field trips;

   4. implement high-quality tutoring programs; and

   5. implement strategies to support the decrease of chronic absenteeism.