Schools & afterschool
ELOP
Boosts engagement & attendance through hands-on STEAM; produces a music video usable for recruitment & funder reports; strengthens SEL & school climate; gives students access to celebrity producers.
We provide Attendance/chronic-absenteeism improvement, PBIS, MTSS Tier 1 SEL, positive school climate, arts/STEAM access.
FAQs
Straight answers.
Yes. Using Music as an incentive for Expanded learning is one of the few levers on chronic absenteeism in elementary schools, because a student who wants to attend the afterschool block often attends the school day to get there.
Districts working on strategies to reduce absenteeism in school increasingly look at what happens after 3pm. Ways to increase student engagement that students opt into outperform anything assigned.
Staffing, enrichment curriculum, materials, and contracted providers, when they appear in your board-approved plan. Supplemental activities for students and supplemental learning activities both sit comfortably in that list.
Districts also braid LREBG into expanded learning. Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant funds must support academic learning recovery and pupil social and emotional well-being, which is a natural fit for an enrichment block — confirm the line in your LCAP, since that is where LREBG is reported.
Consumable SEL supplemental instructional books, extended day school assemblies, plus music enrichment activities, and recording or video production programming for sites that want a project component.
Coordinators looking for afterschool enrichment activities, music class ideas, or music activities for students in an ELO-P block usually need something that fits 30 to 45 minutes and runs with existing staff. That is how these are written.
Program enrichment, in the plain sense: the Psychological Effects of Music SEL Supplemental Instructional Books, our SEL interactive afterschool - school assemblies, music recording and/or music video STEAM production Enrichments .
Coordinators looking for enrichment programs ideas, or asking what are interactive activities that run in a 30 to 45 minute block with existing staff, are describing the constraint these are built around.
Yes, when the programming happens outside the regular school day and appears in your board-approved plan. Recording and video production is a strong fit for expanded learning specifically — it is project-based, students choose it, and it produces something they take home.
Coordinators looking for music activities for high school students often find recording programming holds teen attendance better than anything else in an enrichment rotation.
Yes. Music recording is applied physics and applied math, which makes it a genuine STEAM enrichment program rather than an arts activity relabeled. Students learn the science of sound as well.
Sites running STEAM in an ELO-P block often find the technology piece draws boys who avoid other enrichment, and the music piece draws students who avoid technology.
Hands on. STEAM enrichment through recording means students operate the equipment rather than watch someone explain it.
For an ELO-P block, STEAM project based learning works better than standalone activities because students come back to finish what they started — which is also the attendance argument. Our SEL school assemblies and books are also extremely interactive.
Yes. Our books are supplemental instructional books. Enrichment materials are an allowable ELO-P expense when they support an ELO Program activity and appear in your board-approved program plan. The California Department of Education does not approve or deny individual purchases — the LEA determines that the cost is necessary and reasonable, includes it in the plan, and documents it.
That is a lower bar than most coordinators expect. There is no state pre-approval to wait on.
No. ELO-P cannot fund programming that occurs during the regular school day. Eligible time is before school, after school, and non-school days including intersession.
If your site wants the same materials used during the instructional day, that purchase needs a different funding source — Prop 28 or general funds, for example.
Funds allocated in one fiscal year must be expended by June 30 of the following fiscal year, with final expenditure reporting due afterward. As an example, an allocation made in a given fiscal year carries through the next one and then expires. Unspent funds are recovered by the state through the Principal Apportionment as a prior-year correction.
Because allocations are confirmed after the Governor signs the budget each June, many programs carry both a current-year allocation and a prior-year balance at the same time. It is worth checking which pot you are spending from.
No. Many coordinators purchase in the fall, once actual enrollment is known and per-student material counts can be committed to. Because CDE does not pre-approve individual purchases, a coordinator with a plan that covers Enrichment materials can act without waiting on a state review.
K through 4th grade, plus a teen advanced edition for middle and high school. Programs looking for SEL books for kindergarten or SEL books for 3rd grade typically start with the elementary consumables; mixed-age sites often order across two bands.
Each book is consumable, so quantities are set per student rather than per site.
Yes. The Legislature intends ASES, 21st CCLC Elementary/Middle, and ELO-P to operate as a single comprehensive expanded learning program, and ELO-P funds can serve as local match for ASES. Each expenditure is traceable to a use its own stream allows.
A common structure: Prop 28 covers arts instruction and materials during the school day, ELO-P covers the expanded learning time and its Enrichment materials.
The CDE Expanded Learning Division answers program questions at ExpandedLearning@cde.ca.gov. Your county office of education's Expanded Learning lead is often faster for practical questions.
No. We send our own staff to run the programming. We do not train your staff to run it.
Recording and production is a skill set, not a procedure. Trying to hand it off in a few hours would be like teaching a doctor to perform surgery in an afternoon — you would get a session that technically happened and a result nobody wants to hear.
Your staff are welcome in the room and most of them stay, which is how they get comfortable with the material. But we run the session.
No. We are supplemental. We do not replace your SEL curriculum, your trauma-informed practice, or any program you already have in place.
If you run a core SEL program, keep it — ours adds a music-based component alongside it. If you have trauma-informed protocols, training, and referral pathways, those stay in force exactly as they are. Nothing in our material substitutes for them, and our facilitators are not a substitute for your clinical, counseling, or behavioral staff.
In your program plan, describe it as enrichment material added to your existing offering rather than as a program change.
Yes. The Psychological Effects of Music Interactive Social Emotional Learning School Assembly works as a site-wide event an end-of-session showcase, or a family engagement event teaching students and/or parents who music effects their behavior, self-regulation and how music can be used as a tool to manage behavior, emotions and stress management.
For sites running enrichment across several campuses, we can do a SEL school tour providing morning and afternoon assemblies at multiple sites within a drive-able radius.45 minutes to 2 hours. Most schools book a class period or 90 minutes.
The 90-minute format is the one we recommend when you have the room. 45 minutes works for a single class period or a tight bell schedule, and 2 hours suits a half-day event, a grade-level rally, or a Black History Month or Red Ribbon Week program.
Tell us your bell schedule and we will fit the session to it rather than asking you to build around us.
Yes. The Psychological Effects of Music interactive SEL School Assembly is built for exactly this — a family engagement event where parents and children participate together rather than sitting through a presentation. Participants learn how music can be used as a tool to manage behavior, emotions and scress management.
That is the difference that matters for attendance. Families come to an event where something happens; they skip an information night. The session is music-driven and participatory, so a parent who speaks little English and a fourth grader are in it on the same terms.Scheduled outside the instructional day, a family engagement event stays inside ELO-P eligible time. Describe it in your program plan as family engagement rather than as instruction.
How this program runs
Same SIWM work. Built for ELOP.
Start with the social emotional learning books. Add a keynote. Bring a recording program when you want participants writing and performing — we produce the song and video.
Aligned with ELO-P priorities for developmentally appropriate after-school and intersession enrichment. Through songwriting and media production, digital literacy, STEM/STEAM and science skills while strengthening engagement, teamwork, self-management and belonging.CASEL 5 SEL competencies; National Core Arts Standards (Music & Media Arts); Common Core ELA writing & speaking/listening (songwriting, public speaking); CTE Arts/A-V Technology & Communications;
Send a request and tell us this is a ELOP site.
The Psychological Effects of Music
SEL books & curriculum
SEL books by Ava Johnson plus keynotes for the same rooms.
Ava the Aviator
Keynotes & assemblies
Interactive talks on the science of sound and the psychology of music.
The studio
Recording & music video program
Participants write and perform. We record, produce, and film.