Original Posting 16.03.17

We promise to instill in our students a belief in their abilities, an understanding of their potential for achievement, and a joyous spirit of optimism about the future.

The Greater Rochester Summer Learning Association (GRSLA), or summerLEAP, strives to transform the lives of Rochester City School District children by improving access to high-quality, tuition-free summer learning programs.  And they are doing just that.

summerLEAP programs have been recognized by the Anne E. Casey Foundation’s Campaign for Grade Level Reading as a national pacesetter community program. By the time they reach 3rd grade, summerLEAP scholars will have experienced four years of high-quality summer learning programming—programming that will help put a stop to the learning loss low-income children experience during the summer months, while simultaneously improving their math and reading skills.

The goal of summerLEAP is simple and measurable: by the time they reach 3rd grade, their scholars will be reading at level, meeting tough Core standards. summerLEAP kids learn to love reading, and summerLEAP wants to help them gain the literacy skills they need to build a strong foundation for high school, college, and beyond.

We at COMET and the Children’s Institute have been privileged to support the great work being done at SummerLEAP.  By capturing year-over-year program data from the partners within COMET’s database, evaluations are performed for both individual and group data. Evaluations are done for a given year and longitudinally. The data shows that the program is most effective over multiple years, and to have a lasting and positive impact on the students at least three summer sessions are required.  Our non-profit partner, Children’s Institute, functions as an independent evaluator for GRSLA programs. Not only having great data, but also understanding outcomes and demonstrating impact has taken summerLEAP to a whole new level.

Check out our summerLEAP COMET Case Study

Visit the summerLEAP website

Visit Children’s Institute website

Original Posting 24.01.18

Here at COMET we’re lucky to have a not-for-profit partner who understands all the ins and outs of program evaluation, Children’s Institute (CI). They evaluate their own programs regularly, to make sure they’re effective and keeping up with best practices. They also work with many organizations in the Rochester community as an independent evaluator for their programs. Many of those organizations are also COMET customers, utilizing our system to collect the data used in their evaluations.

Time and again we hear from customers that the value of having CI function as an independent evaluator of their programs is so valuable. Because we work with a lot of not-for-profits, we understand that role that data and evaluation play in terms of reporting to funders; sometimes it takes more than just data to make a point, sometimes you need to show that the data was looked at without bias. One of the key benefits of working with an independent evaluator is being able to both understand your impact, but also communicate it with confidence.

“When we use words like ‘statistically significant’ and ‘independent evaluator’ we gain credibility. Not only can we answer questions about the impact we’re making, we do so with confidence that the results are accurate and meaningful. That goes a long way with our supporters.”

Data collection and evaluation can feel like daunting tasks but with a partner who's experienced and supportive it becomes manageable. The COMET and Children's Institute teams believe in the power and value of good data and the impact those have on being able to improve outcomes for kids. Knowing what programs are working, and which ones are not, replicating effective models and moving away from those that don't show results are important when your goal is helping children find their path and be successful.

To learn more about how one of our customers has successfully worked with CI as an independent evaluator, click here.

Still thinking about evaluation? Click here to learn about the key first step in any evaluation.

Original Posting 30.05.18

In May we attended the New York State Network for Youth Success conference in Saratoga Springs, NY. It's always great to be in the company of like-minded folks, people all working to improve the lives of young people and help them stay on track for success in life. Their motto of  “Empower Youth Success” is spot on.

This year's theme was “School's Out, Make It Count!” - which for data people like us begs the question, what makes something count? The answer to that question isn't necessarily hard, it's about knowing what makes a difference and we learn that through data. Data collection tasks like pre-post testing, normed assessment and activity-level attendance allow programs to understand the impact different activities are having on outcomes - for both individuals and aggregated groups. COMET was designed to collect this type of data and has reports to help our users identify trends and track progress. These are key steps in any program evaluation effort and we're here to support you.

For ten years, COMET has been working with out-of-school time (OST) organizations to help them manage their data in an efficient way. We think the value of youth professionals is in the time they spend with young people, not the time they spend entering data. So, we strive to make a system that's easy and quick to use. If you're thinking about getting started with program evaluation, check out this blog post.

Original Posting 18.06.18

The Rochester Pyramid Model Summit 2018 is less than one month away. Have you registered yet? If not, there'e still time. The focus of this year's Summit is Promoting Social and Emotional Competence and Addressing Challenging Behaviors.

The Pyramid Model, also called the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL), is a conceptual framework of evidence-based practices for promoting young children’s social and emotional competence and for preventing and addressing challenging behavior. It teaches life-changing strategies for all who work with young children. Training on this model is offered through our partner, Children's Institute, and one of their partners, Rochester Childfirst Network, has spearheaded an initiative to host the first Pyramid Model Summit in our hometown of Rochester, NY.

The Summit, scheduled for July 12th & 13th will feature keynote speaker, Mary Louise Hemmeter, PhD. Dr. Hemmeter will speak to her work developing and understanding the effectiveness of a collaborative training model for supporting teachers. She has a special interest in addressing challenging behavior. Dr. Hemmeter is developing a model of program-wide behavior supports that is applicable to settings with young children with challenging behavior. This work is focused on designing and validating measures that can be used in a larger study examining the impact of this model on teacher behavior as well as child outcomes.

If you'd like to attend the Pyramid Model Summit, click here to register. The cost is $50/person for both days. To view the schedule for the Summit, click here and scroll down to view the program.

Original Posting 15.10.19

COMET is excited to partner with Aperture Education (Aperture) to support both the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA), and the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment-Mini (DESSA-Mini) as an integrated option in the COMET System.

The DESSA is used to screen, assess, monitor progress, measure outcomes, and strengthen the social-emotional competence of all students, K-12. The DESSA measures are one of the few supported by rigorous research that meets or exceeds strict industry standards. This data indicates that the DESSA is a reliable and valid tool for measuring social and emotional skills. Specifically, the COMET/Aperture partnership allows for the DESSA and the DESSA-Mini to be available in the COMET System for child-centric organizations all over the U.S.

Currently, the COMET System is being used in four different but overlapping ways: COMET Outcomes, Operations, Services and Backbone. A subset of existing COMET Outcomes users are already able to advantage of the DESSA (in addition to other assessment and measurement instruments) to assess and understand the progress of children to identify gaps, report gains and understand needs. Now, with this partnership, DESSA assessments will be available to Operations users (attendance tracking, membership, programs, classes and activities), Services users (service, case management and referral tracking), and Backbone users (collaborative community and funding organization outcomes tracking).

COMET and Aperture have entered into this partnership to work with all members of school and out-of-school-time (OST) communities (both children and adults) to support informed decision-making, raising organizational quality and improving outcomes for kids. COMET has been working on this mission for years by providing accurate and actionable data about a student’s social and emotional needs so that our end-users can pair that data with research-informed strategies, resources, and reporting. These efforts help ensure that students have the social and emotional skills needed to be successful, productive, and happy.