Development of the Standards

The ELO Standards of Quality for After School Programs were developed in 2006 through the community collaborative the Expanded Learning Opportunities (ELO) Network, which is working to ensure that every child in Grand Rapids has access to quality after school programs that are well coordinated and make efficient use of dollars.

The Standards are meant to be a common guidepost for quality programming from which any organization can build upon. They provide a framework for expectations that have been proven to be effective for kids, spanning across all types and sizes of programs. Smaller agencies that have one person performing a multitude of duties within their organization are still capable of meeting these Standards. If agencies have even further defined assessments of quality, they are encouraged to implement both the ELO Standards as well any individual agency standards.