Maintain, Follow, and Train Your Staff on an Early Release Policy
Education Code requires that all After School Education and Safety and 21st Century Community Learning Centers programs must establish and maintain a policy regarding the reasonable early daily release of pupils from the program that is consistent with providing pupils a safe environment and the local educational agency's (LEA) release policy established for the regular day. The policy should be developed in collaboration with LEA officials, legal counsel, after school grant administrators, community partners, parents, guardians, and others, as appropriate, to ensure that the early release policy is consistent with LEA policy, and meets local needs and all legal requirements. See sample early release policies below.
The policy should address at least the following for the regular or supplemental program:
- Attendance expectations and requirements
- Consequences for unauthorized instances or unacceptable pattern of unauthorized early program departures
- Individuals authorized to request early release and sign out pupils
- List of authorized/unauthorized reasons for early release
- Sign out procedures for early release pupils
The above text was provided by the California Department of Education
Tools to Start and Run Programs from the Bay Area Partnership
The Bay Area Partnership For Children and Youth have posted several relevant resources for after school programs. Access to exemplary practices, sample budgets, early release policies, sample contracts, sample memorandum of understanding (mou), as well as high school resources can be found by clicking below.