Goals

Action Plan 

Evaluation Strategy

Long Term Outcome

1) Provide a baseline on youth in the same foster care system, who enroll in Kansas Kids @ GEAR UP activities. 

Develop Partnerships with statewide foster care and adoptive care agencies.
Recruit and enroll foster care students into GEAR UP
Obtain Student records and transcripts.
Engage parents in GEAR UP activities.

Administer surveys for baseline data.
Assess GEAR UP participation by activity sign in sheets.
Administer parent surveys for baseline data.

Benchmarks will be established for youth in state foster care for areas of needed improvement regarding system capacity, awareness and readiness for post secondary education among students and families, and personal and academic performance improvements.

2) Examine the impacts on participation in Kansas Kids @ GEAR UP activities on student educational expectations and preparation for college.   

Collect data and maintain a database of student and parent GEAR UP activity participation, academic courses and performance, college preparedness.

Administer student surveys at 6 least months after GEAR UP participation.
Administer repeat parent surveys.
Complete APR, which requires reporting on data sets collected and maintained.

Dependent and independent variables that are consistent with national program evaluation 

3) Identify Kansas Kids @ GEAR UP project strategies, models, and practices that are most effective for youth in foster care in Kansas.  
 

Gather data and records from the Kansas department of education.
Gather data from the Dept. of Social and rehabilitation services.
Access national GEAR UP and educational data. 

Formative and summative evaluation of project activities aligned with the national collection of common core data for comparative analysis with other state and GEAR UP projects. Administer teacher surveys.
Administer student satisfaction surveys.
Administer teacher surveys.

Program strategies and activities that are most effective for youth in foster care are identified.
Increased high school graduation rates.
Increase rates of foster students entering post secondary schools.