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Kansas 4-H Tip Sheet

March 16, 2023

Reporting School Enrichment in PEARS

Submitted by McKenzie Zimmermann

Reporting School Enrichment

THE WHY
Reporting allows us to communicate our success through numbers in addition to our stories. It also allows us to make data-driven decisions, in tangent with our experience and knowledge, that will best benefit our mission and goals.

Some of the most telling stories happen while our agents are visiting schools across the state. But, you may be asking yourself “How do we report these experiences in our data reporting system, PEARS?” Well, I am here to help you understand that process!

THE HOW
Below, I have outlined the steps necessary (with some additional information) to complete a Program Activity in PEARS that focuses on School Enrichment. I know that some people are visual learners - do not fret; there will be a visual guide coming soon with these instructions.

*Steps with an asterisk indicate that this step is required in PEARS*
**If you are familiar with adding Program Activities in PEARS, please skip to #11 for specific details about School Enrichment**

  1. Log on to PEARS > https://pears.io/
  2. On the top menu bar, hover over the option ‘Track’
  3. Go down to the option that says ‘Program Activities’ and select this option
  4. A filtering page will show up. This is where you could search for other Program Activities if you wish. However, to add a Program Activity, we want to select the green ‘Add’ button in the top right corner of the screen.
  5. A screen will appear that reads ‘General Information’ at the top. This is the page where you will be adding the following information (in order as it appears on the screen):
    • Program Activity Name*
    • Program Areas*
      • If you work with Youth in any capacity at your event, please add ‘Youth Development’ as a program area.
      • You can add more than one program area in this section.
    • Program Group
      • You can add this if you would like, it is not required.
      • A Program Group is a subsection within a Program Area that is Used to indicate a group of program activities or program activity series, most often, similar program activities that are delivered multiple times at different sites and to different audiences. This allows program activity data to be compiled and viewed for each program group.
    • Action Plan*
      • You will be required to select an appropriate and closely affiliated Action Plan that this particular Program Activity fits best with. Depending on the Program Area(s) you have selected, different Action Plans will be available to choose from.
      • You can select more than one Action Plan.
    • Methods Used To Deliver This Program*
      • You must select at least one option for the delivery method.
      • You may select more than one if that is applicable to your program.
  6. On the same screen, there will be another section titled ‘Sessions’ where you will add details related to the number of sessions. You will need to add the following information:
    • Start Date*
    • Start Time
    • Length of Program (in minutes)*
    • Number of Total Participants
    • Whether this session was virtual
    • You have the option to add additional sessions to this Program Activity. To do that, you will need to select the grey plus button to the right of the virtual option.
      • NOTE - Only add additional sessions if the sessions include the same participants.
    • Site - where the program was held
    • Unit*
      • Can only select one unit option
    • Language
      • May enter more than one
    • Did this program activity deliver any programming to youth?*
      • If youth were present, select yes.
    • Volunteers
      • If you selected ‘Yes’ for Youth Programming, do not add volunteer information here.
      • If you selected ‘No’ for Youth Programming, please add your volunteer information here.
  7. Comments & File Attachments
    • These sections are on the same page as the General Information and Sessions, just further down.
    • Comments and files are where you will add anything that would be helpful for someone reviewing this report.
    • You can enter data about demographics, culturally sensitive information, or other information that you think may be helpful.
  8. Click the Save and Continue.
  9. Collaborators
    • This is optional. You do not have to add a Collaborator. If you choose to, click the green button that says ‘+Add Collaborator’
    • Adding collaborators gives them access to make changes in this record only.
    • If you choose to add a collaborator, a pop-up screen will appear. Follow the steps on the screen to provide them with the appropriate access.
  10. After the collaborator section, a new screen will appear titled ‘Youth Programming’. This page will only appear if you selected ‘Yes’ to the previous question asking if this program delivered programming to youth. If you selected no to that question, this section would not be displayed.
  11. Below are the areas you will need to fill out regarding Youth Programming.
    • Delivery Mode* - this is where you will select the type of programming that you conducted. So for this example, this is where you will select ‘School Enrichment Program’
    • It is very important that you select the appropriate type of delivery mode for your programming. School Enrichment is defined as “School enrichment involves a sequence of learning experiences in cooperation with educational officials during school hours to support the curriculum. School enrichment programs involve direct teaching by extension staff or trained volunteers, including teachers.” If your program fits into this definition, please select School Enrichment as your delivery mode.
    • Project Areas* - Please select the project areas that your programming most closely fits under. You may choose more than one project.
    • Youth from Military Families - If you have access to this data, please input it. If not, skip the question.
  12. 4-H Enrollment Status and Service - THIS IS NEW TO PEARS
    • If you know the information required, whether the youth are currently enrolled/not enrolled or first served/previously served by 4-H, input that information in the correct spots.
    • If you don’t have the information, your default fields would be to include the total number of youth in your program under “Not Enrolled” and “Previously Served.”
    • Include a note in the Comments section on the General Information page that you don’t have access to 4-H Online to determine whether the youth are enrolled or not.
  13. Please input the data for the following sections: Gender, Grade Distribution, Ethnicity, Residence Distribution, and Race.
    • There are now fields for ‘Unknown’ and ‘Prefer Not to Respond’
    • To gather this data, you can either look in 4-H Online or you can provide a demographic form to the participants either at the beginning or the end of the programming.
  14. Click Save and Continue.
  15. A new screen will appear titled ‘Evaluation’
    • Please select if you performed an evaluation for this program or not.
    • If yes, the system will prompt you to input your survey instruments. Please stay tuned for a more detailed guide on how to appropriately input evaluation data.
    • If no, then no additional steps are necessary.
  16. Click Save and Continue.
  17. A new screen will appear titled ‘Program Activity Demographics’ - this is a nifty tool because this will be auto-calculated based on the information you added earlier in the report.
    • To auto-calculate, simply click the green ‘Auto Calculate’ button at the top right side of the webpage. A pop-up will appear, please read it, and then select ‘Yes’ to continue with the auto-calculating option.
    • Double-check that the values are correct.
  18. Select Save and Continue.
  19. Mark as Complete - Congrats, you are done with reporting this School Enrichment Program Activity. To mark this Program Activity as complete, please select the green button in the middle of the screen titled ‘Mark as Complete’.

THE WHEN
Everything takes time, this will too. After talking with Agents, OPs, and Program Assistants, the advice that was given was to work on your PEARS reporting at or around the same time that you work on board reports or other work-related reports. This way, it becomes a habit and doesn’t all sneak up on you at the end of the quarter or year.

But, if you have a method to the madness that currently works for your situation and time, keep doing that and maybe share it with your colleagues.

RESOURCES
This is A LOT of information! Here are some resources that might be helpful to you as you enter PEARS reports.