ELO Program Design

First steps for planning an ELO program

If you are the person trying to get ELOs started in your school, start with questions like these:

  • Who are your allies in starting ELOs?
  • Where does your school already have “almost ELOs?”
  • What’s going to get in your way? What are the barriers?
  • What are you worried about?
  • What is your school/district policy about ELOs?
  • Who needs to be on board?
  • Who is already on board?
  • How will you explain and promote your ELO to students and faculty?

The Program Development Readiness Checklist (PDF) provides a straightforward way to evaluate your school’s readiness. MSWord version if you want to customize

The Almost ELO chart (PDF) helps you see where you are already providing learning opportunities that are almost high-quality ELOs.

ELO webinars from Next Steps NH

Next Steps NH has developed three two-hour workshops for our New Hampshire project schools on various aspects of ELOs. Materials include how-to-use instructions and PowerPoint with presenter notes. Workshop overviews

Program design examples and tools

ELOs can be available to students for varying amounts of credit – from a multi-disciplinary, multi-credit opportunity to a focused one targeting specific competencies as part of a traditional classroom course. Different schools in NH have varying policies around ELOs and are also at different points of implementation within those policies.

Examples of how schools set up their programs:

Tools available to help you develop your program:

Promoting your ELO program

The ELO Network (ELON) developed a resource,  Promoting Your ELO Program (Google Slides, 10 pages, 2021). It has examples for social media, print media, video, and local businesses, with links to real creations.

Infographic created by ELON that can be presented to explain ELOs in a high level graphical manner.

Download an ELO brochure for parents that your school can use to introduce ELOs. It’s a PDF with an editable space on the front to add your school’s information.

Promotional image for your use (PNG, 2022) from the ELO Network.

BeyondClassroom website flyer (PDF, 1 page, 2018) to introduce this site to others.

Reaching Higher NH, a non-partisan public education policy resource, has promotional videos, articles and brochures on ELOs.

Role of an ELO coordinator

  • is a leader for the ELO initiative in the school
  • acts as a liaison between the school and the larger community
  • develops and maintains the quality of the specific ELOs in the school
  • coordinates the “moving parts” of an ELO
  • maintains records and data for the purpose of continually assessing and improving the ELO process

Example: ELO Coordinator job description from Lebanon High School (PDF)

Eligibility: ELOs are for ALL students

A key principle of ELOs is that all students have access to them, including students who:

  • don’t attend school
  • are on the honor roll
  • have failed classes
  • have diverse learning needs
  • are gifted learners
  • are non-responsive to traditional teaching methods
  • are home-schooled
  • have IEPs or Section 504 plans

When schools decide to pilot ELOs, it is important to include diverse populations from the beginning.

Learn from studies of ELO programs in NH

Managing Your ELO Program During the COVID-19 Pandemic (PDF, 1 page, 2020) is a resource developed by the NH ELO Network. It includes links to further resources.

Resources on this website

Internet resources