Program Quality Initiative

The Program Quality Initiative Process

DASN’s Program Quality Initiative (PQI) is a prescribed process for helping sites achieve national quality standards.  There are several key components to our Program Quality Initiative, all of which are designed to help sites improve the quality of afterschool experiences for the children they serve:

  • Best Practices - DASN relies on national best practices of quality programs, as detailed in our proprietary AQuA quality improvement tool.
  • Assessment - objective assessment of program quality using national indicators
  • Coaching - on-site, on-the-job, one-to-one coaching delivered by a DASN Quality Advisor
  • Training - designed for all levels of afterschool staff, including front-line, program or site directors, and executive directors.  Check our training calendar to see current offerings.
  • Resources - curriculum, field trips, volunteers, VISTA members and other resources that help sites grow quality and capacity

Quality Tiers

Dallas AfterSchool Network uses a series of quality benchmarks, or "tiers", to assess a site's needs, and to measure quality growth throughout the PQI process.  All sites start at "Tier 0" until they pass a safety check with a 100% score.  They progress to Tier 3 as they demonstrate mastery of the 10 elements of a high quality program.  Sites that wish to have a third-party validation of program quality can opt to earn a Certificate of Program Quality. 

  • Criteria for achieving Tier 1 status
  • Criteria for achieving Tier 2 status
  • Criteria for achieving Tier 3 status
  • Criteria for earning a Certificate of Program Quality

Participating Sites

View the list of afterschool or summer sites participating in our Program Quality Initiative.