The Robert Bowne Foundation for out-of-school time (OST) supports the development of quality programs that offer literacy education in the out-of-school hours to children and youth of New York City, especially young people from disadvantaged communities. The foundation's networking meetings, now in their 10th year, offer quarterly forums in which participants from a wide variety of programs across the city can share their work, develop new ideas for their programs, and discuss important issues in the field. The process of gathering topic ideas from the previous year's networking meeting evaluations and from meetings with the foundation's grantees revealed that the Common Core Learning Standards--New York's version of the Common Core State Standards--were on many OST providers' minds. Funders are increasingly asking grantees how their OST programs are supporting the standards-- even though the standards were designed explicitly for in-school education, not for OST. Providers are concerned about being asked to meet academic standards designed for school while still pursuing the traditional focus of OST programs on positive youth development. How can OST programs support academic progress while pursuing their goals, traditions, and mission? This article will demonstrate how understanding the Common Core Standards can support the work of OST providers and the youth and families they serve. In fact, in many ways, the work OST programs do every day is already aligned with the standards.