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A growing body of evidence confirms what makes sense intuitively--quality matters for participation in after school programs. Nationwide, a chief concern among after school stakeholders is programming for middle schoolers--too "old" to be told what to do after school and too "young" to be left home alone. A national dialogue about the state of quality standards for programs that serve youth in the middle grades after school has already begun. At two national forums, researchers and practitioners have raised issues about the relevance of existing standards for middle school. In response to this concern, the Nellie Mae Education Foundation (NMEF) approached the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) and the National Institute for Out-of-School Time (NIOST) to cohost a working summit with its regional grantees to further explore current quality standards and move the dialogue forward concerning the unique programming needs of middle school students. On December 9, 2005, the one-day summit honed in on the unique aspects of middle school after school programming and explored how quality assessment tools can support program development and implementation for that age group. This report describes the structure and process of that summit, and presents results of the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) quality standards and assessment scan, key standards for middle school youth, and emerging themes about middle school programming. How program quality standards can be used to improve middle school programming is also discussed. (Contains 5 footnotes.)