April 21, 2020

Considering Your School District’s Response to Coronavirus

For our newest resource on supporting students through coronavirus, we reviewed the COVID-19 responses of more than 60 school districts across 30 states to develop a series of questions you can use to check your district’s response to this crisis. For each question, we offer a brief summary of our findings, recommendations for improving support for students and families, and examples of districts providing exemplary resources. 

How Culturally Responsive Lessons Teach Critical Thinking // Clint Smith 

What White Colleagues Need to Understand // Clarice Brazas, Charlie McGeehan

They Deserve Better // Jey Ehrenhalt
#USvsHate Spring Challenge Deadline Is May 1
Our #USvsHate messaging challenge can help students stand up against bigotry and create safe and welcoming communities. The deadline for this spring’s challenge is May 1, and your students still have time to participate. Check out our recommendations for how students can participate in #USvsHate even during distance learning.

Digging Deep Into the Social Justice Standards: Justice

Our Social Justice Standards are the anchor standards and learning outcomes created to guide educators in curriculum development and to make schools more just, equitable and safe. Use this edition of PD Café to help students recognize both justice and injustice so they can celebrate justice and also call out injustice when they see it.

Supporting Students From Immigrant Families

Like other crises, the COVID-19 pandemic is being used as an excuse to disseminate anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. These messages can harm students from immigrant families and cause fear and anxiety about the future. These resources offer you ways to signal support for these students now and when they eventually return to school.

 A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Now

We asked our friends at the National Child Traumatic Stress Network to suggest trauma-informed practices to support students over the coming weeks and months as the nation continues to grapple with the unfolding coronavirus crisis. Their recommendations include ready-to-use guidance and strategies for a trauma-informed approach to teaching during this time.

Check Out What We’re Reading

“Between closed schools, social isolation, food scarcity and parental unemployment, the coronavirus pandemic has so destabilized kids' support systems that the result, counselors say, is genuinely traumatic.” — KQED

“With countrywide shutdowns of schools and youth programs, diminished office hours at LGBTQ community centers and, for many of them, unsupportive family members, these young Americans and the organizations that serve them are forced to find new ways to get and provide support.” — NBC News

“After the coronavirus shut down America’s education system, districts fortified their school meals programs to ensure that their most needy students would stay fed. One month in, school leaders realize the federal programs set up to subsidize the meals of tens of millions of students cannot meet the demands of an emergency that has turned their cafeterias into food banks and community kitchens.” — The New York Times

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