first. teaching. but take care of students school leaders say …€¦ · 3/19/2020 school leaders...

3/19/2020 School Leaders Say Plan for Remote Teaching. But Take Care of Students First. | EdSurge News

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This article is part of the guide Navigating Uncertain Times: How Schools Can Cope WithCoronavirus.

Many of the nation’s schools are now closed—some indefinitely—leaving educators

and communities with more questions than answers. Chief among them: How will

families and students cope with closures? And how can schools roll out effective

remote learning plans in a short amount of time?

While it’s tempting to fret about how students will learn, and what online tools will

make that possible, all that should take a backseat to something more important: their

TEACHING & LEARNING

School Leaders Say Plan for RemoteTeaching. But Take Care of StudentsFirst.By Stephen Noonoo Mar 17, 2020

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mental health and wellbeing, says Reshan Richards, director of studies at New Canaan

Country School in Connecticut and a board member of Global Learning Academy.

“The long-term health of the institution—like our society—will bebetter off if [mental health] becomes the priority. We’ll �gure outthe math, we’ll �gure out Hamlet and the Odyssey.Reshan Richards

“If your online school gets delayed by two weeks because you’re solving the mental

health question, then I think your energy’s in the right place,” he said. “The long-term

health of the institution—like our society—will be better off if that becomes the

priority. We’ll figure out the math, we’ll figure out Hamlet and the Odyssey.”

Reshan was among the guests during an hour-long, interactive webinar,

Understanding the Impact of Coronavirus on K-12 Education, hosted by EdSurge and

ISTE, our parent organization. This will be a recurring weekly series on Fridays 11 a.m.

PT / 2 p.m. ET.

Other speakers included Melissa Dodd, the chief technology officer for San Francisco

Unified, and Diana Neebe, director of teacher development at Sacred Heart

Preparatory in Atherton, Calif.

Listen to the audio below or check out the full video on YouTube. You’ll find a partial,

condensed transcript below. It has been lightly edited for clarity.

EdSurge: Should schools be prioritizing home internet access for remote learning right

now?

Reshan Richards: I think if your school is asking about connectivity at home, we hope

you’ve already addressed all other dimensions about what schools provide for students

—whether it’s food, safety or supervision.

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But let’s assume that you’re at that point where the planning for that is in place. Give

your school permission to phase out. What that means is that the first two weeks of

school doesn’t have to look like the next two weeks, which doesn’t have to look like

the two weeks after that.

In your first two weeks, if you’re planning a lot more disconnected, offline,

asynchronous, self-paced, at-home lessons—that’s okay. That’s what you plan on. And

then your school and leadership can focus on whether you want to extend learning

using any kind of online platforms and making sure that you are creating the

conditions where everybody has access to it. So the focus then could be on, what could

we do for connectivity? What resources locally, regionally, nationally are making

themselves available? But build yourself time to plan that.

Don’t think you have to go from zero to fully online, high-tech, digital, remote school

just because an announcement is made.

“We’re thinking about the social-emotional wellbeing of the child.What are the ways that we can foster points of connection?Diana Neebe

Diana, you helped create a well-regarded, widely-shared digital learning plan. What

needs to go in these plans? What are things that can probably be left off?

Diana Neebe: My colleague Joy Lopez and I drafted our Flexible Plan for Instructional

Continuity, which is available for anybody who wants to use it as a resource, or use it

in whole. It’s available under a Creative Commons license. We welcome you to use it.

When thinking about the digital learning plan itself, I’m thinking: What is essential?

At the teacher level, I’ve been talking with colleagues all day for the last few days

about: What am I actually going to translate online? What am I going to keep? And

what we’re talking about is lesson planning one-on-one. What are the things that you

know students absolutely have to be able to know and do by the time that they get out

http://tinyurl.com/instructionalcontinuity



of your class, and what is essential in planning to get them there? If it’s not on that

list, cut it. I would leave off anything that’s going to add stress right now, such as high-

stakes assessments.

Also, we’re thinking about the social-emotional wellbeing of the child. What are the

ways that we can foster points of connection?

We’ve got so many great questions about, what exactly constitutes being present for

an online class? What if we’re completely asynchronous? Then, how do I tell the

school that a student isn’t showing up, and what if a kid’s falling through the cracks? I

would encourage schools to think really carefully about the basics that we always

consider as a whole institution—attendance, participation, getting kids into class,

what they need to know and do—and then how that translates to the individual

teachers. From there, think about setting some boundaries.

In our case, we’re asking teachers to give students two assignments, spread out over

the week, so that they can get a check in and get a sense that students are following

through. Our counseling team is going to be sending out weekly emails to ask

teachers: Are there any students that you’re very concerned about for their social,

emotional state? We’re trying to catch kids in the ways that we would normally do in

the halls.



How do you use these first few weeks off to get into a routine?

Richards: One of the most important things, especially in initial communications, is to

give a clear sense of when to expect the next communication. When you don’t have

these regular physical movement touch points, people really want to have a sense of

when they can expect the next official communication with next steps. I think it’s

helpful for families to know the type of routine, what their kid is doing Monday

through Friday.

This doesn’t mean you try to replicate the school schedule. But recognize they’re used

to being around a bunch of other 7-year-olds at 8:30 a.m., so that is something that

has now been subtracted. Recognize that they’re used to a certain rhythm and cadence

to the day.

One thing schools could do is suggest to families the types of things that you do at

school. So, telling parents: Here’s something that you can do at home. It doesn’t

require anything technical. Even if it’s simple: maybe you play a card game and then

you read a book. It’s not because it’s going to accelerate their learning or promote

their academic excellence, but because children will feel safety and comfort in that

familiarity and routine. And that’s the priority.

If you think about this period that we’re in, we’re bridging between a time when school

is closed and when school is reopening. We’re not necessarily trying to substitute the

full experience, but to recognize that in this ambiguous period where the end point

might be moving, what we can do best is help students feel a sense of safety, a sense of

connection and familiarity. Schools can educate families who are going to be the

primary caregivers in many cases of how to best serve students’ needs.

Melissa, tell us about San Francisco Unified’s approach.

Melissa Dodd: We have been in deep planning mode. With serving such a large diverse

community, equity is at our foundation, and we know that while some of our families



have access to technology and internet at home, not all do. Our guidance to schools

has been around non-digital as our primary focus.

We do have a couple of middle schools that do have one-to-one [device] take-home

programs with internet access through the Digital Promise Verizon Innovative

Learning Schools program. We’re working with those schools a little differently. We’re

really personalizing it for each individual school, and thinking about what’s

appropriate also by grade span. We are not looking at a district-wide online distance

learning model because of all of the conditions and factors that need to be considered.

Our primary focus is the health and safety of our students and families.

What might an offline strategy look like?

Dodd: We’re working on that now, soo it’s in progress. We recommended that school

leaders send students home with materials, reading resources, books from the

classroom library, books from their school library so that there’s reading taking place.

Teachers I know have been working on instructional packets. We’ve partnered with our

curriculum and instruction division to develop more teacher-facing supports and

resources organized by grade level and content area, so that they have lesson

recommendations, lesson arcs and frames that they can take and adapt. Those are

publicly available now on our website.

And then for our schools that do have one-to-one device programs, or can guarantee

both technology and internet access at home, we do have a guide for them around

preparing for digital distance learning. I’m using the tools and platforms that we have

in the district.

How do schools prioritize mental wellbeing right now?

Reshan Richards: It might be figuring out the close networks or clusters of people

around a child or a family to make sure that more proactive check-ins are happening.

And maybe from a sense of prioritization, if the school has a high percentage of

https://verizon.digitalpromise.org/

http://sfusd.edu/continuouslearning



students or families who need that, maybe that is what takes priority over figuring out

what video conferencing solution we are going to use.

Again, I can’t say it enough: If your online school gets delayed by two weeks because

you’re solving the mental health question, then I think your energy’s in the right

place. The long-term health of the institution—like our society—will be better off if

that becomes the priority. We’ll figure out the math, we’ll figure out Hamlet and the

Odyssey. That’ll be all right. It’s all of these other things that school provides that you

can’t diminish and you can’t create online.

Stephen Noonoo (@stephenoonoo) is K-12 editor at EdSurge where he frequently works withcontributing writers. Reach him at [email protected].

Blended Learning Social-Emotional Learning Teaching & Learning

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first. teaching. but take care of students school leaders say …€¦ · 3/19/2020 school leaders...

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