A Key Investment for COVID-19 Recovery
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A healing-centered community school approach prioritizes students' physiological and safety needs to support their cognitive development. Complementary investments in policy, funding, and resources across education, health, and community development are necessary to sustain this approach. This guidance aims to help policymakers and educators use state and federal recovery resources to address immediate student needs and advance equity through sustainable systems and practices.
The Path Towards Reimagining and Rebuilding Schools
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The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all students; however, its impact has been particularly devastating for students of color, students from low-income families, English learners, and other marginalized children and youth. As transmission rates decline and vaccination rates increase in California, many are eager to return to normalcy, but we must all recognize that even the prepandemic normal was not working for all students. The 2021–22 school year, therefore, constitutes a critical opportunity for schools to offer students, families, and educators a restorative restart.

Restarting School with Equity at the Center
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This brief was developed by California-based family and student engagement organizations, associations representing educators and system leaders, research institutes, and civil rights and equity groups. The recommendations arise from the evidence that has collectively emerged from focus groups with educators, parents, and students; polls and surveys of stakeholders; a deep review of the literature; and original research conducted on COVID-19’s impact on schools and students.

In-Person Learning for the Whole Child
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Learning hubs are being implemented in California and across the US to provide in-person education supports to distance learning students. This brief explores a prevalent learning hub model, including considerations for policymakers, schools, and expanded learning partners. Guidance for hub design and operations is provided, along with policy levers that support the model. The brief is part of a series on how expanded learning programs and staff can support students during pandemic recovery.
A Foundation for Rebuilding to Support the Whole Child
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The partnership between schools and expanded learning programs is crucial to build equitable support systems for children and their families. California's school reopening guidance encourages coordination between these entities to meet the students' needs during the pandemic. This brief provides key principles for building successful partnerships informed by insights from California leaders and practitioners. It is part of a series on how expanded learning programs can support students during pandemic recovery.
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As California's elementary schools reopen, attention to healing the school community is crucial. When students return, they will need to reconnect with friends and teachers. Recess provides an ideal opportunity for play and can support healing and prepare students to return to learning. Schools should prioritize providing safe opportunities for play to rebuild the school community and support students' well-being.
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This brief addresses the challenges that have arisen in California's transitional kindergarten through third grade distance learning during the pandemic. It offers promising practices and policy changes that can benefit students, parents, and teachers involved in distance learning.
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This brief highlights the need and ways to transform—systematically—how schools address the overlapping learning, behavioral, and emotional problems that can interfere with learning and teaching. The aim is to provide a blueprint to enable the state, Local Education Agencies (LEAs), and schools to play a greater role in providing student and learning supports, and to do so in ways that enhance equity of opportunity.
Lessons for COVID-19
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This brief discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student absenteeism and academic and social-emotional outcomes using panel data from California's CORE Districts. Absenteeism has a negative effect on student outcomes, with math being more affected than English language arts, and middle school students suffering more than elementary or high school students. The study also shows that absenteeism negatively impacts social-emotional development, which can have further implications for student outcomes.
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How can schools provide high-quality distance and blended learning during the pandemic? This brief includes a mix of rigorous evidence from extant studies, data from interviews with practitioners who described their learnings from informal experimentation during the spring of 2020, and expert researchers who thought about how to apply research to the current context.
A Guide for Parents, Families, and the Public
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This brief provides questions for parents, educators, and the public to consider when deciding whether to reopen schools or support remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Education and health policy experts summarize what is known in these areas and provide a set of questions to encourage safe, effective, and equitable teaching and learning during every phase of pandemic schooling.
Evidence and Implications
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This brief summarizes the current evidence base on multi-tiered trauma-informed practices in schools to prevent, assess, and address trauma in students. Although the effectiveness of trauma-informed approaches is limited, the most compelling evidence comes from the more intensive tiers. Recent guidance on addressing trauma comes from expert and practitioner experiences and recommendations, including adaptations made during distance learning. Schools should establish a system-wide trauma-informed approach that includes care for educators themselves.

A COVID-19 Recovery Strategy
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The brief argues that community school strategies can help address the social and learning impacts of COVID-19, by reforming underlying classroom, school, and district behaviors and systems that prevent student-centered collaboration, partnership, and teaching. The focus should be on student-centered learning, integrated teacher and student supports, collaborative leadership and practice, and the centrality of family and student relationships. The brief encourages all schools to adopt a community school approach, which can serve as a sustainable and successful investment.

What California’s Leaders Must Do Next to Advance Student Learning During COVID-19
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Governor Newsom announced that rising COVID-19 infections would require remote learning for K-12 schools in California counties. However, without quality remote education at scale, up to 1.1 million students could fail to graduate high school, affecting low-income, Black, and Latinx students the most. California's leaders must prioritize equity, strengthen teaching and learning requirements, and ensure adequate monitoring, support, and resources with deep attention to equity to avoid further differences in opportunity and achievement among districts and students.
Research to Guide Distance and Blended Instruction
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This article provides 10 recommendations based on the PACE report to help educators and district leaders provide high-quality instruction through distance and blended learning models in the 2020-21 school year. Despite the challenges of COVID-19, research can guide decisions about student learning and engagement. These recommendations can be used as a framework to prioritize quality instruction.

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This study used data from California CORE Districts to explore whether changes in students' self-reported social-emotional learning (SEL) predicted changes in academic outcomes and attendance. The findings revealed that within-student changes in SEL were positively associated with improvements in English language arts (ELA) and math achievement, as well as attendance, and were consistent across various student subgroups.