The past 18 months have made clear just how blurred the lines are between young people’s home lives and school lives — and how indispensable families and community partners are to the success of both individual students and schools. During the pandemic, parents and grandparents organized and supervised their kids’ learning in ways they never had before. In some districts, schools became community hubs, connecting families to services and directly dispensing supports like grocery gift cards, books, and study kits. Zoom-based lessons gave teachers a glimpse into their students’ home lives, and vice versa. Community-based organizations, such as the YMCA and Boys and Girls Clubs, provided safe spaces for kids to learn, making their staff partners in student learning.

As we shift from pandemic response to recovery, education leaders must build on lessons learned during the pandemic and continue to establish and maintain strong, two-way relationships with families and the school community. Education leaders should consider leveraging federal recovery dollars to:

Find Out What Worked for Families This Year and What Can Be Improved

Families in each community are best positioned to tell education leaders which 2020-2021 initiatives to continue. Education leaders should reach out to families and the community-based organizations that support them to find out which services and initiatives were most helpful and which can be improved. This outreach should be the start of an ongoing and sustained feedback loop that allows education leaders to get regular feedback about community needs and services being offered.

Share Information in Multiple, Easily Digestible Formats, and Translate It into Multiple Languages

A key lesson of the pandemic is just how imperative strong communication between schools and families is to student engagement and success. Parents and grandparents could not ensure that their kids logged in to remote classes if they did not know when or where those classes would take place. They could not support their children in completing and submitting assignments if they did not know what was expected of their kids or how to use the school’s remote learning platform.

Of course, the need for strong communication is not new, nor will it end as we shift from pandemic response to recovery. In fact, in a recent survey of Massachusetts families, 93% indicated that frequent updates about how their child is doing academically would be useful in helping their child catch up.

Education leaders can leverage federal dollars to maintain and strengthen communication with families by, for example:

• Hiring qualified interpreters or contracting with interpretation service providers to ensure that all communications can occur in a family’s preferred language and interpreters and live translations are available for all relevant meetings;
• Establishing or maintaining an education navigator program (see these examples from Nashville, Tennessee, and Salem, Massachusetts) to stay in regular contact and maintain two-way communication with every family;
• Establishing or maintaining hotlines that families can call with questions or problems;
• Training educators in culturally responsive communication and setting clear expectations for regular outreach to families;
• Purchasing technology infrastructure to make it easier for educators to reach out to families in multiple formats, in their home language; and
• Creating additional communication channels to different communities through the use of one-to-one phone calls, text messaging, hotlines, emails, community newsletters, partnerships with community-based organizations’ communication networks, home visits (if safety allows), and establishing relationships with local radio and TV stations, including linguistically diverse media.

Continue to Leverage Technology and Provide Training to Families on How to Use It

This past year, districts worked to ensure that all students had the devices and internet access needed to participate in remote learning, helping to bridge the long-existing digital divide. They also offered training and other support to families on technology use. Even as more students return to in-person learning, access to devices and the internet will continue to be critical to students’ academic success and families’ ability to access important educational, social, and health services. Districts should continue to invest in one-to-one device access for all students, work with their city governments to ensure high-speed internet access for all families, and offer training and technical support to help all families — including those who do not speak English and those who are housing insecure — use technology.

Education leaders should also continue to leverage increased familiarity with technology to improve communication and connections between schools and families. For example, this past year, virtual back-to-school nights and parent-teacher conferences significantly increased participation in some districts, removing barriers, such as transportation and the need for child care, that often hamper families’ ability to attend. District and school leaders should continue to offer virtual engagement options for families, such as hybrid back-to-school nights, Zoom meeting options, and hybrid school committee meetings. Importantly, virtual options will not negate scheduling challenges (such as work conflicts) for families. Education leaders should strive to offer a variety of meeting times to families, including times outside typical work hours.

Do Not Discontinue Resources Offered to Families This Year

In focus groups conducted by MassINC earlier this year, parents expressed appreciation for all of the additional resources offered by their schools this year, including school supply kits (paper, markers, etc.), grocery gift cards, and free flu shots. One parent noted that “There are a lot of needs and people’s pride get[s] in the way and they don’t ask for help, but [schools should] have those [resources] available for families that do need it.” Many of these needs predate the pandemic and will likely continue to be a reality for many families. Schools can use federal dollars to continue to provide these relatively inexpensive, but highly valuable supports for families.

Establish or Maintain a School’s or District’s Role as a Community Hub

Schools cannot, and should not be expected to, solve all of society’s challenges or meet all of the needs of students and families. In many communities, however, schools are key points of regular interaction with families. This means that schools are well-positioned to function as connectors between families, community-based service providers, and other agencies. A school social worker, for example, might not be in a position to help a family navigate an eviction threat — but they could connect the family with a local housing advocate.

District and school leaders can leverage federal funding to build their capacity to serve as a community hub for families. Education leaders can take the following steps:

• Conduct an assessment of community assets — e.g., organizations and other resources that can help support families. These should include after-school/out-of-school time providers, local health clinics, faith-based organizations, housing and economic security organizations, etc.
• Establish a district-level rapid-response team whose job it is to connect families with services in the community and statewide. Note that districts will need to find state and local funding to support any new roles/positions after federal funds expire.
• Provide training to all staff involved in connecting families to services outside the school system on protecting family privacy and safety, particularly when any family member is undocumented.