Leading Through Crisis: District-Level Communication Around Mental Health and Social-Emotional Learning

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Leading for Student Health and Well-Being

Abstract

Students faced with the collective trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting rapid closure of school buildings encountered unprecedented challenges to their physical and mental health. Superintendents were charged with reimagining the role of their schools in providing for these needs. Our census of district-level communications during the crisis schooling associated with the COVID-19 pandemic revealed both innovative practices and disturbing trends around mental health and social-emotional learning. This study used crisis decision theory as a framework to understand district-level crisis leadership around mental health and social-emotional learning while schools responded to the organizational crisis of unprecedented building closure precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Authors

• Maria Frankland, University of Maine

• Catharine Biddle, University of Maine