Preparing school staff to support students and families during COVID-19: Insights from research and practice

• In Event: The Cascading Educational Impacts of COVID-19

Abstract

In response to COVID-19, U.S. schools abruptly pivoted to remote instruction. Without physical structures and in-person interactions, schools lacking pre-existing systems to support students and families struggled to provide coordinated responses to widespread and diverse developmental needs of their populations. Since then, COVID-19 has amplified extant unmet needs (e.g., lack of basic needs, technology access). It foregrounded how out-of-school factors profoundly affect learning, particularly for historically-marginalized communities (Noguera et al., 2019). Effective support for students’ out-of-school and in-school needs is crucial to combat anticipated COVID-19-related learning loss (Kuhfeld & Tarasawa, 2020) and potential widening of longstanding opportunity gaps (Reardon, 2011). To facilitate learning, schools need additional guidance on how to effectively address ongoing student needs using a systemic, whole-child approach.

This presentation describes how [Organization] provided such guidance by translating existing evidence-based student support practices and COVID-19-related research into publicly-available professional development modules for teachers and school counselors.

Existing best practices come from [Intervention], a 20-year-old comprehensive approach to student support that annually serves over 30,000 students in high-poverty schools. Grounded in developmental science (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) and student support best practices (ASCA, 2019), [Intervention] effectively provides a systemic approach to supporting children’s development (e.g., Author, 2014). At the intervention’s core is the Coordinator, a licensed school counselor or social worker, who works with every teacher in a school to develop tailored plans of enrichment and support opportunities for each student across academic, socio-emotional, health, and family domains.

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, [Organization] has continued to implement [Intervention], with Coordinators adapting their systemic approach to school and community contexts. For example, Coordinators not only distributed food, they also coordinated food suppliers and distribution networks, customizing solutions for families. Such adaptations underscore the need for enhanced systems for service delivery and tracking non-academic supports, and for systems to address new developmental needs, particularly socio-emotional/behavioral challenges.

We paired these learnings with March-June weekly Coordinator surveys (n=580) to understand the needs of students, families, and schools during COVID-19. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006) of survey responses revealed six categories of needs (academic, communication, COVID-19-related, systems, resources, and socio-emotional/behavioral).

But findings without translation to practitioners can be sterile. In our case, we translated the research findings into a unique professional development opportunity: four publicly-available online modules to support Fall 2020 school re-entry for teachers and school counselors. Module content provided clinical knowledge of COVID-19's impact. It also underscored the need to systematically and intentionally identify and respond to student needs, implement new types of supports (e.g., Internet access), and apply key principles from child development research to support all students. These four-hour modules were asynchronous with a complementary one-hour interactive webinar to collaboratively deepen learning. 170 attendees participated in August 2020 (Table 1). Post-completion feedback suggests highly positive reception of content and modality.

This example of research-practice integration provides new knowledge of adaptations of existing student support systems and how to translate them for teachers and school counselors as they support students holistically during COVID-19 and beyond.

Authors

• Rebecca Blazar Lebowitz, Boston College
  Presenting Author

• Maria Theodorakakis, Boston College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Courtney Pollack, National Institutes of Health (NIH)
  Non-Presenting Author

• Patrice DiNatale, Boston College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mary E. Walsh, Boston College
  Non-Presenting Author