As we look towards the reopening of in-person instruction in the fall, planning and reimagining for a restorative restart to our school systems that emphasizes student and educator mental health is a priority. In addition, there is a windfall of one-time funding coming to districts from federal and local funds for just this purpose. Recently a wise educator said to me, ‘you know, if you want to get to the hearts and minds of school leaders to make changes for the fall you need to do so by July.’ Thankfully last week my colleague shared the most excellent resource with me that speaks just to this point, and I am excited to share it with all of you.
Reimagine and Rebuild California Schools: Restarting School with Equity at the Center, https://reimaginecaschools.org/, has many tools to help districts start off the new year with relationships and equity at the center. They emphasize, “COVID-19 has exacerbated existing education inequities. As we recover from a public health and education crisis, we need to build a system that operates equitably. Families, educators, and policymakers want to rebuild students’ skills and knowledge from this past year. But this is only possible if we invest in student and educator well-being.” The site has a brief, a full report, AND a ready to go slide deck for you to share with your local education leadership. If you are not from California THAT IS FINE! Some of the funding information is California centric but the rest is applicable to ALL school systems.
The framework they provide prioritizes five restorative practices: 1. Center Relationships, 2. Address Whole Child Needs, 3. Strengthen Staffing and Partnerships, 4. Make Teaching and Learning Relevant and Rigorous, 5. Empower Teams to Reimagine and Rebuild Systems. They describe the Big Idea as “one bold move districts can make in the coming months to begin rebuilding an education system that works for each young person. Every California district should take approximately 6 weeks over the summer or at the beginning of the school year to offer students, families, and educators a restorative restart.” I really love the idea of districts spending the first six weeks on the practices highlighted by the framework, can you imagine?? I can.
The other aspect I truly appreciate about this resource, and what makes it stand out for me, is they follow it up with this statement “Once these restorative practices have begun, education leaders—along with school staff, families, students, and other community stakeholders—must sustain and take further action to transform their schools and systems for equity, permanently”. Too often these supportive and helpful briefs come out focusing on an immediate need with short term fixes. This report acknowledges from the very beginning that the ‘normal’ of school was not working for many before the pandemic and we need to do things differently. I was very heartened to see they devoted a whole section to empowering teams to collaboratively reimagine and transform the entire system for the future, with many voices at the table. Both the brief and the full report dive into the five restorative practices in depth, providing links to research as well as practices schools can begin to implement right away.
Their list of contributors and endorsing partners is impressive including representation from grassroots organizations, higher education, teachers unions, parent organizations, health partners, faith-based community and more! To have endorsements, and in many cases, ongoing meaningful engagement in developing the ideas in this report, from not only the ‘grasstops’ such as UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools and Learning Policy Institute, but also from the ‘grassroots’ such as InnerCity Struggle and Khmer Girls in Action speaks volumes.
I would love to hear from you in the comments below if you find this useful as well as if you have similar resources to share that might reach the ‘hearts and minds’ of school leaders planning for the fall.
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