From individual sessions to taking a real-world approach, here's how teachers are adapting to the pandemic

A school district in Virginia has implemented a two-prong solution to provide internet access to rural students during the pandemic. The indoor solution allows students to make appointments to be inside the school to access the internet. The outside solution, equipping three schools in the district with equipment to boost their Wi-Fi signals, allowing students who can’t make indoor appointments a way to access the Wi-Fi. “We just took advantage of something that was already happening in the district."

School districts across the country from Miami, FL, to Richmond, VA, had to modernize their school meetings to follow safety precautions of the pandemic. To do this, school districts moved their school board meetings to online platforms, or allowed participants to leave comments through voicemail messages. While these solutions were not perfect, it made it easier and convenient for parents to participate.

Norfolk Public Schools had a unique approach to addressing student performance post-pandemic—giving students an incomplete instead of failing them. The move revealed racial disparities that allowed the district to respond. “Of the 12,455 incomplete grades submitted, 71% went to Black students.” The district acted on that information and gave devices to students, limited instruction to four times a week to prevent teacher burnout, and placed a bus driver at every school to send staff to communities.

Chicago Connected is a $50 million four-year program that has already provided high-speed broadband to over 40,000 households in need, representing around 64,000 Chicago public school students, and plans to expand. On-the-ground community outreach in multiple languages was key to connecting residents to the program quickly, which was needed as school went virtual due to COVID-19. The public schools helped identify eligible low-income students whose parents were then contacted by outreach workers.

Garrett County students were able to get back in school quickly because the district built trust with its community by providing families with crucial supplies, carefully planning the reopening, and communicating extensively with parents. When remote learning was required because of COVID-19, the district provided families with computers, tablets, central Wi-Fi hotspots, and delivered meals, which built trust and opened lines of communication. When students were brought back into the classroom, parents trusted the district to prioritize safety and their feedback was incorporated and responded to.

School districts and cities in California are looking to create their own local Wifi networks as a long-term solution to the digital divide, and an alternative to hotspots. Some are even becoming internet service providers themselves (ISP) — efforts, they say, that will make it easier to provide internet access to those who can’t afford it.

Across the state of New Hampshire, school districts found themselves adjusting to the meet the particular needs of special needs students. Outside tents, remote games, and equipping paraprofessionals with Chromebooks, where just some of the things different school districts implemented.

One school district is taking a creative approach to increase student attendance during the pandemic— care packages. In Rowland Unified School District, kindergarten teachers came up with the idea of sending care packages via the postal services to students twice a month. They hope that by doing so it will increase attendance among kindergarten students, a grade that has nationally seen plummeting enrollment. The packages include paper, pens, and books. “"It's really an opportunity for us as kindergarten teachers to help kids feel seen, and from the start, tell kids that they belong in school."

Apps that track students’ online activity, door-to-door visits, and receiving input from families on how to reopen schools, are all ways school districts across the country are responding to absenteeism during the pandemic. In one San Antonio district, they were able to locate around 2,900 of the 3,000 students who weren’t showing up to classes.

For one school district in Texas, using personal relationships established before the pandemic, proved the best way to reach bilingual students in rural parts of the district who weren't showing up to remote classes. One librarian and a parent “went door-to-door there to track down students and find out how they could help families transition to virtual learning. They also had parents fill out note cards showing how many children lived in the home to make sure no child was left behind.” Other Texas districts are similarly relying on home visits to check on students. Data shows those methods work.