When the school year started, Patrick J Kennedy Elementary School Principal Kristen Goncalves saw both academic and social emotional gaps in her students resulting from 18 months of remote learning as a result of the COVID pandemic.
Goncalves said many students lacked the mental stamina to get through the school day, while others struggled with basics like book handling skills.
Three months into the new school year, educators like Goncalves and her staff are still feeling the pandemic’s impact on learning, instruction, and student wellbeing.
Over the past several months, the Boston Schools Fund’s Re-Centering program has been in frequent communication with the Kennedy and four other schools to learn how they are using Boston Schools Fund’s $40,000 Re-Centering Implementation grants. This dialogue has helped the program gain insights into how other schools can use outside support to shift the focus back to what matters most to their students.
For example, over at the Kennedy the Boston Schools Fund’s Re-Centering program connected Goncalves with a leadership coach from Attuned Education Partners and peers from other schools in the cohort.
“It’s been nice to have a bank of resources available and have people to re-center me in what my priorities are,” said Goncalves. “It reminds me I’m not alone in feeling the effects of the pandemic and there is a way to recover.”
Goncalves added the Re-Centering funds also allowed the Kennedy to acquire intervention resources to build math fluency, regain foundational phonics skills, and build on the school’s pre-pandemic work with ESL and inclusion. Fifty-seven percent of Goncalves’s students at the PJK are English language learners.
“After almost an entire year of remote learning, schools must be strategic in how they approach classroom instruction this year, to ensure that curriculum, professional development, and staffing are all working to meet a wide range of student academic needs,” said Chief Strategy Officer for Boston Schools Fund.Kerry Donahue. “Leaders must also prioritize social emotional health to establish a supportive school culture for both students and adults that recognizes the amount of disruption and change that has taken place.”
The five schools chosen for the program represent some of the neighborhoods most impacted by the pandemic – like the Kennedy in Eastie, the William E. Channing Elementary School in Hyde Park, the Mendell Elementary School in Roxbury, the Richard J. Murphy K-8 School in Dorchester, and the Charles H. Taylor Elementary School in Mattapan. Each school received a comprehensive needs assessment before the start of the school year to identify where leaders should focus their efforts. The schools will then be followed throughout the year to determine the impact of the pandemic on the school and the efficacy of school based recovery efforts.
In March 2021 Boston Schools Fund also launched EdRecentered.org — a central hub for its Re-Centering Schools initiative work. In partnership with Attuned, they also released a comprehensive School Re-Centering Guide to inform leaders as they prioritize pandemic recovery efforts for their own schools. This guide, along with dedicated coaching from Attuned, has served as the foundation for the experience of the Re-Centering Schools cohort.