COVID-19 SchoolHack

School districts, CMOs, and charter schools across the United States are struggling with how to deliver high quality education to students amidst the COVID-19 crisis. Many schools have closed, impacting the learning and social emotional health of millions of students nationwide. Education leaders are in dire need of solutions NOW to help stem the crisis. Therefore, we decided to launch a school hack to match education organizations with experts to solve critical problems NOW.

THE CHALLENGES

Challenge #1: Teachers and students are experiencing technical issues. How can we create a 24/7 Geek Squad for all?

Details: Alta Public Schools has deployed over 1500 laptops for students and staff to jump as soon as possible onto distance learning. They currently have three (3) techs to assist parents, students and staff with their distance learning needs; google classrooms, Managebac, class dojo (local software/program/app deployment), helping all from creating emails to navigating cyberspace environment for novices and even technical issues with chargers, blank screens. etc. Laptop computers are old and require TLC but Alta does not have the resources necessary to deliver quality technical assistance to everyone in an expeditious manner. The idea is to create a central technical assistance hub or cadre of volunteer techs to provide technical assistance to all that seek it.

Challenge #2: How can schools and teachers best reach students to provide Social Emotional Learning (SEL) to them remotely?

Details: Since schools are closed for the remainder of the year, teachers have to communicate with students online. But how can teachers best attend to the social and emotional needs of students? Some students also may be at home in not-so-safe environments and communities. Some may experience feelings of isolation, and there may be issues of job loss for families and food insecurity. How can we ensure that students are getting their needs met mentally? During the school year, we implement arts-integrated education, and collaborative learning. How can we continue this culture with all of our students learning from home via Zoom and GoogleClassroom?

Challenge #3: How can we adapt to online/virtual programming? How can organizations provide professional/personal development to educators remotely via digital workshops?

Details: Brothers Empowered to Teach is an education non-profit looking for the best, highest-quality platforms that they can use to house curricula and resources for their future professional/personal development bank. They also deliver multi-collaborative training centered around early childhood development and trauma. Their partners are Dr. Lisa Green-Derry and also TrainingGrounds play center. They need a way to infuse all of these elements into a one stop virtual shop. Their workshops are introspective and very hands-on so they need to be able to transfer as much of the intangible as possible, ideally.