Learning Loss Recovery Strategy Guide v1

Learn more about families’ current needs, such as food and housing, technology, internet, and resources to support at-home learning, in order to provide resources for families. Consider using available data such as participation in remote learning or other historical data about students, collecting staff knowledge of students’ situations, administering a survey to families, and/or conducting family and student focus groups. Ensure partnerships and systems to communicate with partners are in place to support families’ basic needs (food, housing, transportation, etc.), addressing the most pressing needs first.

Use an equity lens to create a plan to identify and support students with the greatest needs first with the goal of returning these students to in-person schooling as quickly as possible. Consider prioritizing support for students according to the following characteristics: 

1. Students who have been disengaged or missing during remote learning

2. Students who are English Learners and/or have Individual Education Plans or 504s

3. Students with limited or inconsistent access to technology, internet, a quiet place to learn at home, and/or adult support at home.

Coaches need to document not only what or how they work with colleagues, but also what their next steps are for providing ongoing, job-embedded professional development. Determine a consistent format for capturing a way for both the coach and teacher to keep track of their work together.

The Attendance Leadership Team should unpack causes to understand why students are absent. In addition to classifying absences as excused or unexcused, consider adding categories around physical illnesses, truancy, school refusal, school exclusion due to disciplinary measures, student abilities or disabilities, school culture concerns, and family concerns, such as beliefs around the importance of attendance and/or education or transportation. Disaggregate the data to look for patterns using type, month, day of week, grade level, class period, course or subject, students with 0-5 absences vs. students with 6-10 absences, etc.

Understand level of truancy as an underlying cause for absences, including which students this affects, and patterns around truancies.

Complete Policies and Practices Module around attendance in order to understand which policies and practices the school currently has in place, and which policies and practices may need to be created to develop a comprehensive attendance intervention system.

The Attendance Leadership Team should ensure that attendance policies and procedures are clearly written and communicated regularly to all stakeholders. Policies and procedures should include when and how attendance is taken, how absences are coded as excused or unexcused, what number of absences/tardies/leaving school early triggers an intervention, what interventions the school will take, expectations for communication between the school and families, and how community partners and agencies will be involved. Policies and procedures around exclusionary disciplinary practices, such as sending students home early due to behavior concerns, having students report to school late in an attempt to prevent behavioral issues, suspensions and expulsions, should be evaluated to determine the impact on student attendance and subsequent academic achievement.

Engage the community in making decisions around school-wide logistics such as calendars, schedules, classes and safety, and the development of plans to implement the decisions.

Consider extending the school day and/or school year. Consider offering Summer School for targeted students as defined in the Summer School Strategy Guide.

It is important to maintain grade level content as the instructional priority.

Consider simplifying the curriculum to focus on priority standards and creating a flexible and personalized approach for instruction. Flexible and personalized approaches to instruction include instruction without age tracking, smaller groups, informal learning spaces, differentiation, and the ability to pivot topic(s) based on students’ and staff academic and psycho-social needs.

Create a plan to monitor student progress on a regular basis. See the Data-Driven Instruction Strategy Guide for more information on progress monitoring.

Rather than provide remedial instruction for all standards, identify which standards are needed for students to access current grade level content. Consider ‘spiraling’, where teachers teach pre-requisite skills and content immediately before grade level content, for high school students. Consider high dosage tutoring or learning camps to support targeted students with identified needs based on assessment data. Consider offering Summer School for targeted students as defined in the Summer School Strategy Guide.

Provide teachers and staff with regular professional development, coaching and support around adapted school priorities. This includes training on the use and interpretation of assessments, high quality instruction around priority standards, and flexible, personalized learning instructional strategies.

Students and staff are likely to have conflicting and changing emotions around returning to in-person learning. As students return to in-person learning, consider various aspects of trauma to plan for a supportive transition. Consider including activities over the first few weeks upon returning to in-person learning to relieve and address student anxiety. 
It is likely that schools may need extra time and effort to re-establish cultures and routines, reinforce expectations around appropriate behavior and engagement, and have regular opportunities to discuss physical and emotional safety. Consider implementing core components included in Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (PBiS) strategies to positively support school culture.

Consider hosting transition meetings for students, family members and care-givers for teachers to learn about students’ experiences during the Covid pandemic and listen to concerns and hopes as they transition back to school.

Ensure that there is an evidence-based Social-Emotional Learning curriculum for all students that is being regularly implemented. Train all staff members around implementation of the SEL curriculum.

Consider regularly integrating Covid into the curriculum in order to help students make sense of what is happening around them. There are academic benefits when student learning is directly connected to their lived experiences.

Maintain or increase the amount of staff that support students’ social-emotional well-being and development. In addition to school staff, consider community partnerships that can provide social-emotional support for students during the school day.

Ensure that staff are supported with basic needs, social-emotional support and training. Devise strategies to retain highly qualified staff.