The pandemic threw schools across the nation into crisis overnight. But for so many schools, this wasn’t the first time navigating an emergency. Reacting to everything from devastating natural disasters to chronic homelessness to gun violence, schools have long been on the front lines of supporting students and families through times of crisis. A new book explores how schools using Integrated Student Support —an approach that connects students with out-of-school resources to address their needs—before the pandemic were able to leverage this holistic approach to respond to the developing crisis of COVID-19.
In the book, Critical Conditions: Addressing Education Emergencies through Integrated Student Support, authors Elaine Weiss, Bruce Levine, and Kimberly Sterin highlight five examples of integrated student support across the nation, including the City Connects program in Salem, Massachusetts. To find out if schools already utilizing integrated student support would be better equipped to address the needs of students and families during the pandemic, they studied urban, suburban, and rural schools across the country, all using differing approaches.
“Despite the fact that integrated student support tends to be embedded in schools that face more challenges than average, the schools we looked at were much better equipped to handle the new challenges COVID was throwing at them,” said author Elaine Weiss. “One of the precepts of education emergencies is that schools need to prepare rather than react. What we saw in schools with integrated student support is that they were prepared when COVID hit. They were able to deal with this crisis proactively. So our overall message is that integrated student support is your best preparation for the next emergency.”
The book takes a close look at how Salem Public Schools, through their work with City Connects and EdRedesign, used already existing partnerships with community organizations to quickly respond to the needs of students and families when schools abruptly shut down in March 2020. According to the book, school-based City Connects coordinators had already established a “formidable” set of community partners including the local YMCA, food pantry, Salvation Army, and health center.
“Because the schools were already known in the community and trusted in the community as hubs, they had community partners both established and even new ones, coming to the schools and City Connects and saying ‘we can help, tell us how you can deploy us,’” said Weiss.
These strong relationships made it possible for Salem to connect students and their families to the immediate resources they needed and ensured that throughout the pandemic, teachers knew who to call if one of their students needed support. Strong community relationships even allowed students to have in-person learning experiences before many other districts. For example, the YMCA opened “learning labs” where students wearing masks could receive academic support. And because of the YMCA’s already existing partnership with City Connects coordinators, they were able to use those learning labs to build on each child’s individual student plan.
The authors found that while many non-integrated student support districts were receiving negative attention for their ability to support students through the crisis, Salem received substantial praise. Teachers living in neighboring towns even began to opt their kids into Salem Public Schools after seeing the positive impacts of comprehensive student support.
“One thing that really struck us was that within a week or two, Salem Public Schools and City Connects were able to establish and confirm relationships with every single student and family they were serving. They did not ‘lose a student’ between the cracks or to the digital divide. That was so powerful to us because across the country other school districts had no idea where their kids were. The fact that the folks in Salem were able to engage every partner who was necessary to make that happen in such a short amount of time, while there was this huge crisis going on, was remarkable and it made an unbelievable difference,” said Weiss.
While the authors studied many different forms of integrated student support, they found that City Connects stood out for its focus on fostering the strengths of students and families.
“A huge strength of City Connects is that the assets of children, students, and families are front and center along with needs. Integrated student support strategies are really good at tackling unmet needs. But the other piece is about surfacing and leveraging assets that are so often underlooked, especially in these communities and among the children they serve. Helping families, children, and communities understand the strengths and not just the deficits of where they come from is incredibly powerful and something City Connects does so beautifully,” said Weiss.
Read more about the work of City Connects in Salem as well as programs in Berea, Kentucky; Grain Valley, Missouri; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Frederick County, Virginia, in Critical Conditions: Addressing Education Emergencies through Integrated Student Support.
