K-12 School-Community Partnerships Foster Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Gayle Simidian, Ed.D., Research Analyst, New York State School Boards Association

School-community partnerships are a form of educational resilience. These types of partnerships often fill a K-12 needs gap that may otherwise go unmet in school districts. The COVID-19 global pandemic has prompted school leaders to utilize the social and human capital inherent in their local communities to ensure school personnel, students and families are getting their needs met in real time during a dynamic and uncertain time period. The following three school-community partnerships offer insight for New York State school leaders regarding how to support the academic, socio-emotional and mental health needs of school communities at this unprecedented time in history.

Three School-Community Partnerships

The Ossining Union Free School District set up a partnership with Pace University during the beginning of the pandemic to ensure support for online instruction. This “community-driven” partnership allowed Pace teacher candidates to accumulate hours in their service field and hone their online learning platform skills, according to Ossining’s superintendent, Dr. Ray Sanchez.

This partnership began at the elementary-school level and now extends to middle and high school students. This fall, 135 of the district’s families participated, says Sanchez. Parents and Pace tutors determine schedules, and the partnership has grown to involve Pace tutors in teachers’ Google classrooms to foster educational resilience. A key to this successful partnership is the relational component, notes Sanchez, who explains that Pace students are building relationships with students and their families. This “social emotional connection,” he says, is critical to the success of the partnership.

White Plains Public Schools has a partnership with Andrus, a multi-service non-profit association specializing in mental health services. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Andrus provided clinical support in the school district. The need for this partnership was enhanced during the pandemic, according to the school district’s superintendent, Dr. Joseph Ricca. “We were able to provide mental health access for our students and coordinate those services between home and school. This also served as a mechanism to provide equity by removing traditional barriers pertaining to geography, transportation and stigma,” he explains.

As the district shifted to mental health support for students, school staff also benefitted from the partnership’s services such as support groups. There is relatively little cost for this partnership other than locating the physical space for the services, developing operational procedures and receiving state approval for satellite clinical locations, notes Ricca, who says the partnership receives positive feedback, offers choice, safety and support regarding mental health and reduces any equity gap for families.

The Institute on Trauma and Trauma-Informed Care (ITTIC) at the University of Buffalo has partnerships with 5 local school districts to support mental health and wellness which has become more salient as school communities grapple with “dual traumas” — COVID-19 and racial injustice, says Susan Green, LCSW, clinical professor at the University of Buffalo School of Social Work and co-director of ITTIC. ITTIC’s work needs to be flexible to accommodate the shifting priorities that school districts often have, notes Green. According to her, the partnerships consist of “a couple of listening meetings” to prioritize needs and then maybe some evaluations to ascertain feedback.

Every school district is unique in terms of buy-in and communications, resources and the school community, so ITTIC offers “various touchpoints” with school districts and provides “manageable bits” over time due to the current pandemic reality. For example, according to Samantha Koury, LMSW, project manager at ITTIC, the Institute’s educational toolbox for educators includes a 30 – 45-minute training from a trauma-informed lens on topics including helping students learn to self-regulate and equity-centered SEL strategies.  ITTIC has a free manual to help school district leaders understand how to foster trauma-informed organizational change.

Conclusion

K-12 school-community partnerships are often born out of necessity, though they do not have to be. The organic connections and relationships inherent in local communities provide seeds for developing and nurturing social and human capital that can support and sustain the healthy academic and socio-emotional development of our youth.