An Equitable Restart for Los Angeles Schools: Emboldening Ourselves to Transform Schools and Lives

An Equitable Restart for Los Angeles Schools: Emboldening Ourselves to Transform Schools and Lives 1

Long before COVID-19, education stakeholders across Greater Los Angeles and California have been working to improve educational opportunities for all children, especially students of color and children from immigrant and low-income families and caregivers.

At the onset of the pandemic, educators, students, family members, and caregivers adjusted to new ways of teaching and learning. Family members filled educational gaps to ensure their children stayed connected and engaged in school. Concurrently, many of our families and caregivers contended with devastating and disproportionate economic and health impacts as front-line workers, non-English speakers, and people of color already marginalized by public systems.

We have been acknowledging for generations, frankly, the challenges we are now facing.

COVID-19 has exposed both our vulnerabilities and our strengths.

— Parent and Educator 2

The pandemic has proved that public education inequities are not new, but neither is the resiliency of our families, caregivers, students, and educators. Instead, it has revealed the possibility of reimagining how schools can and should work. Today, families, caregivers and educators are calling for a public education refresh, urging schools to transform into equity-focused, relationship-centered places where all children can thrive.

The intention of this brief is to uplift lessons learned during the pandemic from education stakeholders, families and caregivers, and to offer recommendations for educational transformation. It begins by describing challenges experienced by families, caregivers and educators. This is important because stories provide insight into the real impact of systemic decisions. It then highlights how families, caregivers and educators met those challenges and identifies how these lessons can inform efforts to rebuild from COVID-19. Finally, it offers recommendations for short-term and long-term responses that will ensure our systems are restored and transformed to serve Greater Los Angeles differently, better, and stronger than before.

Listening To and Learning From Families, Caregivers, and Educators

The insights in this brief come directly from families, caregivers, and educators themselves. Families In Schools (FIS), Great Public Schools Now (GPSN), Loyola Marymount University’s Center for Equity and English Learners (CEEL), and Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) convened a two-day virtual forum in October 2020, bringing together families, caregivers, and educators to learn from one another. See sidebar for more about this virtual forum.

Additionally, partner organizations collected direct insights from stakeholders in the following ways: • Spring 2020 Parent Survey – Families In Schools Parent Warriors1 conducted a telephone survey of 305 parents; • Voices from the Field 2020 – The Center for Equity for English Learners (CEEL) conducted Listening Sessions with educators and parent leaders and documented these in communication series; • Contributions from LAUSD’s Parent Advisory Committee (PAC) and District English Learner Advisory Committee (DELAC) 2020 – LAUSD gathered input from advisory committees to inform its annual Local Control and Accountability Plan stakeholder engagement process; and • Summer 2021 Parent Survey – Families In Schools Parent Warriors conducted a telephone survey of 144 parents In writing this brief, the partners also reviewed reports and recommendations from a wide range of Los Angeles-based organizations representing educators, families, caregivers and students (see Resources and Tools on page 16). _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1 Families In Schools’ Parent Warriors are parent leaders who are deeply engaged in education advocacy efforts.

Virtual Forum with Families and Educators

“Deepening Connections Between Families and Educators in the Time of COVID-19,” a two-day virtual forum held in October 2020, brought together approximately 100 family members and caregivers; educators; and representatives of the partnering organizations. This unique event was collaboratively planned and facilitated and was intended to be inclusive and representative, modeling the kind of authentic school-family partnership that supports educational success.

LAUSD provided interpreters, FIS provided bilingual co-facilitators for breakout sessions, and GPSN and CEEL-LMU provided note takers and breakout group co-facilitators.

Family members and caregivers; educators from three school districts; and researchers participated in panels, sharing reflections upon their challenges and successes with distance learning and the ways in which they have cared for themselves and their families during the crisis. In addition, plenty of time was provided for discussion through “virtual learning circles.” These learning circles were organized around five key topics that had surfaced through a telephone survey of parents conducted by FIS in Spring 2020. The learning circles allowed participants to learn more about educators’ and families’ lived experiences, challenges, and successes in five areas: 1. Basic Needs and Child Care 2. Technology and Connectivity 3. Health and Social Emotional Learning 4. Supporting Families and Caregivers as Co-educators 5. Students’ Instructional Needs In addition to looking back, participants also looked forward. Educators, families, and caregivers explored the question: What lessons and strategies can we leverage to inform learning recovery, reopening of schools, and reimagining our public schools with a focus on equity?

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Covid-19’s Impact on Families, Caregivers and Educators

insecurity. Moms had taken on the brunt of caregiving, distance and hybrid learning accommodations, and increased anxiety and burnout as a result; single parents had especially struggled.

Distance learning, which most Los Angeles students experienced from the start of the pandemic through the 2020-21 school year, meant that families and caregivers have had to — at minimum — arrange childcare, identify space for remote learning to take place, gain access to and support their children in using technology, and stay on top of constantly evolving school schedules.

Families, caregivers, and educators have experienced a time of profound change and have demonstrated inspiring resilience in the face of extraordinary challenges. We heard directly from these expert stakeholders about how the pandemic has affected them and Los Angeles students between Spring 2020 and early Summer 2021. They deepened our collective understanding of needs that must be addressed and successes that must be scaled as Los Angeles continues to recover from COVID-19 and dismantles longstanding educational inequities. Below, we outline these challenges and describe how school stakeholders persevered.

CHALLENGES FACED BY FAMILIES AND CAREGIVERS IN SPRING 2020 Basic Needs and Childcare When the pandemic forced businesses and schools to close in March 2020, many Los Angeles family members scrambled to balance the roles of caretaker, breadwinner, home educator, and healthcare provider.

Some parents and caregivers lost jobs or had to stay home to care for their children, adding to their financial worries and leading to increased housing and food 4

Technology and Connectivity Technology had presented a constant challenge for many families and caregivers. Many students spent months logging in from subpar devices such as cell phones, outdated Chromebooks, or shared devices, despite districts’ efforts to provide internet resources to every student. Families and caregivers continued to struggle with inconsistent or insufficient internet connectivity.

Even in densely populated Los Angeles County, a sharp digital divide still separates higher and lower income neighborhoods, with places like Watts, South LA, and Boyle Heights experiencing barriers to obtaining Wi-Fi service. District-provided hotspots have helped but have not been strong enough to close the connectivity gap, especially for multi-student households.

Families and caregivers also experienced a steep learning curve with apps necessary to support their children’s online learning and to communicate with their schools. The challenge was especially difficult in multi-generational homes where the primary caregiver was not tech-savvy or well-equipped to navigate tech support in a different language.

The school gave me a computer, but I have no internet. My 4 kids are unable to do some of their work.

— 2021 Parent Survey

Health and Social-Emotional Wellbeing Without the stability of in-person school, family members reported that their children fell into erratic sleep patterns and suffered from social isolation and heightened levels of anxiety, frustration, and anger.

Some students had been fearful of the virus and its impact on their families and caregivers. In addition to these mental health challenges, children and youth had also been disconnected from their peers and educators.

These negative social and emotional consequences have led to less engagement in distance learning, low morale, digital fatigue, and burnout. Despite this rise in mental health problems, family members had not always known where or how to access mental health resources for their children or themselves. Students, families and caregivers need resources and guidance in self-identifying the social and emotional supports they need. Making these resources accessible will be critical to keeping students focused on learning.

We’ve had some moments of difficulty but nothing extreme, except for homework, being stuck inside, missing school and friends.

— 2021 Parent Survey

Students’ Individualized and Instructional Needs The lack of services has been especially difficult for families and caregivers who had previously relied on school-based services, including counseling, special education supports, English Language Development (ELD), and one-on-one support from paraprofessionals and other specialists. Families and caregivers have sometimes been overwhelmed as they have attempted to patch together services and provide their children with the instructional support they need. This is especially true for parents of students needing special education services. And for English learners and Dual Language Learners, the lack of in-person instruction contributed to further linguistic isolation and slowing rates of English language acquisition.

Finally, families and caregivers have worried about the quality of instruction their children are receiving; many fear their children are falling behind academically.

Families and caregivers have not always felt equipped to help their children with their schoolwork or have struggled to motivate students to complete it.

Additionally, while families and caregivers have often reached out to their children’s teachers for support, many non-English speaking caregivers experience language barriers that make it hard for them to communicate with their children’s teachers. This has made it particularly hard for families and caregivers of Dual Language Learners to support their children’s learning at home including how to contact and communicate with teachers.

THE RESILIENCE OF FAMILIES AND CAREGIVERS This section summarizes the ways in which family members and caregivers have demonstrated remarkable resilience and adaptability in addressing the challenges described above.

Innovation and Adaptability Families and caregivers have built knowledge and solved problems, learning routines and strategies to help their children engage in distance learning and picking up new parenting tricks for keeping kids motivated and on task. And children have often taken on new roles in the home, sometimes learning to support their younger siblings with distance learning and taking on additional caregiving and household responsibilities. Many families and caregivers are proud that they have created safe, healthy, and conducive home learning environments, even during the months of uncertainty and chaos that came with distance learning and hybrid schedules.

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CHALLENGES FACED BY EDUCATORS Distance Teaching and Learning Educators were forced to quickly pivot to a new format of teaching in 2020. They learned new technologies and found new ways of engaging students. Teachers said they missed being physically in front of students, yet even so, they found purpose and fulfillment in connecting with their students each day.

Communication and Collaboration Communication and collaboration between families, caregivers, and educators have been critical to its success. Families and caregivers say they pushed past any hesitancy about reaching out to their children’s teachers since distance and hybrid learning demanded that they get quick resolutions to technology-related issues and regularly asked questions about the schoolwork and schedules in order to help their kids stay on track. Family members prioritized staying informed, attending virtual “coffee with the principal” meetings, participating in technology trainings, and establishing relationships with their children’s teachers.

Family Interconnectedness Parent leaders, such as the Families In Schools “Parent Warriors,” served as connectors to other school families, often utilizing tools like Zoom or social media, to learn from and support one another and to connect families and caregivers with critical resources. Parents and other family members also leaned on one another to provide childcare and support distance learning, allowing some to continue working and sometimes offering paid roles to neighbors who stepped up to lead learning pods, supervise the completion of assignments, or provide childcare.

Distance learning made it especially hard to reach students who have special needs and students who have fewer resources at home. Teachers said they often lacked the support, resources, and strategies needed to reach many of their students, especially those with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs).

Educator Wellbeing Educators said they learned to set boundaries and adopt self-care strategies, since the extra work, continued uncertainties, and intense emotional investment have taken a toll. In addition to the “compassion fatigue” experienced at work, teachers have suffered through the pandemic as most people have. Many are parents who have been supporting their own children through distance learning, and for some, the pandemic has brought illness to their families and caregivers. This all means that school and district administrators must attend to educator wellbeing in the months ahead, even as they address student wellbeing.

The weekly successes were the parents. Teachers were so grateful at seeing parents working alongside students on Zoom…inspiring partnerships with families.

—A teacher commenting at Community Engagement Forum, October 21, 2020

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THE RESOURCEFULNESS OF EDUCATORS Despite these challenges, teachers and school staff demonstrated ingenuity and resourcefulness throughout the pandemic.

To navigate new tech terrain, educators collaborated with their colleagues, took advantage of professional learning opportunities, and often turned to YouTube and social media for tips, tools, and strategies. Many teachers found apps that have been fun and engaging for students and helpful instructionally that they will continue to fold into their teaching.

To address the wide range of needs experienced by students and their families, school personnel actively helped connect families and caregivers to basic resources, like food and technology, as well as to instructional materials and social workers when needed.

Educators found that staying in close touch with families and caregivers helped them understand what strategies were working during distance learning and what they could do to better help students engage in learning and grasp the content. Teachers say they looked to parents as experts on how lessons were translating over Zoom, how small groups were working out, and what amount of work felt manageable for asynchronous learning time. Many educators reached out to caregivers one-on-one to make sure families and caregivers had what they needed and to establish an open line of communication. Some educators said they got to know their students’ families better during the pandemic than they ever had before.

My child’s school (LAUSD) offered us a lot of support.

They gave us the necessary resources we needed. When we had questions, they were quick to help.

— 2021 Parent Survey 7

Finding Equitable Restart Lessons in the Crisis: Recommendations for Education Transformation

Although the pandemic has introduced a host of challenges, any disruptive moment also leads to innovation and the discovery of new practices that bear promise. A number of bright spots emerged during the last year that schools and districts should retain and scale.

In addition to scaling what worked, education leaders must also attend to the gaps that were evident this year as well as the long-standing barriers to opportunity that were present before the pandemic for students of color, English/Dual Language Learners and students from low-income and immigrant families. In our virtual forums, families, caregivers, and educators were united in saying that they do not want schools to “go back to normal,” since the old normal was not working for many students and educators.

Education leaders and stakeholders in Los Angeles can build back better, by focusing on a “restorative restart” during the 2021-22 school year.

Plan for an Equitable and Restorative Restart The science of learning and development – which is the evidence describing how children’s brains develop and how children learn and thrive — makes it clear that for children to be ready to learn, they must first feel safe, known, and heard. To prepare our students for academic success, we must rebuild relationships, trust, and social and emotional wellness. That will take dedicated time and structured activities specifically designed around restorative practices. Academic learning must still take place during this “restorative restart” time — but it must be within the context of relationship development and whole-child supports.

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Below, we discuss four areas that schools and districts should strengthen to enact an equitable and restorative restart and build toward system transformation. In each, we highlight existing bright spots that schools and districts should scale and specific actions that should happen during a restorative restart period.

1. Strengthen families, caregivers, and educator partnerships.

We learned that educators, families and caregivers formed stronger partnerships and better two-way communication during distance and hybrid learning, in large part out of necessity. Families and caregivers needed to stay connected to teachers so they could serve as co-educators, and teachers needed families and caregivers to help support student learning and wellbeing. The kinds of collaboration and communication that have been needed during the pandemic, however, are always the foundation for strong schools.

Parent Warriors were not just asking questions and receiving answers. There was an organic exchange going on. We felt empathy, compassion, and a connection to the families.

—A Parent Leader, on Surveying Families

Districts and schools should retain and build upon these successful practices in the following ways: ● Leverage parents as leaders. “Anchor” parents — parents who are a stabilizing force in and have a leadership role in their communities — can connect other families and caregivers with district and community-based resources, including devices, hotspots, low-cost broadband, and free meals. Anchor parents and other paid family engagement specialists can also support educators, families and caregivers in using technology creatively and effectively. Additionally, hiring parent leaders as school-family liaisons can strengthen collaborative partnerships to support student learning and success. ● Implement consistent two-way communication strategies. Schools can open and enhance avenues for two-way communication by continuing to leverage networks such as “parent warriors” or community liaisons who can bridge and bolster communication. Additionally, schools can reimagine spaces such as coffee meetings with the principal, hosting regular family meetings with teachers, initiating one-on-one conversations between the teacher and every family, and offering drop-in teacher office hours for students, families and caregivers to ensure that they include interactive, responsive dialogues and commitment to collective action. Schools can also continue to use a variety of virtual tools to expand access and increase equitable participation of families and caregivers. In addition, school leaders and educators can continue to regularly solicit feedback and input from family members through surveys and focus groups. To get the most authentic input, schools should partner with families and caregivers to create and administer these surveys and facilitate focus groups with the intention of analyzing and sharing out the qualitative data collected from families, since they are trusted messengers.

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● Connect one-on-one with every family and every student. Staff and teachers can meet with families and caregivers virtually or in-person throughout the school year to learn how they can better support students and to reaffirm this can be a very challenging time as students are likely struggling with the anxiety and trauma brought on by the pandemic. It is equally important to reconnect one or two additional times to strengthen relationships during the school year.

By establishing strong relationships, families, caregivers, and schools can identify ways to support one another, jointly identify student learning needs, and co-design instructional solutions. Schools and districts can also support parents in accessing tools and strategies for how to support learning at home. For families that choose an independent study education option, maintaining connectedness will be critical for student support. ● S trengthening relationships and trust among staff and educators, and investing in educator wellbeing is essential.

School and district leaders can hold retreats and other team-building activities to strengthen relationships and trust among staff, make themselves available to address teacher wellbeing, and make it safe for teachers to take risks, experiment, express opinions, and participate in decision-making.

2. Strengthen community partnerships and connections in order to support whole-child and whole-family needs.

When families and caregivers have needed childcare, food, healthcare, employment, internet connectivity, and distance learning support during the pandemic, community-based partners have filled the gap. They have connected families and caregivers with basic resources and services, and libraries and community-based organizations have also provided a safe place for many students to go during the day to connect to distance learning. Schools, meanwhile, have served as hubs for these services, offering families and caregivers information on where to find everything from renter’s assistance, to childcare, to legal aid. These overlapping spheres of influence — the school, the community, and the family — work together to support the needs of students.

OVERLAPPING SPHERES OF INFLUENCE SCHOOL

STUDENTS COMMUNITY

FAMILY

(Adapted from Joyce Epstein’s Sphere’s of Influence.)

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Students learn and grow in three major contexts: the family, the school, and the community. Reciprocal interactions between parents, educators, and community partners help to: ● Establish social ties and exchange information ● Understand each other’s views and appreciate each other’s contributions ● Identify common goals for students ● Build social capital Each plays a role in shaping the experiences and attitudes of a student, and how well the resources work together (or not) has an impact on student learning. This has been particularly true during the pandemic.

The Pandemic is testing us. It’s bringing out the best in us. We each have a story to tell And it’s a story of perseverance and resistance. We must never give up for the sake of our children.

– Parent Warrior

Districts and schools should retain and scale these successful practices in order to strengthen collaborations between education and public, non-profit, and private corporations to sustain a safety net for families and caregivers. They should also deepen school-based services and systems to provide supports that address each child’s full range of social, emotional, and academic needs.

During pandemic recovery and beyond, schools and districts should: ●C ontinue to provide access to basic food, housing, employment, health, and mental health support. During COVID-19, some districts have provided information and access to these basic services for the first time; this should continue. Districts should also provide access to or connect families and caregivers with vaccines and COVID testing and provide family help hotlines and resources so that families and caregivers know where to go for various needs. ●M ake every school a community school. To support the implementation and expansion of community school services and partnerships aimed at maximizing student learning and development, districts and schools should coordinate an integrated approach for continuing to engage parents in leadership roles as school-community liaisons or coordinators. These family members, along with other school-based personnel, can help connect families, caregivers, and students with a wide range of basic resources and academic, health, social, and emotional supports, both during school and outside the school day. ●A ssess and develop a plan to address each student’s unique social, emotional, and academic needs.

Use school wellness screeners, a customizable online tool to identify each student’s social and emotional needs. Analyze this data, as well as prior-year data on student achievement, grades, course completion, and engagement, in order to identify needs and develop a plan to meet the individualized whole-child needs of every student. ●C ollaborate with community partners to connect students with tutoring and mentoring. Schools and districts should provide access to weekly high-dosage tutoring for students who need it, with priority offered to English learners and other vulnerable groups, including students with disabilities and foster youth.

These tutors and mentors can be found through local nonprofits, companies, high schools, and universities.

Districts should consider paying family members and older students to serve as tutors and mentors; many of these individuals already have close relationships with schools and students and could bring a rich array of multilingual and multicultural assets to the school community.

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3. Expand technology access.

COVID-19 has made devices and adequate connectivity a basic resource, as critical as quality instructional materials and school facilities. District and school leaders have dramatically expanded technology since the pandemic’s onset, and although equity has not yet been achieved, significant progress has been made. In addition, COVID-19 marked the first time many districts trained parents on how to access and use instructional technology.

Districts and schools should retain successful practices from the past year while continuing to expand technology access and literacy in the following ways: ● Make quality high-speed internet access available to all. Partner with private and public entities to expand universal Wi-Fi to every neighborhood, starting with the highest need and least connected communities. Meet families and caregivers where they are by conducting a needs assessment to set a benchmark for measuring progress against closing the digital divide. Invest federal recovery funds to support digital learning and equitable access. In the meantime, provide hotspots to every disconnected student. ● Train parents on how to access and use technology. Districts and schools can offer recurring parent trainings in multiple languages on how to use district apps, communication tools, and universal new technologies like Zoom (which most parents learned to navigate during the pandemic). By knowing how to access district and school apps and resources, parents can stay connected to their students’ learning and provide support from home. Districts began to offer such trainings during the pandemic, and they should scale and improve upon what worked. For example, one LA-area district offered weekly “Tech Tuesday” sessions, and, Los Angeles Unified activated a hotline to assist families and caregivers with technology access and direct support. LAUSD also provided a Tech Talk unit to school sites to help families and caregivers learn basic use of web browsers and email as well as advanced use of the district’s “virtual classroom.”

4. Expand access to personalized, student-centered instruction Despite the challenges of virtual learning, many educators found creative ways to make instruction rigorous, relevant, and personalized to students’ needs. In a national survey, 79 percent of teachers said they have discovered new resources or practices they plan to continue using after the pandemic.

Adaptive technologies have allowed students to move at their own pace and offered teachers quick feedback on student progress and needs. Some teachers have used tools like interactive journals to integrate reading and writing into other subject areas, like math and science, so that students, especially English learners, have multiple opportunities to develop language and literacy skills. Some teachers have also surveyed students to learn about their interests in order to craft lessons that are highly interesting, engaging, and personalized.

We should continue to put students at the center of the way in which we design and offer learning, considering the following: ● Support educators in learning and adopting student-centered curriculum and instructional practices. Incentivize educators to build student capacity by pursuing micro-credentials in student-centered practices. Continue to expand educator access to high-quality, culturally sustaining, and linguistically relevant curriculum; adaptive instructional technologies; and learning strategies that support mixed modes of instructional delivery, including small and large group instruction, project-based learning, and hybrid learning.

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● Offer additional instructional time to English learners. Continue to offer additional and tailored supports for English learners, as LAUSD and other districts did during the pandemic, through one-on-one and small group instruction. Support teachers of English learners in prioritizing designated and integrated ELD, in addition to this supplemental instructional time for both in-person and independent study contexts. ● Offer teachers ample professional learning, planning, and collaboration time. Create dedicated paid planning and collaboration time as part of the school schedule so that teachers can develop creative, student-centered lessons; work, plan, and reflect with one another; and plan interdisciplinary learning modules. ● Modify schedules to be responsive to the needs of students, families and caregivers. Gather input from students, families, and caregivers about their needs, and make sure there is dedicated time and space in the school schedule to address those needs. For example, advisory periods may help middle and high school youth reconnect to teachers and peers, and block schedules may help high school students better manage their course loads.

A recent report by the California Partnership for the Future of Learning, Beacons of Hope: Stories of Transformation and Equity in California Schools, helpfully describes the way Felicitas & Gonzalo Mendez High School in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles worked with students, staff, and families to change its schedule to allow more time for much-needed academic and social-emotional supports.

PRESERVE DISTANCE LEARNING AS AN OPTION FOR SOME FAMILIES Despite the challenges of the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years, distance learning worked for some families and caregivers — and it may continue to be a necessity for students who are medically fragile or who have extenuating circumstances that make in-person learning especially challenging. Distance learning may also be needed if and when communities face COVID-19 outbreaks, wildfires, or other unforeseen events that disrupt in-person education. Districts should retain this choice option for families and caregivers and strengthen distance learning in these ways: ● Increase communication with students, families, and caregivers. Students were more likely to engage and succeed in distance learning when there was regular family-school communication. Scale this best practice generally, and specifically, communicate with families and caregivers to explain the options of distance learning versus in-person learning and related potential trade-offs. Distance learning should be an informed choice made by families and caregivers, in consultation with educators. ● Increase synchronous instructional minutes with credentialed teachers. Distance learning worked well when it was more than just independent study. Ensure that all students have developmentally appropriate instructional time each day, including adequate ELD opportunities. Regularly assess how students are doing in independent study and make a commitment to continuously improving the districts’ programs and offerings.

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Build Toward System Transformation

In the months and years ahead, district and school leaders should continue and systematize these restorative practices so they lead to transformational change.

Districts and schools should focus on healing and relationship building — not just because this challenging time demands it, but because these are the practices children always need to thrive. Further, these practices are essential to forging the strong family-to-school connections that support school improvement and community vitality. To support the long-term transformation process, districts should: ●C reate diverse committees of school, district, and family and community stakeholders to lead the work in the months and years ahead to reimagine schools; ● E ngage stakeholders (i.e., school leaders, families/caregivers, students, policy experts, and community leaders) around how to use one-time state and federal stimulus dollars, including how to connect these funds to existing strategic priorities; and ● J oin with regional leaders to create a commission or task force whose charge is the creation of a plan for responding to future public health emergencies. This commission should include civic leaders and leaders from the nonprofit, private, early childhood, K-12, higher education, public health, and religious communities.

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Conclusion

What the pandemic revealed to all of us is our fragility, our interconnectedness, our resiliency, and our humanity. It also revealed what the future of our public education system can look like going forward. Schools are more than just physical buildings housing academic programs. They are centers of enrichment that combine academic content with meaningful, extended learning time and opportunities, deeper family and community engagement, and accessible social service offerings such as food and health care. We know that our educators do much more than stimulate minds. They provide the socioemotional support that can be pivotal in the life of a child. We know that families and caregivers can play a much larger role with educators in ways they had not been invited to do so before. And we know that community partners are stabilizing forces who can provide additional supports and resources to low-income and marginalized students and families beyond the traditional school day.

It has been a year since we last surveyed families about their lived and varied pandemic experiences. Despite the emergence of new variants of the pandemic, schools have reopened amidst health and safety protocols.

While we will be grappling with the long-term effects of COVID for years to come, the urgency now is to target the right priorities that will spur the rethinking of education.

A new poll commissioned by Great Public Schools Now, in partnership with the Loyola Marymount Center for Equity for English Learners, and Families In Schools, highlight a strong majority of Los Angeles families and caregivers support rethinking how students are educated. Released in the Fall of 2021, the poll shows that an overwhelming majority of families are in favor of more family inclusion in decision making, leadership accountability, equitable distribution of resources, and greater expansion of additional and new learning opportunities. The next steps we take must include multiple pathways for listening to and engaging with families and caregivers, educators, students, and community to ensure that their vision for rethinking education in a post pandemic world is heard and implemented. Together, we must elevate a narrative that not only speaks to the resiliency of families who were already vulnerable to begin with, but also leverage this moment as an opportunity to reduce inequalities in education and prioritize long-term investment in education.

If the pandemic has taught us anything it is that when we work collectively and urgently, with laser focus and without boundaries, we can transform lives. With substantial new state and federal investments in our schools, including a once-in-a-generation path to recovery, our schools and districts should have the resources to not only provide urgently needed academic, social, and emotional services now, but also to build toward a stronger future.

Moving forward in 2022 and beyond, with a new Superintendent of Los Angeles Unified leading the way, we will meet our greatest and most daunting challenge head on – to embolden ourselves to reimagine a future where every child receives an equitable and quality education based on the guiding principles of social justice, nondiscrimination, and cultural diversity. This is our moment to repair past injustices and transform Greater Los Angeles public schools into beacons of hope.

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Acknowledgments

This report was prepared by staff from Families In Schools, Great Public Schools Now, Center for Equity and English Learners at Loyola Marymount University, and Los Angeles Unified School District, with writing support provided by Carrie Hahnel. We extend our deepest appreciation to the educators, families, and caregivers who shared their experiences with us and have been supporting California students in countless ways before and throughout the pandemic.

Resources and Tools ● State of California Safe Schools For All Hub, which includes key resources and information related to COVID-19 and schools ● California coalition of 39 organizations, Reimagine and Rebuild California Schools: Restarting School with Equity at the Center (2021) ● California Partnership for the Future of Learning, Beacons of Hope: Stories of Transformation and Equity in California Schools (2021) ● Policy Analysis for California Education, Restorative Restart The Path Towards Reimagining and Rebuilding Schools (2021) ● Great Public Schools Now, Educational Recovery Now: LA’s Children and Schools Need a Comprehensive Plan (2021) ● Loyola Marymount University, Center for Equity for English Learners (CEEL), English Learner Supports COVID-19 Communication Series ● The Greater LA Education Foundation, Rising to the Challenge: Districts Innovating to Address Equity Across Los Angeles County (2021) ● The Opportunity Institute, Parent Organization Network, Families In Schools, and partners, Family Engagement in the Time of COVID-10: Lessons Learned from the Learning Continuity Plans (2021) ● Epstein, Joyce L.; Coates, Lucretia; Salinas, Karen Clark; Sanders, Mavis G.; Simon, Beth S. School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action (1997) ● Mapp, K. L. & Bergman, E. Dual Capacity-Building Framework for Family-School Partnerships, Version 2 (2019)

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