Broad range of national organizations call for school and afterschool partnerships in reopening blueprints

The ingenuity, flexibility, and collaboration needed to successfully navigate public education is at a pivotal moment – school systems that do best will be those that are able to expand their point of view. To that end, many national organizations have collected their thoughts on best practices within state and district reopening plans in “blueprint” documents to help decision-makers think through their opportunities, challenges, and resources from multiple perspectives and learn from others rather than recreate the wheel across 50 states and more than 13,000 school districts nationwide.

Front of mind for many of these national blueprints for reopening are two main considerations: the need to broaden the tent of stakeholders as schools innovate, and the need to think of the social, emotional, physical, academic, and even economic well-being of students, families and teachers to enable a return to safe schools, whole children, and effective learning. In the following reopening blueprints afterschool and summer learning programs arise, in varying degrees of importance, as community partners to engage:

• The American Federation of Teachers – A Plan to Safely Reopen America’s Schools and Communities:
• American Enterprise Institute – A Blueprint for Back-To-School
• Aspen Institute Recovery and Renewal Plan
• CASEL – Leveraging the Power of Social and Emotional Learning as you Prepare to Reopen
• National Education Association – All Hands on Deck – Initial Guidance Regarding School Reopening

It’s heartening to see that afterschool programs are being recognized for the wide variety of roles that they can play in reopening scenarios, including:

• ensuring students have safe spaces during hybrid and virtual learning,
• supporting academic achievement,
• connecting students to caring adults who support students’ social and emotional learning and motivation for school,
• bridging relationships with families,
• assisting with meals and other resource deliveries,
• and collaborating to better support equity.

The move toward greater coordination often begins with a simple but strong recommendation that school systems begin actively bringing community partners to the table. By working together in foundational areas, such as performing needs and asset assessments and connecting with students and families, the leveraged resources of the broader community can be brought to fruition.

As one illuminating example of how detailed reopening blueprint suggestions can be, the recently introduced planning guides from the Council of Chief State School Officers (Council of Chief State School Officers – Restart and Recovery Plan, which includes System Conditions and State Policies and Actions) suggests a number of supportive roles for afterschool partners and actions that can be taken to help maximize those roles, including:

• Meeting student and family needs with community partners: Conduct an assessment of community assets and potential partners within the community (e.g., government agencies, community organizations, philanthropic organizations) and begin to strategically match student and family needs with community partners. Seek partners that can create safe spaces for enrichment, satellite learning, and childcare during remote learning days. Also include afterschool care, tutoring, mentoring, and social-emotional and mental health supports. These partners should also have the ability to provide meals to students who receive free and reduced-price school meals. Ensure partners have geographic, demographic, linguistic, and cultural connections to students and families to capitalize on different times, spaces, and messengers for encouraging engagement.
• Authentic Engagement: In every community, there are local organizations, ranging from a ministerial alliance to a youth sports league to a local Boys and Girls Club, that have the potential to bring people together to improve outcomes for children. Organizations like these have deep connections with families and will understand student and family needs in a way schools and school systems may not. Systems can partner and share information with these trusted community advocates in order to build a strong support system for students’ needs inside and outside the classroom. 
• Support academics, curriculum and instruction (based on state plans such as KY, OK, and TN): Provide guidance for supporting extended learning opportunities (e.g., before school, afterschool, and summer) for students that need more time, specialized engagement, or additional enrichment.
• Scheduling: Provide clear guidance to school systems on the use of federal funds to support extended learning time, the design of new learning environments to meet the needs of all learners in inclusive settings, and other efforts to support learning coherence. Possible funding sources include Title I, 21^st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC), and IDEA
• Technology: Consider allowing hardware and software use outside of the traditional school day and school year (i.e., summer, after school, breaks).
• Working with statewide organizations and networks to implement plans: Look for statewide groups to help forge connections at the local level with partners like the Statewide Afterschool Networks, Statewide Family Engagement Centers, State Chambers of Commerce, etc

Many states and districts have picked up the baton and are moving forward to include afterschool programs in their school reopening plans from the beginning. In re-envisioning a school day, we feel optimistic on behalf of all our children for the groundwork being done now on their behalf and look forward to the innovations that come from this new perspective of joint respect and responsibility among partners.

To help make the case for partnerships in your state or district, please see our reopening tools here.