Welcome to ExcelinEd’s ongoing roundup of creative solutions states and districts are taking to meet the education needs of their students affected by school closures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We need your help sharing these solutions so policymakers and state leaders can learn from each other. Please forward this information to your state leaders who are seeking solutions and send us your state’s or school district’s innovative efforts for us to amplify and share nationally.
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act authorizes the USDA to approve the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) plans that states put forward. USDA can approve state requests to provide emergency SNAP benefits to households with children who would otherwise receive free or reduced-price meals if not for their schools being closed due to the COVID-19 emergency. In order to be eligible, the child’s school must be closed for no less than 5 consecutive days. This would work similar to the Summer EBT plans operated in states, where summer food funding is sent to parents’ electronic benefit cards instead of having to set up centralized stations.
Resources:
Arizona State University has gathered a vast collection of its online resources onto a single platform called ASU for You, available now as people stay at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
ASU for You offers a wide array of content, much of it at no cost, for all learners — from elementary school students to adults — as well as resources for teachers and parents who are navigating teaching and learning at home.
ASU For You includes many learning tools at no cost such as virtual field trips; library access; video lessons, labs and simulations in K-12 subject areas; tutoring, online courses and training videos for teachers or parents teaching from home; and courses for college credit.
They were able to use the same platform to transition their own ASU Prep K-12 students to online learning.
More information:
Three school networks in Indianapolis didn’t skip a beat in going virtual, CRPE wrote in The 74 on March 24. At Purdue Polytechnic, which stresses project and experiential learning, students were accustomed to working on their individual laptops. For much of the day, students continued to work in small groups, connected by video, as they tackled their fifth major project of the year. Paramount Schools of Excellence established a call center to triage concerns from parents, whether regarding technical support, translation services, academic needs or nonacademic needs such as day care — “anything that could be breaking down in the home.” And at Indianapolis Classical Schools, students sign into Haiku, a digital learning platform, and attend online office hours with their teachers through video calls.
More information:
Wilson: Meet 3 Indianapolis Charter School Networks That Are All In on Virtual Learning
