We hope what we have compiled and curated below is a manageable set of excellent resources to help you foster a caring and connected school community during this time of school closures.

Sincerely,

Your SOESD Attendance Team

• Snail Mail: Everyone loves getting letters in the mail! Write to your students and families, and include a self-addressed, stamped envelope so that you can encourage two-way communication. Every age group will enjoy this activity, and they will always be keepsakes of this historic time we are experiencing.
• Care Calls by ALL: Expanding the phone call team beyond the teachers will also expand the connection and care provided (and received) to everyone involved. Every adult employed by your school can make caring calls home to students and families, and the students would love to hear from their librarian, educational assistant, counselor, custodian, their cafeteria teams and more!
• Care Calls for Teachers: Our teachers have never been under more stress to accomplish tasks that they are not trained or equipped for professionally or emotionally. They need care calls, too. School counselors reaching out to teachers at this time would be incredibly supportive and appreciated by our overworked and anxious teachers.
• Sending Personalized Videos: Not all of our students have cell phones, but almost all of their care-givers will. Sending short, personalized videos to a care-giver's phone for students who can't access videos or other resources online will allow them to see and hear from their teacher in a way that will show that they are truly cared for. This can be a special method of connection saved for those students who do not have Internet access at home.
• Promote Safety, Belonging, and Significance: No matter how you choose to communicate, always prioritizing these feelings at this time is paramount. There are innumerable modes of communication, but knowing that we are loved, heard and that our feelings are valid will go much further than any other lesson we can teach at this time.
• Translating Caring and Connection for All: There are many translation services that will help educators to connect in many languages through a cellular device. For example, Talking Points, Bloomz, and Remind are all free and highly rated in supporting teachers and families in reducing language barriers through texting.

Educators can join in, too! Why would you want to?

• You can connect with the whole community that follows your account with a few clicks
• District and school leaders can make announcements and provide updates with a personal touch
• Interact with your audience by answering their questions live
• Allow educators to connect with students/families if another method isn't available to them. (If this is your objective, posting a schedule of times that certain educators will be live is helpful so that optimal participation is reached.)
• Invite your audience to join the video and co-star with you (Instagram)
• Use in-app features that increase audience participation and fun (see links below this post)
• Since these platforms are both widely used by students and families, it is already accessible

If your district or school already has a Facebook or Instagram account, accessing the Live feature is just a click away. If you have both accounts, many people live stream from each, using two different devices at the same time (an iPhone for one and a Chromebook for the other, for example).

See the articles below for more information on how to utilize these platforms to continue to connect your students and parents with your school and district community in order to decrease social isolation during social distancing.

Zoom and Google Suite also offer the ability to connect to and see one or more person at a time, with a gaggle of tools that allows the sharing of everything from screens to ideas... but stops short of the sharing of germs.

If your organization already has access to these tools (Zoom is now offering free accounts to all educators!), here are some ideas that others are utilizing in order to stay connected to their students/staffs, beyond teaching lessons:

Spirit Week Style Ideas for Virtual Learning:

• Show us your pet
• Wear your favorite school appropriate jammies
• Wear a school appropriate costume (80's, Super Hero, etc.)

Gathering Beyond the Lesson:

• Host a virtual lunch break for your students where they can share their favorite school appropriate YouTube videos or TikToks
• Host a virtual tea party: everyone can show their fun tea cups or baked goods and dress up in tea party attire
• Host an arts and crafts session and ask your students if they would like to host one, too! (Learning new crafts or hobbies from each other during this time would be a relief to many parents!)
• Set up breakout rooms in Zoom for students to meet with each other and work together on projects of interest

Nurturing Your Staff:

• Create an agreed upon time for a "virtual staff room" during which educators can gather together and discuss, collaborate and co-plan... just don't turn it into a staff meeting!
• Create the opportunity for a "virtual happy hour" so that staff can get together to share in their down time and socialize
• Use Flipgrid to create topics of interest for staff to discuss asynchronously, allowing them to better get to know each other (see resource below)