Continuity of Learning During COVID-19 Resource Database

NCSI presented a multi-part webinar series sharing best practices for state special education leaders to make the best use of available resources during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. NCSI and invited experts shared information to help state leadership teams make informed decisions amid current circumstances, ensuring leaders are poised to continue high-quality educational programming for students and families.

This guide has practical strategies that work for helping children of all ages who may be struggling with an at-home learning task. Families may find these strategies useful when helping their children complete various reading, math, and/or behavioral tasks at home.

To successfully launch the 2020-2021 school year for students with disabilities, state education agencies (SEAs) have an essential leadership role to play in supporting local school systems to plan for multiple scenarios, including services delivered in-person, through distance learning, and via blended approaches.

This presentation was delivered by Dr. Tessie Rose Bailey as part of the Colorado Multi-Tiered System of Support Virtual Summit 2020. In the presentation, Dr. Bailey focused on considerations for providing virtual intervention and progress monitoring and highlights resources developed by the National Center on Intensive Intervention

Progress monitoring allows educators and administrators to understand whether students are responding to intervention and if adaptations are needed. This FAQ collection includes considerations for data collection and analysis for schools to consider as they rethink their progress monitoring approach due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Guidance from vendors on the academic and behavior progress monitoring tools charts are included.

This resource developed by Sarah Thorud, Elementary Reading Specialist from Clatskanie School District in Oregon focuses on implementing screening and progress monitoring virtually. It includes guiding questions and considerations for implementation, video examples, and a sample sign-up sheet for screening and progress monitoring students virtually.

This lesson, featuring Karen McWilliams, a 504 Coordinator and Dyslexia Teacher in Rochelle ISD in Texas, supports educators in using technology to teach foundational reading skills to students in elementary grades using a variety of facilitated activities to support phonemic awareness, phoneme–grapheme correspondence, irregular and high-frequency words, writing, and connected text. The collection, adapted from content developed by the University of Florida Literacy Institute, includes a tip sheet, a video examples, and slides illustrating the lesson.

Families can use this resource to make a family schedule, choose family expectations, and make a plan to teach, remind, reward, and respond to behavior at home.

Educators can download this template and create their own plan to implement PBIS in their classroom. The template includes opportunity to develop a classroom matrix, create lesson plans to teach expected behavior, script prompts or reminders for desired behavior, and plan praise and corrections.

School and District leadership teams can download and use this resource to develop their own plan for welcoming staff back to school in Fall 2020 and providing 2 days of professional development.

State, district, or other MTSS/PBIS leadership teams can download and use this action planning template to (1) confirm and re-establish commitment, (2) consider capacity and resource allocation, (3) invest in supporting structures, and (4) promote competency development.

Brief guidance provided on how to administer and collect implementation capacity assessments and other implementation assessments virtually.

Brief guidance provided on key questions to consider when planning purposeful adaptations to evidence based practices for new contexts such as online learning or blended learning environments.

This guide highlights 5 key practices for teachers and families to support all students, including students with disabilities, at school and home. For each practice, the guide provides (a) tips for teachers to support students with disabilities during instruction; (b) tips for families that educators can share to support or enhance learning at home, especially during periods of remote instruction; and (c) free-access resources that include strategies shown to be effective by research (e.g., informational guides, downloadable materials, research-based programs).

Families and caregivers should consider using positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) in their homes on a daily basis. It is especially helpful when events disrupt normal routines – events like worldwide health pandemics. This practice brief provides recommendations for families and caregivers on how to use PBIS to continue to support their students’ social and emotional growth and minimize behavioral disruptions in the home.