Continuity of Learning During COVID-19 Resource Database

This Voices From the Field piece includes a discussion with Laura Hamby and Ann Jolly from the Exceptional Children department in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools about how they have addressed teaching and learning challenges related to COVID-19 restrictions. They shared some of the strategies they implemented during Spring 2020 to support special educators in their districts to meet the needs of students with disabilities and their families.

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.

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 is designed primarily for use by district teams seeking to reduce racial and ethnic disproportionality in school discipline, regardless of whether they are implementing SWPBIS. It provides examples of content that could be included in board policies or district administrative rules and regulations. School teams may also use this guide in developing school- specific policies and procedures. This guide is not intended to replace legal counsel for policies required by local, state, and federal legislation.

This brief adapts the suggestions and strategies provided in Improving Attendance and Reducing Chronic Absenteeism to guide practice during remote instruction.