How to Meet Students’ Social-Emotional and Academic Needs When Schools Reopen

Educators are planning for a back to school season like no other in our nation’s history. Students will return with different social-emotional and academic needs depending on their individual experiences during their time away from classrooms. Crafting an empathetic and effective way to meet those needs will take every ounce of educators’ ingenuity and expertise.

The coronavirus pandemic amplified and exacerbated longstanding inequities in education, health care, and the economy. Black and Latino families were less likely to have the connectivity and devices necessary for distance learning. They were more likely to experience financial distress, food insecurity, and grief for loved ones lost to the virus.

Parents were already worried about how the crisis and school closures were affecting their children’s social-emotional and academic development. Then George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, laying bare the longstanding antiBlack racism that underpins many of the country’s inequities.

Support for significant positive change seems to be growing. Even so, many Black Americans, including children and adolescents, do not know who they can trust with their physical and emotional safety. This has had a crushing effect on the mental health of many students and families.

Teachers and school leaders have experienced these crises in their own homes and communities as well, all while standing up emergency distance learning for their students. Now as they grapple with how to reopen schools safely, the operational, cultural, and instructional considerations are massive and complex. Educators taking on this challenge are looking for ideas and support as they design approaches to address students’ individual social-emotional and academic needs, whatever format schooling takes this fall.