Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Coronavirus.gov: Serves as a primary communication platform for the President’s Coronavirus Task Force. This website explains the symptoms of COVID-19 and risk factors for transmission and acute illness; publishes updates from federal agencies on salient aspects of the pandemic; explains social distancing and other preventive actions individuals can/should take; and conveys an extensive set of linked documents for additional information, including Guidance for Schools and Childcare Programs.

Coronavirus (COVID-19): Provides the latest updates on the national pandemic situation, including guidance for how to protect individual health and reduce virus transmission, what to do if you think you are sick, state-specific data and links to public health websites, and information resources for specific audiences including healthcare professionals and facilities, families, child care and school settings.

Indicators for Dynamic School Decision-Making: Presents a variety of decisions about in-person learning as local conditions evolve throughout the pandemic. When coupled with local data about community spread, these indicators can assist local health officials, school administrators, and communities prepare, plan, and respond to COVID-19.

Interim Guidance for Administrators of US K-12 Schools and Childcare Programs: How to Plan, Prepare, and Respond to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Provides guidance for individuals who oversee the daily operations of public and private childcare programs and K-12 schools, at both the school/facility and district level. The guidance can help programs, schools and their partners understand how to help prevent the transmission of COVID-19; to respond quickly should a case be identified; and to plan for the continuity of teaching and learning if there is community spread of COVID-19.

See especially, Checklists for Teachers and Parents.

COVID-19 ("Coronavirus") Information and Resources for Schools and School Personnel: Presents selected information resources to assist both K-12 schools and higher education institutions to disseminate critical information about the disease and its potential transmission to students, families, staff and community members. ED regularly updates this page as more information and resources become available. Readers are invited to send questions on which the Department can be helpful to: COVID-19@ed.gov.

Comprehensive Center Network COVID-19 Education Resources: Offers a repository for education resources related to COVID-19. Additional resources and further curation are being updated.

REMS TA Center
Coronavirus Disease 2019, COVID019: Presents the latest recommendations specific to COVID-19 from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Education, and the REMS TA Center.

FERPA & Virtual Learning Environment: Describes what FERPA is and what the school official exception to the general consent requirement is and how it works in the virtual learning environment.

Continuity of Learning During COVID-19: Offers information, tools, and resources to help educators, parents and families, and related service providers meet the educational, behavioral, and emotional needs of children and youth with disabilities through remote and virtual learning.  This dedicated webpage of the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) provides a searchable database of containing resources and information for educators, parents and families, and related service providers to support students with disabilities.  The webpage also links to the National Center for Systemic Improvement (NCSI) and the Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (ECTA) repositories for resources addressing continuity of learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Key Policy Letters Signed by the Education Secretary or Deputy Secretary: Highlights a letter from Secretary DeVos to Chief State School Officers regarding administering summative assessments during the 2020-21 school year.

As COVID-19 spreads, most states have laws that address how schools should respond to pandemics: Presents a state-by-state database of the text of state statutes and regulations—as well as noncodified guidance from state health and education agencies—that relates to pandemic planning for schools. Child Trends and EMT Associates, Inc. have designed this tool as a resource for educators, policymakers and general audiences to learn more about pandemic planning for schools within their states

Interactive Map: Coronavirus and School Closures: Shows status of school closures in all 50 states. This site is updated at least daily by Education Week, which is hosting an extensive website on Coronavirus and Schools.  

First Look Brief: National Survey on Public Education’s Coronavirus Pandemic Response: Reports preliminary findings of large-scale nationally representative survey to understand how school districts and charter school management organizations (CMOs) are responding to the pandemic.  This brief previews survey results about districts’ approaches to distance learning during the pandemic. The American Institutes for Research will provide interim results throughout the summer and will continue to share findings during the 2020-21 school year.

Grief Organizations and Grief Camps: Furnishes state-by-state listings of grief camps, hospice and grief organizations intended to support children and families who are grieving. The Eluna Network compilation of state and local resources also lists curated books and web-based materials to support children and families impacted by grief, addiction and loss.

Coronavirus and School: A State-by-State Guide: Tracks the coronavirus pandemic's impact on the nation's schools – such as whether the buildings and facilities educating each state’s K-12 students are open or closed, how long this process takes, and additional updates as confirmed by state authorities, official statements, and original reporting. To add, this page enlists a status report on each state, links to relevant state documents, specific state-level directives (if any) about continuity of learning/remote learning, and summaries from Education Week reporters offering additional information and context.

Governors Make the Call – Chart Highlights Details of Each State’s Stay-at-Home Orders: Describes each state governor’s “stay-at-home” order, including effective dates. (This resource does not document local restrictions imposed by counties or municipalities.) Those orders impact school closing and re-opening and are therefore important for planning by school systems. The National Academy of State Health Policy [NASHP] hosts this process as part of its COVID-19 State Action Center.    

State Policies to Address COVID-19 School Closure: Tracks policy responses to coronavirus emergency across all 50 states. Details on each state are compiled in a searchable database. This website, maintained and continuously updated by Michigan State University’s Education Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC) and Institute for Public Policy and Social Research (IPPSR), includes State by State Information (.xlsx) and Related State Legislation (.xlsx). 

Worldometer: United States Coronavirus Cases: Continuously updates state-by-state database to track key COVID-19 statistics (diagnosed cases, rate of testing, deaths) that are central to re-opening planning. 

NGA Education’s State Reopening Tracking: Indicates actions that states have taken to reopen educational settings, including childcare settings, camps and summer school programming, K-12 schools, and postsecondary institutions.  The included chart displays an evolving analysis of reopening in the education sector but is not exhaustive of statewide actions. The list addresses statewide guidance but does not address K-12 school or school district level guidance.

Analysis of School Reopening Plans: Explores education recovery plans put forth by states, territories, and national organizations, to examine the ways these plans are designed to support students and teachers.  This tracker, a product of Johns Hopkins University’s eSchool+ Initiative, notes only whether provisions addressing each of 12 criteria are/are not present. (As reopening plans are currently dynamic, this ongoing analysis offers a view of state recovery plans as a snapshot in time; there may have been changes or updates to these plans since this analysis was conducted.)

COVID Exit Strategy: Tracks each state’s progress in combating the virus, using easy-to-read data visualization techniques.  This site compares publicly available data sources to the gating criteria provided by the White House in the Administration’s Reopening America Again guidelines. The site tracks every state’s progress towards reduction in COVID-19 symptoms and cases, health system readiness, and increased test capacity.

Status of State COVID-19 Emergency Orders: Provides the status of state and territorial COVID-19 emergency orders. The tracker, maintained by the National Governors Association [NGA], intends to share information about the current status of state COVID-19 emergency orders, about the types of orders issued, methods of renewal, and overall duration. An included chart links to initial emergency orders in each state, as well as the most recent/ current order in place.

Summary of Public Health Criteria in Reopening Plans: Catalogues status and content of official re-opening decisions and plans of more than 40 states and territories.  This webpage includes memoranda, resources, trackers and other materials developed by the NGA to assist governors and state governments with COVID-19 response efforts.  Included materials provide information that is currently in the public domain. 

How States Are Facilitating Medicaid Enrollment During COVID-19 — And How They Can Do Even More: Summarizes conclusions of a content analysis of strategies used by states to facilitate Medicaid enrollment for individuals (adults and children) who are newly eligible due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this blog post, the Center for Health Care Strategies [CHCS] and the Institute for Medicaid Innovation [IMI] explore trends identified in their analysis of how state Medicaid agencies are supporting Medicaid enrollment during COVID-19, and opportunities to enhance those efforts.

Examples of State Actions and Approaches

Arizona: COVID-19: Guidance and Suggestions: Presents guidance and resources for Arizona’s public district and charter schools as they navigate COVID-19 response. Each selected resource posted for school leaders includes information about distance learning technology resources and available funding support; and specific guidance about testing and assessments, special education, and high school graduation considering the statewide school closure for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year. The website provides an abundance of resources for families, too, including distance learning methods, access to school meals, childcare, and social, emotional, and behavioral supports.

Arkansas: Ready for Learning: Provides tools and resources to assist school districts to implement strategies that focus on three key indicators for student success: blended learning, guaranteed and viable curriculum, and a student-focused approach. Arkansas’ Division of Elementary and Secondary Education [DESE] provides resources and tools for districts, as well as an opportunity to apply for waivers, to help them succeed in preparing for the 2020-21 school year.  In collaboration with the Arkansas Department of Health, DESE has established a clear communication process and a three-tiered system of response conditions based on data-informed factors. Identifies a matrix of operational decision points, with associated precautions and actions, at each level, including: initial actions after notification; considerations for closure; and recommendations for continued on-site school operations to respond to situations that might be encountered when on-site learning resumes.

California: Distance Learning: The California Department of Education [CDE] presents considerations for developing a distance learning plan that supports effective engagement for students; addresses considerations to ensure equity and access for all students including individuals with disabilities, low-income households, and English learners; offers a five-tiered continuum of learning options to best fit students’ support needs; and an extensive set of resources that support distance learning. Additionally, provides a framework for how LEAs can continue to deliver high-quality educational opportunities to students when the LEA has suspended on-site instruction.

Colorado: Planning the 2020-21 School Year: Serves as a statewide hub for communication, including a statewide framework and toolkit for school and district leaders, to support school districts’ provision and continuity of learning for the 2020-21 school year.  The Colorado Department of Education is continually posting and updating information and guidance on the following topics: Health and Safety, Continuity of Learning, Conditions for Learning, Planning and Communication, Policy and Funding, and Additional Resources.

Colorado: COVID-19 Resources for Schools: Serves as a single hub for information and support to school systems to manage numerous dimensions of impacts on students, families, schools and communities of the national Coronavirus emergency. The Colorado Department of Education webpage furnishes clear guidance for school districts and their educators, links to timely guidance from state and federal public health authorities (including the statewide Safer at Home portal), connects to key federal guidance documents, and offers an extensive set of resources to support families, including Learning at Home curricular materials. The webpage also features information for LEAs about applying for CARES Act Relief Funds application, and the innovative Colorado Mask Project.

Illinois: Education-Related Guidance for Schools and School Districts Regarding Coronavirus/COVID-19 (3/12/20): Delivers guidance from Illinois’ State Board of Education to schools and school districts to inform decisions regarding student absenteeism, school closures, e-learning program options and other ideas for home learning. This document includes links to numerous free resources regarding e-learning and other home learning options.

Indiana’s Considerations for Learning and Safe Schools [IN-CLASS]: Provides schools and school districts in Indiana with guidance for preparing school operations in the COVID-19 pandemic environment. The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) is continuously coordinating with the Governor’s Office, the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH), and the Indiana General Assembly (IGA) to provide and update guidance. Districts and schools are encouraged to communicate with local authorities and adhere to the most recent and restrictive recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) related to two key factors: the school’s ability to maintain a safe and healthy school environment, and the prevalence of COVID-19 in their community.

Kansas: Continuous Learning 2020: Provides guidance and resources to school districts as they develop and implement Continuous Learning plans, as required by the Kansas State Department of Education.  KSDE’s quickly convened Continuous Learning Task Force of exemplary educators has developed a statewide framework for continuous learning; a protocol for 5-day planning at the LEA level;  recommendations for supporting students, teachers, and families family partnerships and support; tips for on-line teaching and learning; options for schools without digital learning capacity for families;  approved technology platforms and related hyperlinks; recommended time guidelines for students based on age; and numerous ways to connect established learning goals to the current circumstances.

Kansas: Learning Across Kansas: Provides supplemental education content for elementary, middle school and high school students featuring grade-specific educational content delivered in 30-minute televised episodes from some of the state’s most talented and acclaimed teachers. The calendar of scheduled programs, jointly arranged by the state’s four PBS stations, is intentionally expansive to provide numerous opportunities for students and families to participate, despite their unique routines, priorities and challenges.

Kentucky: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Information: Provides updates and information to support P-12 public education during the national COVID-19 emergency.  Easily navigable website promotes large suites of information to support non-traditional instructional and student support approaches during school closures; opportunities for summer support; nutrition-related resources in absence of campus-based school breakfast and lunch programs; guidance and resources for school district (financial, facilities, technology; student health services) operations; policy guidance in light of special flexibilities and waivers in federal programs; complementary guidance from partnering systems; and new resources to support students’ social and emotional needs when schools will reopen. 

Kentucky: New KDE Task Force Will Aid Districts During COVID-19 Closure Period: Describes the Education Continuation Task Force, a group that will serve as a guiding coalition to help facilitate the delivery of services to Kentucky students during the current period of school closure.

Louisiana: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Frequently Asked Questions for K-12 Schools: Guides status of ongoing updates and information in relation to general emergency preparedness, dimensions of school climate, and student experience during this new normal – including seat time and distance learning; special education, early childhood programs, and federal child nutrition feeding programs. Pandemic-impacted management topics (e.g. assessment and accountability, data systems, and non-public school choice programs) for the statewide K-12 education system are added to the site.

Louisiana: Strong Start 2020: Guides school systems to address unfinished learning from the 2019-2020 school year, to set the foundation for continuous learning in 2020-2021, and to prepare for potential modified operations in the future.  The Louisiana Department of Education maintains this website to provide school reopening guidelines and resources. Among dozens of catalogued resources is a robust Family Support Toolbox, and information, guidance, and resources to support early childhood providers, school systems, educators and families accomplish a “strong start” for every student, operationally defined as: 1. a plan for every student, including extra time and support for students with the greatest unfinished learning from the prior year; a plan for students to hear from teachers every day, and for students to receive feedback and engagement on their work every week; and clear next steps for every high school student and recent graduate, who will enter a new economy.

Maryland Together: Maryland’s Recovery Plan for Education – COVID-19 Response and the Path Forward: Provides references for school leaders, students, and school communities to support immediate planning for the eventual reopening Maryland’s K-12 schools.  Schools and districts are encouraged to review the Recovery Plan and use it as a starting point that can be modified in collaboration with a diverse group of stakeholders including parents, teachers, students, educators and community members to fit each system’s unique student population and needs. The plan specifies requirements for each local school system as prerequisites to reopening.  The Maryland State Department of Education will continue to issue guidance and support to districts and schools while emphasizing that the importance to school leaders of basing important decisions on data, the uniqueness of individual school systems, financial capabilities, technological capabilities, and student needs.

Minnesota: 2020-2021 Planning Guide for Schools: Furnishes pre-K-12 school leaders with guidance about policies, practices and strategies that districts and schools must implement, and recommendations they should consider, to optimize education while promoting health and safety and mitigating risk throughout the school year. Minnesota’s Department of Health has issued this guidance, which is intended to be used in combination with additional guidance from the Minnesota Department of Education for the 2020-21 school year. Additional guidance will be published as the COVID-19 response evolves throughout the summer and into the fall.

Missouri: Pandemic Recovery Considerations: Re-Entry and Reopening of Schools: Lists and explores eight major topics for schools to consider as they make plans to reopen.  Missouri has authorized individual schools and local health departments to make the final decisions about which precautions make sense in each school and community.  The Center for Education Safety of the Missouri School Boards Association has developed this document as a template to guide local discussion regarding reopening schools.  It provides examples of protocols schools could implement, if feasible, during a “phased-in approach” to bringing students and staff back to school. The material in the document is evolving as new information and recommendations are issued by federal and state agencies.

New York: COVID-19 Guidance for Medicaid Providers: Serves as a one-stop repository for rapid dissemination of quickly evolving guidance to take fullest possible advantage of extraordinary flexibilities in Medicaid health care coverage (e.g. tele-health, direct support for persons needing long-term care, child and family treatment support, transportation), and as a clearinghouse for key federal (e.g. CDC, CMS) and state-specific information. Note: Every state Medicaid program is unique, within broad federal parameters. States can and often do learn from and adapt innovations from one another to best meet the needs of their own populations.

New York: State Department of Education Coronavirus (COVID-19): Presents information and guidance to PreK-12 schools from the Board of Regents and the state education agency (SEA) in response to the novel coronavirus. Also, includes a statewide website featuring continuity of learning resources (for both technology-based and non-technology-based circumstances), updates on building closures, specific guidance for several categories of employees and licensed professionals, and newsworthy features.

North Carolina/South Carolina: COVID-19 and the Carolina Part II: State Responses and Federal legislation to Address the Crisis: Provides the second in a series of updates of the COVID-19 pandemic, and state and federal actions to address the health, economic and social impacts of the crisis.  The two states’ respective Institutes of Medicine produce these reports to provide an evidence base to support ongoing planning and policymaking to support the health and well-being of the states’ children, families, and communities.  Both state’s education agencies draw on the data and policy updates to inform their planning and decision-making.

Re-opening Montana Schools 2020: Provides non-regulatory resources for Montana schools to use in conjunction with their own plans for the new school year.  Guidance is intended to inform students and families, educators and school system leaders; and addresses the following topics in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: Safe physical environments, academic programming, social-emotional learning and support, flexibilities within state rules and statute, school nutrition, special education, and a variety of other issues.  

Wisconsin: K-12 School Closure FAQs (3/15/20): Provides guidance to Wisconsin school districts for implementing the Governor’s order to close all public and private schools.  The guidance also refers readers to a specific Information on COVID-19 website established by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

Talking to Children About COVID-19 (Coronavirus): A Parent Resource: Provides insight and guidelines for parents and caregivers to provide guidance and reassurance to children who can feel anxious about this new type of virus. The National Association of School Psychologists advises that acknowledging a level of concern without panicking is appropriate, and can generate actions that reduce the risk of illness. Helping children cope with anxiety requires providing accurate prevention information and facts without causing undue alarm. This website provides extensive tip sheets and other resources in numerous languages.

Helping Children Cope with Stress During the 2019-nCov Outbreak: Provides tips for caregivers to help children deal with stress during the COVID-19 outbreak. This one-page tip sheet was produced by the World Health Organization.

Resources for Supporting Children’s Emotional Well-being During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Presents guidance, recommendations and resources from child trauma experts at Child Trends and the Child Trauma Training Center at the University of Massachusetts.

Talking with Children: Tips for Caregivers, Parents, and Teachers During Infectious Disease Outbreaks (Spanish language version): Helps parents, caregivers, and teachers learn some common reactions to anticipate in children and youth at each developmental stage. SAMHSA provides guidance to parents and caregivers to help manage children’s responses, how to listen and respond in a helpful way, and to recognize when children, youth, parents, caregivers or teachers might need more (professional) help. 

How to Talk to Your Anxious Child or Teen About Coronavirus: Presents advice and tips for parents discussing the Coronavirus with anxious children and teens. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America [ADAA] offers strategies to help children cope with any anxiety they may be experiencing.

Trauma-Informed School Strategies during COVID-19: Uses the National Child Traumatic Stress Network's [NCTSN] Creating, Supporting and Sustaining Trauma-Informed Schools: A System Framework to consider how, in the times of COVID-19, schools can adapt or transform their practices by using a trauma-informed approach to help children feel safe, supported, and ready to learn. The framework presents 10 core areas of a trauma-informed school system, and explains how each can be adapted to the inherent uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic to assure parents and caregivers that the school community is strengthening their child's well-being, thereby allowing families to reinforce the importance of learning.

Talking to Children About Coronavirus (COVID19): Suggests ways to talk with young children about the evolving coronavirus outbreak, from the perspective of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. This two-page tip sheet concludes, “Most children, even those exposed to loss or illness, are quite resilient. However, by creating an open environment where they feel free to ask questions, we can help them cope with stressful events and experiences and reduce the risk of lasting emotional difficulties.”

Resources for Families During the Coronavirus Pandemic: Provides tips and resources to help families navigate social distancing and school closures with high-quality media and at-home learning opportunities for their children.

Top Ten Tips for Parents (Adapted from the Triple P Positive Parenting Program): Provides ten tips for parents on how to cope with stress and anxiety during an outbreak. This tip sheet was created by the Arizona Department of Child Safety.  It is presented in both English and Spanish.

CDC COVID-19: How to Prepare (For Parents): Presents indicators of stress during an infectious disease outbreak, to guide parents about changes in their children that might indicate anxiety. This CDC page also provides guidance for supporting children through this period, including answering their questions and sharing facts, reassuring them that they are safe, limiting exposure to news coverage and social media, and keeping up regular routines. It offers self-care tips for parents to cope with stress due to COVID-19. “When parents and caregivers deal with the COVID-19 calmly and confidently, they can provide the best support for their children. Parents can be more reassuring to others around them, especially children, if they are better prepared.”

NCFL Providing Free Online Learning Resources for Kids During COVID-19 School Closures: Invites parents and children to continue healthy academic habits while away from school for several weeks due to the coronavirus outbreak. Parents can access free on-line resources for out-of-school time from the National Center for Families Learning, if they will provide their email address (which subscribes them to a monthly newsletter).

Flexibility in the Midst of Crisis (Psychology Today, 3/11/20): Discusses appropriate psychological preparation for children and youth to help weather the pandemic crisis. Provides suggestions for developing flexibility as a key coping attribute, and offers a variety of primary resources to support activities and behaviors that can enhance psychological resilience in young people.

The Pandemic Toolkit Parents Need: Introduces eight tips for parents from child psychologist and trauma expert Bruce Perry MD, PhD, offering guidance to anticipate stress related to COVID-19 pandemic and school closures; and how to manage it through self-regulation to increase one’s own resilience and support growth of resilience in one’s children, too. 

Trauma-Informed Parenting during Our “Staycation”: Offers tips for keeping students’ families rooted in safety and growing in connection during the CIVID-19 quarantine. The Attachment & Trauma Network Inc. presents seven (7) tips for parents to recognize, understand and manage predictable behaviors and responses of their children during the national emergency, including self-care and self-management.  This resource is presented in a clear, simple and nicely-illustrated form. 

Resources for Talking with Children and Youth about Coronavirus: Collects resources from Child Mind Institute, Mental Health America, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, and other organizations to assist families and caregivers in supporting youth with mental health needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Simple Activities for Children and Adolescents Amidst COVID-19 Outbreak: Recommends best practices for activity ideas to parents and caregivers whose families are sheltering in place, social distancing, and homeschooling due to closures amidst the COVID-19 outbreak.

Covid-19 Resources for Parents, Families and Youth: The National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health has developed training videos, toolkits, and activities that are simple for parents to navigate – including a set of six Helpful Parenting Infographics from the international Parenting for Lifelong Health program, specific resources for families of children with disabilities or special health care needs, and direct links to more than a dozen additional COVID-19-related resource pages from national and international organizations.

Coronavirus/COVID-19 Resource Library: Shares resources compiled by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry [AACAP] for parents, patients, and clinicians to help with the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

Psychological Effects of Quarantine During the Coronavirus Outbreak: What Healthcare Providers Need to Know: Introduces foreseeable psychological effects of quarantine, added with strategies for how healthcare providers (including school-based counselors, nurses and school social workers) can implement care for their students’/patients’ and their own mental well-being during periods of quarantine.

Helping Homebound Children During the COVID-19 Outbreak: Establishes positive measures families can utilize to include children in planning for the family, and proactive behaviors to help support their sense of agency and control.

Ways to Promote Children’s Resilience to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Considers five recognized protective best practices long established in the literature that can shield children from harm and increase the chances they adapt positively to adversities like the coronavirus pandemic. For each protective factor listed, Child Trends’ experts offer numerous suggestions at both the parent/ caregiver and the community/systems levels to support and strengthen that protective factor in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated social and economic stressors. 

The Trauma of Pandemic School Disruption: Analyzes implications of trauma related to school disruption for students, school staff members, families, and communities at large, presented in a video by John Gailer, developer of the Trauma-Skilled Schools Model.

School Disruption as a Dropout Risk Factor: Examines short and long-term effects of school disruption on the nation’s dropout rates in the context of the current pandemic. This discussion by Dr. Sandy Addis, director of National Dropout Prevention Center, is shared in a video presentation.

Coping in Hard Times: Fact Sheet for Parents (NCTSN): Describes how families’ ways to reconcile may be affected by economic hardships. This comprehensive product from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network offers a variety of ways to cope during these uncertain times.

Supporting Families with PBIS at Home: Provides recommendations for families and caregivers on how to use positive behavioral interventions and supports [PBIS] to support children’s social and emotional growth and minimize behavioral disruptions in the home.  PBIS is used in more than 25,000 schools throughout the US. This practice brief, co-authored by the Center for Parent Information & Resources along with the Center on PBIS, offers concrete examples of developmentally appropriate daily and learning routines for at-home students, and of clear expectations for students in the context of the family home and household routines.

Our Minds Matter: Support During COVID-19: Supports student-led activities to encourage students to seek help for themselves and friends when they struggle with mental health challenges. During the national COVID-19 emergency Our Minds Matter has shifted its approaches by offering a virtual weekly wellness meeting in addition to numerous curated resources linked to their website.

GoNoodle: Engages children with movement and mindfulness videos created by child development experts. Children’s physical and psychological wellness are closely interconnected.  Games and activities supported through this resource are designed to support a Whole Child approach. Portions of this website are tailored to the respective needs of families and of educators.

#PlayAtHome with Playworks: Provides free video tutorials of games that follow CDC guidelines for safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, that can be played at home with little or no equipment.  Families can also learn how to play along during a “free virtual recess” with Playworks live on Facebook each weekday, can access demonst6rations of games on Playworks’ YouTube channel.

Coping Under Covid-19: Managing Behavior and Having a Safety Plan for Children and Youth with Behavioral Health Needs When Staying at Home: Offers eight simple, practical strategies to help parents manage social distancing and state-at-home situations for children and youth with mental, emotional and behavioral health needs.

SEL at Home: Remote Learning Options: Compiles a list of resources, lesson plans, activities, games, and tip sheets to support infusion of social emotional learning principles, concepts and practices to help families and educators promote well-being for children and youth outside the classroom setting.  in get you started on your SEL at home journey.  The Great Lakes Mental Health Technology Transfer Center [MHTTC] network lists and described ten evidence-supported programs that are (currently) available for free.

Parents: Supporting Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Offers tips for parents to support their children’s learning while at home. This easy-to-navigate on-line module, designed by Vanderbilt University’s renowned Peabody College of Education and Human Development based on principles of adult learning, addresses several challenges (e.g. distractions) parents might likely encounter; and offers practical tools, easy-to-implement tips, and additional resources that can prepare and support parents.  The curriculum is particularly attuned to challenges with home teaching of children with disabilities or other special needs.        

Tips for Supporting Yourself During the Pandemic: Offers parents and caregivers six suggestions for self-care to help fortify parents support their children’s needs for safety and security in the context of the national emergency. The National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations developed this succinct, two-page guidance, and also offers an extensive bank of resources for Emergencies and Natural Disasters: Helping Children and Families Cope.

Trauma-Informed Strategies to Support Students' Transition Back to School in the COVID Era: Presents guidance released by federal agencies, national professional associations, and federally funded research collaboratives and technical assistance centers on trauma-informed plans that are representative of the school community, culturally responsive, and equitable as schools think broadly.

Communicating with Your Audience During COVID-19: Five Essential Tips: Highlights useful tips for thinking through the elements of communicating during a crisis that can be used for family engagement.

COVID-19 Parental Resources Kit: Resources to help support parents, caregivers and other adults serving children and young people in recognizing children and young people's social, emotional, and mental health challenges and helping to ensure their well-being. Offers information and resources for specific age groups, from early childhood (0-5 years), childhood (6-12 years), adolescence (13-17 years) and young adults (18-24 years).

Support for Teens and Young Adults: CDC webpage offering information for teens and young adults to help manage stress related to COVID-19.

Helping Children Cope: CDC webpage offering information for parents to help their children cope with COVID-19, including behavior changes to watch for in your child, ways to support your child and resources to get immediate help. 

5 Ways to Help Teens Feel Seen and Heard in an Uncertain Time: Considers how parents can help their teenaged children find their voices and feel heard and allow them to process emotions and experiences in the current chaotic and uncertain times. 

Promising Practices Brief: Improving Student Engagement and Attendance During COVID-19 School Closures: Provides an overview of the research on student engagement and attendance in online environments and highlights the efforts of five districts across the country to support student attendance and engagement during emergency school closures in the spring of 2020.

Re-engaging Disconnected Students Online and at School: Focus on Intrinsic Motivation: Provides a brief examination of practices to engage and re-engage students. During school closures for COVID-19, reports indicate that a significant proportion of students who had access did not engage productively in remote instruction. Reengagement practices must be designed to sustain students’ involvement in instruction to minimize learning, behavioral and emotional problems.  UCLA’s Center for Mental Health in Schools & Student/Learning Supports has compiled these well-grounded strategies for engaging disconnected students.

Student Voice Team Leading Study on the Student Impact of COVID-19: Highlights early results from more than 12,000 students in Kentucky, shared through an all-student Student Voice Team panel, sharing insights into how middle and high school students are coping with COVID-19.  The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence has hosted this effort.  Among reported findings: cyberbullying has decreased since COVID closed schools; many students report feeling more depression, anxiety and a sense of worthlessness than before schools closed; students report they are getting more sleep, spending more time outside, and making better use of their time whole learning some time management skill; and students report having lost their mental health services, and needing/wanting more.  See the 1-hour panel presentation for more complete insights.

Supports for Students and Families Experiencing Homelessness During the Covid-19 Pandemic: Provides K-12 schools, school districts, regional education agencies, state education agencies, and their community partners with information on supporting students and families experiencing homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the REMS TA Center offers an overview of data on students and families experiencing homelessness and of homelessness resources available to students and families. The National Center for Homeless Education shares considerations for students experiencing homelessness that education agencies should address while SchoolHouse Connection highlights common challenges faced by education agencies and solutions.

Strategies for Parents on Supporting Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Offers tips to support children’s learning at home during the COVID-19 pandemic utilizing modules. The IRIS Center is a national center dedicated to improving education outcomes for all children, especially those with disabilities birth through age 21, using effective evidence-based practices and interventions. 

Family Guide to At-Home Learning: Offers practical strategies for helping children of all ages who may be struggling with an at-home learning task. Families of students with disabilities might find these strategies – produced by the CEEDAR (Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability, and Reform) Center, useful when helping their children complete various reading, math, and/or behavioral tasks at home.

Coronavirus Mental Health Resource Guide: Provides curated sets of resources and tips for four specific audiences: students/teens, families, high school professionals, and college professionals. Recognizing several COVID-19 related insults to mental well-being -- dealing with sudden changes to regular schedules; feelings of uncertainty and anxiety, even loss and grief – the JED Foundation reassures that it is completely expected and appropriate to experience fear.  The selected resources intend to support strategies to manage overwhelming anxiety and keep perspective as the situation unfolds.  Among resources are specific guides JED has created for each audience.   

The AAP Parenting Website: Provides up-to-date guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics [AAP] about health issues significant to children, youth and families.  During the current pandemic the website offers a free, periodic newsletter, vetted journal articles, symptom checklists, archived webinar recordings, and a pediatrician finder tool.  This website was featured and promoted during the Administration’s National Dialogue on Safely Reopening America’s Schools on 07/07/20.

Meaningful Online Education for Our Youngest Learners: Tips to Reconcile the Need for E-Learning with How Young Children Learn Best: Highlights how early childhood and early elementary school teachers can feel more confident about providing technology-mediated learning experiences that are developmentally appropriate for young learners when used in regulated amounts.

Three Steps for using Culturally Responsive Practices to Support Equity During Remote Learning: Examines equity and culturally responsive practices in light of COVID-19, part of a collaboration between REL Mid-Atlantic and REL Pacific.

CDC Coronavirus Disease 2019: Manage Anxiety & Stress: Provides explanation and resources to help individuals (parents, caregivers, first responders and other professionals, people with existing mental health challenges) anticipate, prepare for and manage fear, anxiety and extraordinary stress.

          See also, CDC Emergency Preparedness and Response: Taking Care of Your Emotional Health

Taking Care of Your Behavioral Health During an Infectious Disease Outbreak (Spanish language version): Describes feelings and thoughts individuals may have during and after social distancing, quarantine and isolation. This SAMHSA tip sheet suggests ways to care for one’s own behavioral health in these circumstances and provides resources for more help.

Coping with Stress During Infectious Disease Outbreaks (Spanish language version): Provides tips for coping with stress during an infectious disease outbreak. This SAMHSA fact sheet describes common signs of stress and how to recognize when to get help.

Common Sense Education: Resources for Educators During the Coronavirus Pandemic: Offers tips and free tools to support school closures and transitions to online and at-home learning.

4 Resources to Support Students During the Pandemic: Shares effective practices to work in remote learning spaces. Provides students and families alternatives in navigating the new normal of COVID-19.

Teacher, Interrupted: Leaning into Social-Emotional Learning Amid the COVID-19 Crisis: Provides tips and resources from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence to help educators use social emotional learning [SEL] skills during the pandemic crisis.

How to Stay Resilient and Mentally Healthy During the Coronavirus Outbreak: Discusses tips for reducing anxiety while coping with Coronavirus fears. Suggestions discussed in this 45-minute radio segment include staying positive, going outside, adapting to changes, and breathing and meditation. The radio piece features Jonathan Kanter, director of the Center for the Science of Social Connection at the University of Washington, and Elissa Epel, a stress scientist and psychiatry professor at the University of California/San Francisco. The host webpage also links to several related web-based resources.

How I Navigate Coronavirus as an Educator with Anxiety: Presents and explains, from a classroom teacher’s perspective, strategies to help educators cope with stress and uncertainty associated with the Coronavirus. 

Educator Self-Assessment for Supporting Student Well-Being: Furnishes an educator self-assessment for supporting student well-being, and an array of trauma-informed strategies to foster student well-being and resilience during the pandemic emergency.  Strategies outlined in this product of the Center for Great Teachers and Leaders can be used to support all students, while emphasizing the importance of identifying students who require support that, in typical times, is provided through more targeted and intensive mental health interventions. The included Educator Context and Stress Spectrum was designed to support teachers and principals in gaining a greater awareness of how their current personal and professional context affects their levels of stress in the time of COVID-19. The self-assessment resource includes a self-care planning tool to help teachers identify areas of strength and growth related to self-care, and develop self-care plans.

A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Through Coronavirus: Guides education professionals in applying trauma-informed best practices to support school-based communities. This resource features recommendations for educators during the COVID-19 crisis, from experts from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

Social Emotional Learning During COVID-19: Calls attention to mental health needs that students may be impacted by at-home during extended school closures and documents alternatives to support social emotional learning from a distance. Public School Forum of North Carolina’s Education Matters series addresses this challenge in a 25-minute video featuring a senior research scientist at Duke University, a state consultant for school counseling, and an elementary school principal.

Sustaining the Well-Being of Healthcare Personnel During Coronavirus and Other Infectious Disease Outbreaks: Explains foreseeable roadblocks for health care professionals (e.g., school nurses, counselors, and social workers) during infectious disease outbreaks and suggests numerous self-care strategies and actions available to professionals whose schedules often require special attention for those in need.

Taking Care of Yourself: Offers a list of best practices individuals can utilize in maintaining awareness, finding balance, and connecting after difficult events. This self-care guidance reflects the expert perspective of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

Creating a PBIS Behavior Teaching Matrix for Remote Instruction: Shares tips for maintaining continuity of learning through defining classroom expectations for remote/ distance instruction and online learning environments. This practice brief from the Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports, shows how teachers can adapt a PBIS framework to make remote learning safe, predictable, and positive for students.

Keep Calm and Connect All Students: Incorporates a series of reflection questions, highlights promising solutions geared towards remote learning measures for learners, and describes effective practices for educators and system leaders. Each week ED’s Office of Educational Technology extended blog series focuses on a new theme, with multiple posts geared to a variety of audiences.  Information shared intentionally complements other publications from the US Department of Education.

Self-Care Strategies for Educators During the Coronavirus Crisis: Supporting Personal Social and Emotional Well-Being: Introduces practical self-care information for educators on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic facing stressors like school closures, online service provision, and quarantine conditions. This brief, from West-Ed’s Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety [CISELSS], offers practical information and guidance on self-care in these challenging times.

Research-Based Resources, Considerations, and Strategies for Remote Learning: Discusses research-based resources and strategies (social-emotional learning, adult learning, online platforms) for educators teaching via distance learning methods. In this 1-hour webinar, experts from REL Midwest and the American Institutes for Research presented information and responded to audience questions. Participants heard from teachers in elementary and secondary schools about their transitioning to remote learning.

Design and Implement an SEL Professional Learning Program for Schools: Highlights requirements and characteristics of high-quality implementation of a professional learning program for social emotional learning for educators and school staff.  CASEL’s on-line District Resource Center Learning Center describes a process to create a scaffolded, comprehensive district learning program to develop SEL skills of school staff, embedding SEL practices and content throughout other professional learning programs in the district, and providing regular opportunities for school leaders and teams to learn from one another.  This site also includes a resources page offering additional tools to support the learning program.

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and Crisis Response Practice Guide (North Carolina Dept. of Public Instruction): Serves as a resource to support the social-emotional needs of staff and students during school closures and in planning for re-opening.  Six major recommendations address crisis response and social emotional learning (SEL) that can be implemented while schools are closed (including in the event of rolling closures during the 2020-2021 school year; while recommendation #7 focuses on key SEL strategies that will support safe and compassionate re-entry for students and staff when brick-and-mortar instruction resumes. Key information resources and tools are linked to each of the seven recommendations.

Responding to Child Abuse During a Pandemic: 25 Tips for MDTs: Offers a list of tips to assist multi-disciplinary teams in responding to child abuse during the pandemic outbreak. 

Preventing Abuse and Neglect: Student Safety During Coronavirus-Related Ordered School-Building Closure: Provides guidance and resources to help school districts ensure student safety during remote learning by empowering educators and school personnel to support families, assess student safety needs and follow mandatory reporting requirements. It also provides information and resources to support educators and student personnel in following mandatory reporting requirements.

Mandated Reporting: Information for School Staff During ‘Safer at Home’: Provides specific contextual considerations for Wisconsin school employees who are designated “mandated reporters” by state law. This two-page resource summarizes signs and symptoms of child abuse and neglect, cautions about not jumping to conclusions before considering familial and household stressors, offers guidance to support appropriate and helpful conversation with students and caregivers to enable better understanding and to provide support, and directs required reporting to county or tribal child welfare agencies. 

Zero Abuse Project: Offers education and training resources, opportunities, and research to contribute to the elimination of child sexual abuse.  In particular, Zero Abuse Project is providing specific resources (e.g. Conducting and Defending a Pandemic-Era Forensic Interview) to support its mission in the context of school closures and social distancing.

The New Normal: Long-Haul Health and Safety for CACs [Children’s Advocacy Centers]: Presents a 90-minute YouTube panel discussion among child safety experts in the current context of social distancing policies to cease all non-essential human contact.  CACs provide many services that, until now, have been conducted in person, and many of these services critical to children's health, safety, and well-being must continue despite the outbreak.  This discussion, though developed primarily for CAC professionals, offers medical, psychological and sociological insight to help all first responders and mandated reporters to understand vulnerabilities and risks, challenges and options to inform adaptations of practice to the unique challenges of the national emergency.   

Resources for Parents and Caregivers to Help Keep Children Safe: Incorporates up to date resources for parents and caregivers to help workaround cautionary signs in others and themselves, along with additional information for how to respond safely and responsibly.

Protecting Children During the COVID-19 Outbreak: Shares most recent data and informative updates to protect children from COVID-19 and related risks of violence. The End Violence Against Children community emphasizes the vulnerability of children during this time while addressing short-term and far-reaching implications impacting individuals’ work.

COVID-19 – Global Overview on Child Protection Risks: Presents a global mapping of child protection risks during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. A combination of criteria including but not limited to high population density, urban settlements, extreme poverty/food insecurity, and populations entirely or partially facing closure of national services for children are included.

COVID-19 Parenting: Keeping Children Safe Online: Highlights risks of the digital world and efforts children can take to protect themselves as part of a collaborative effort by multiple federal organizations.

COVID-19: Heightened Risk of Abuse and Neglect: Summarizes how child protection risks (physical and emotional maltreatment, gender-based violence, mental health and psycho-social distress, child labor, unaccompanied and separated children, and social exclusion) can be aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic and related social distancing and other control measures. This brief, reflecting analysis of the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action from both the current and from previous infectious disease outbreaks, can inform ongoing vigilance of mandated reporters (including educators) and other community members.

Building Capacity for Disaster Preparedness at a Child Welfare Agency: Curates and posts resources to helps agencies build capacity to improve child welfare practice and achieve safety, permanency, and well-being for children, youth, and families even when disasters such as pandemics or hurricanes occur.  The Administration for Children and Families’ Capacity Building Center for States has developed an on-line resource library that addresses resources and technology, policies and practices, workforce needs, and constituency and tailored services for disaster preparedness to provide crucial support for children, families, and program staff.

Preventing and Responding to Family Violence During COVID-19: Webinar Series: Provides archived recordings, FAQ documents and slide decks for each session in a 4-part on-line series produced for SAMHSA by the MHTTC Network and the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. Via telehealth, providers are getting a glimpse into clients’ home lives and they are encountering complex family interactions all during a time of stress and danger, with community supports challenged to respond. Webinars in this series use case examples and dialogue between experts from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) to address critical questions that mental health providers are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Webinar topics in the series include: July 14 - Supporting Families of Young Children at Risk for Ongoing Domestic Violence; July 21 - Addressing Family Conflict in the Time of COVID-19; July 28 - Minimizing Risk for Conflict/Coercion in Families with School-Age Children; and August 11 (en español) - When the Monsters Live with Us: Reflections on the Intersection of Structural Inequities, COVID-19 and Intimate Partner Violence and its impact on Young Children in Latin American Families. Experts devote the first segment of each hour-long session to a specific topic and then address questions submitted by registrants.

Youth Experiencing Homelessness: How to Protect Yourself and Others from COVID-19: Provides official guidance from the CDC to help protect young people experiencing homeless, those they care about, and those who care for them as safe as possible in light of the threat posed by COVID-19.  

Intimate Partner Violence and Child Abuse Considerations During COVID-19: Expresses concern about potential for a dramatic rise in incidence of intimate partner violence, and of physical abuse and neglect of children by parents, as a result of increased household stress levels, and diminished support systems due to social distancing and quarantine during COVID-19.  This short SAMHSA document identifies options for actions by law enforcement, schools, businesses and health care practitioners to prevent and address intimate partner violence and child abuse health concerns.  Numerous information resources, learning opportunities recorded for playback, and national organization resources are identified and hyperlinked for easy retrieval.

Joint Letter to Promote Family Strengthening and Virtual Primary Prevention During COVID-19 and Beyond: Encourages family support, maternal and child health, and early childhood programs (including Head Start, home visiting, early intervention, and other early care and learning programs) to promote family strengthening and prevention strategies via virtual, electronic, telephonic, or other safe means during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two federal agencies – the Administration for Children and Families [ACF], and the Health Resources and Services Administration [HRSA] – suggest numerous collaborative strategies that states, tribal entities and grantees can manage to capitalize on flexibilities permitted during the national emergency to collaborate in new and creative ways to engage and support the whole family. The letter includes an appendix of Selected Resources for Primary Prevention to Strengthen Families and Support the Whole Family.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Reducing Stigma: Defines stigma, explains how fear and anxiety about a disease can lead to social stigma that hurts everyone and is counterproductive; and offers a list of steps that communicators can take to help counter stigma during the COVID-19 response.

COVID-19 and Homelessness: Strategies for Schools and Early Learning Programs: Offers strategies for schools and early learning programs to protect the health, safety, and well-being of children and youth experiencing homelessness during school closures. SchoolHouse Connection recommends that districts provide outreach to families and youth identified as homeless to ensure safety and basic needs outside of school, then address students’ access to learning and mental health needs.

COVID-19 Frequently Asked Questions, in Plain Language: Addresses a variety of topics related to the COVID-19 pandemic, drawn from numerous reliable government sources that can be helpful to parents of students. The FAQ has been developed by the PCORI Knowledge Translation Center at American Institutes for Research. Provided as a resource for schools, day care and healthcare organizations, and other public centers to distribute, this resource is designed to make basic health information accessible and comprehensible to everyone, regardless of education level or background.  The FAQ is provided in English, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese.

Shift to At-Home and Online Learning Underscores the Importance of Culturally Responsive Education Practices in Schools: Shares insights from a middle school principal and a Mathematica researcher about disparities that impact learning opportunities for some individuals to continue learning at-home. This one-hour video episode of On the Evidence features research and the field on implementing culturally responsive practices to weaken and surmount social and institutional barriers that inhibit student success.

An Unexpected Tool for Remote-Learning During Coronavirus: Public TV Stations: Documents how public television stations are taking the initiative to fill a void created by the digital divide for families lacking access to more advanced solutions used for online learning. Television-based learning represents a low-cost, readily accessible solution for districts that have been forced to develop and implement long-term online lesson plans on the spot, while facing a shortage of available devices and WiFi access for many students.

Center for Health Care Strategies, Inc. (CHCS)
Addressing the Needs of Medicaid Populations During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Collects resources for health care stakeholders aimed at lessening harmful impacts of COVID-19 on high-risk populations. Vulnerable populations that rely heavily on Medicaid, including families with low-incomes, people of color, and those with complex medical, behavioral health, and social needs, are being disproportionately impacted. (CHCS pledges to expand and refresh this library of key guidance, reference materials, and tools over time.)

COVID-19 Reported Cases by IHS Area: Reports data from Indian Health Service [HIS], tribal and urban Indian organization facilities on number of COVID-19 tests completed, and positive and negative test results, that can help inform local planning for social distancing, school reopening, and gatherings of many individuals.

USDA Extends Free Meals for Kids Through December 31, 2020: Includes information on the extension of summer meal programs for students through the end of the year.

English Learners/Linguistically Diverse Populations

Adapting Instruction for English Learner Students During Distance Learning: Perspectives from Practitioners: Provides an overview of promising practices and resources, and a facilitated question-and-answer session with English learner (EL) teachers and specialists. During this 50-minute REL Southwest webinar, EL practitioners discuss strategies and resources they have used to engage EL students in remote instruction. In addition, they explain how they have collaborated with colleagues remotely and offer ways that local education agencies can support and build the capacity of EL teachers during periods of school closure driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coronavirus: Multilingual Resources for Schools: Shares accurate information about coronavirus with all school staff and families, including families of English learners. This site explores how schools and districts can effectively include students who are immigrants and English language learners, and their families, in all key communications (e.g. school closure plans) related to COVID-19.  The site provides an array of multilingual fact sheets and infographics in English, Spanish, and (simplified) Chinese. Check back often, as the host is frequently updating this page as new resources becomes available.

School Responses to COVID-19: ELL/Immigrant Considerations: Makes recommendations for providing equitable access to nutrition, health, and online learning services for English language learners (ELLs) and students from families or immigrants. Considerations include families without access to medical care or insurance, fear of utilizing health services due to immigration status, children acting as caregivers to younger siblings, and lack of access to devices or internet service.

Serie Formativa: Educacion Remota en Emergencia: Hosts a six-part Spanish-language webinar series, produced by the Latin America and Caribbean Reads Capacity Program. The webinar sessions are designed to support educators in transitioning from an in-person curriculum delivery to remote delivery during the COVID-19 crisis.

ED Fact Sheet: Providing Services to English Learners During the COVID-19 Outbreak: Outlines proactive considerations for states to administer for English learners and their families during the new normal of extended school closures and workarounds for remote learning due to COVID-19.

Students with Disabilities

Operating Schools during COVID-19: CDC webpage offering considerations for mitigation strategies that K-12 school administrators can use to help protect students, teachers and staff and slow the spread of COVID-19. Considerations include planning and preparation for students with disabilities or special healthcare needs.

Precautions for People with Developmental and Behavioral Disorders: CDC webpage providing information on extra precautions for people with developmental and behavioral disorders.

Precautions for People with Disabilities: CDC webpage providing information on extra precautions for people with disabilities.

COVID-19 Guidance for Direct Service Providers: CDC webpage offering information and guidance for personal care attendants, direct support professionals, paraprofessionals, therapists and others providing home and community-based, health-related services that support people with disabilities.

COVID-19 Guidance for Providers, Caregivers, and People with Developmental and Behavioral Disorders: CDC webpage offering information and guidance for direct service providers, caregivers, parents and people with developmental and behavioral disorders.

OCR Short Webinar on Online Education and Website Accessibility: Offers guidance for providing online education and ensuring website accessibility for students with disabilities for schools utilizing distance learning amid physical school closures (8 minutes).

Support for Kids with ADHD During the Coronavirus Crisis - Cómo apoyar a niños con TDAH durante la crisis del COVID-19 (Spanish language version): Synthesizes suggestions from mental health experts for helping children with ADHS (and their families) to cope and succeed.  While families are struggling to care for (and homeschool) children cut off from their normal routines and activities, those who have ADHD may need extra structure and support to manage attention and behavior challenges and keep on track with learning in this challenging situation.

Going the Distance: Online Strategies for Helping Students with Disabilities: Presents suggestions education leaders should consider when working online with students with disabilities based on research findings.

Plan and Deliver: Educating Students with Disabilities in Remote Settings: Focuses on adapting instruction to distance learning platforms to meet the unique needs of students with disabilities.  Provides guidance on pertinent legal requirements, and how to think about accessibility for remote learning in new ways to plan and deliver remote instruction for those students. with disabilities. REL Midwest draws on evidence-based practices from traditional school settings and adapts them for remote and online environments. This blog entry also includes free resources from the Technical Assistance and Dissemination Centers of ED’s Office of Special Education Programs [OSEP].

Distance Learning for Special Education: Provides resources from over 1,800 educators and specialists to support the needs of students with significant disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the move to online instruction. These resources are open source and can be adapted to fit a variety of needs.

Navigating Uncertain Times: How Schools Can Cope with Coronavirus: Collects news, resources, expert advice, and innovative practices from across the U.S. to inform schools’ decision-making for establishing and operating effective remote learning.  Ed Surge and its parent organization, International Society for Technology in Education [ISTE], pledge to continuously replenish this sight.  ISTE and Ed Surge are also offering a weekly live webinar series.

Understanding the Impact of Coronavirus on K-12 Education: Describes how K-12 schools are coping, the move to remote learning and how students and educators are being impacted by the virus.

Preparing to Take School Online? Here Are 10 Tips to Make It Work: Provides tips to support schools that are transitioning to online learning.

Feds Give E-Rate Applicants New Flexibility to Get Help from Vendors: Shares FCC announcement immediately waiving certain rules to promote internet connectivity for students during the coronavirus pandemic.  Work with your state’s E-rate coordinator to explore how to take fullest advantage of this immediate opportunity.  

Helping Teachers and Students Make the Switch to Remote Learning: Shares lessons learned from educators that have moved to 100% remote learning in China, Seattle and Australia.  From preserving student-teacher 1:1s to bringing lessons to life in the virtual classroom, this site offers useful advice for educational organizations that are moving online. Microsoft is providing educational institutions with free access to Microsoft Teams (enhanced versions have monthly user fees).

Resources for Students

Resources During COVID-19 for Youth, Families & Schools: Offers a schedule of free interactive on-line sessions to support virtual connections for students during large-scale physical isolation, including school closures. Scheduled and moderated by Please Pass the Love, an Iowa-based non-profit committed to expanding school mental health supports for students, meet-up sessions focus on various developmental levels (e.g. elementary programs, middle school programs, high school programs) and interests (e.g. art sharing sessions); along with adult programs for educators, administrators, school counselors and others who work with children and youth.

Resources for Parents

Apps and Websites for Improving Parent-Teacher Communication (Spanish language resources): Identifies and describes a vetted list of apps and websites that provide practical, regular communication tools to encourage active engagement among students, teachers and parents.  More than half of the programs selected by Common Sense Education are available for free.

Power Up Your Parent Teacher Communication: Offers numerous programs, tools and tip sheets, introduced in a short video clip; and recommends Resources for Educators During the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Supporting Children’s Reading at Home: Family Resources for Kindergarten through 3rd Grade: Features a webinar recording. Viewers will gain the knowledge and ability to utilize the REL Southeast’s Supporting Your Child’s Reading at Home family resources for kindergarten through 3rd grade in their home setting.

Resources for Educators

Maintaining Ties When School Closes Is Critical to Preventing Dropouts: Recommends “virtual support” methods and practices to maintain engagement of students at risk of dropping out of school.  "The idea is to try to find ways that, once a week at the minimum, you're doing some sort of face-to-face where the students can hear you talking and they can respond to you in conversation." This Education Week blog explores techniques to strengthen the “school experience” dimension of learning.

Supporting Middle Level Educator through COVID-19: Promotes learning events and collaborative online spaces to support middle level educators through the COVID-19 pandemic. Offers tips for selecting remote learning resources and how to effectively use them to keep students engaged outside the classroom.

Free Distance Learning Plans for K-2 Students and Their Families: Introduces “fun and friendly” weekly learning plans for K-2 children, assists educators of young students with opening up lines of communication for their families, and engages students in new digital learning routines. Common Sense Learning offers these free resources as a quick-start guide to help establish a comfortable distance learning climate at home. The three packets – one each for kindergarten, grades 1 and 2 students - are structured around basic principles including: 1.) Start with digital citizenship, 2.) Set reasonable goals, and 3.) Attempt a schedule.

Best Practices for Creating Take-Home Packets to Support Distance Learning: Documents ways in which take-home packets can be used as a primary mode of instruction during at-home learning and as a supplemental resource when school is back in session.

Public Health Emergency – Community Resilience: Discusses the concept of community resilience, its importance during public health emergencies and subsequent recovery, and strategies recommended by U.S. DHHS to build community resilience.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources for School Communities: Provides a platform for parents and educators to access social media networks, published resources, and scheduled and recorded webinars to apply the evidence-based RULER approach to social and emotional learning to the current national emergency. The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence has developed this hub to help teachers, caregivers and school leaders build and sustain positive emotional and learning environments for children while they are staying home due to school closures. 

Video Chats, Phone Calls, Postcards: Teachers Rebuild Connections with Students During Coronavirus Pandemic: Examines the loss of school rituals for both students and teachers as part of their school closure experiences. This Education Week article describes numerous ways that K-12 schools and districts are improvising shared experiences to rebuild their communities. 

Virtual Learning in a Time of School Disruption: Explores advantages of utilizing virtual learning practices along with strategies to effectively engage students at significant risk of alienation from learning in a brief video podcast presented by Ray McNulty, President of the National Dropout Prevention Center.

Aunt Bertha: The Social Care Network: Presents a meaningful on-line search tool inviting families to search for free (or reduced) cost services (e.g. medical care, food, housing, education, transportation, job training, legal aid) by zip code. Specific COVID-19-related programs and services are also currently featured. This tool, along with 211.org supports efforts of school social workers to link students and families to instrumental support through the current emergency.

Community-Care Strategies for Schools During the Coronavirus Crisis: Practical Tips for School Staff and Administrators: Offers practical guidance for educators, other school staff, for administrators and other leaders, to help ensure that school communities are effective, cohesive, collaborative, healthy, and sustainable while coping with the stresses of social isolation, school closures, and changes to how services are provided. As community members shelter in place they lose daily in-person connections with colleagues, students and families. Schools are uniquely positioned to help members of their communities maintain a sense of connectedness, and to identify those who may need additional support.  Published by the Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety [CISELSS], this brief builds on the growing research base about school climate and culture. 

Non-Profit Organizations and Partnerships Can Support Students During COVID-19 Crisis: Describes lessons learned by a group of community non-profit organizations that quickly pivoted to serve students remotely after emergency closure abruptly ended in-person classes in a large suburban school district.  Child Trends’ blog describes several adaptable lessons learned by the YouthCONNECT partners that provide a range of services including individualized case management, mentoring, college preparation, life skills training, and after-school tutoring.

National Association of School Psychologists
Health Crisis Resources: Presents a selected set of resources to help schools and school districts to provide support for their students and community in the event of a health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic.  Resources include Responding to COVID-19: Brief Action Steps for School Crisis Response Teams; Preparing for Infectious Disease Epidemics: Brief Tips for School Mental Health Professionals; Countering COVID-19 Stigma and Racism; and many more.

National Association of School Psychologists
Virtual Service Delivery in Response to COVID-19 Disruptions: Provides guidance on telehealth delivery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic from the National Association of School Psychologists.

National Center for School Mental Health
COVID-19 Responses: Presents resources that offer general information about the coronavirus (signs and symptoms, official national and international updates); that can support schools in educating students effectively while protecting their health and emotional wellbeing; and that can serve parents and caregivers by informing their support for young children and youth as they weather the crisis and the many transitions it is causing.

National Child Traumatic Stress Network [NCTSN]
Parent/Caregiver Guide to Helping Families Cope With the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Provides parents and caregivers with important information about the COVID-19 outbreak, and how being prepared can reduce one’s stress and help calm likely anxieties. This fact sheet, developed by leading experts in trauma-informed practices, will help parents think about how an infectious disease outbreak might affect their family—both physically and emotionally—and what they can do to help their family cope.

National Council for Behavioral Health
Resources and Tools for Addressing Coronavirus (COVID 19): Offers curated information resources for the general public, and for behavioral health organizations, focusing on understanding, mitigating and addressing behavioral health impacts of the pandemic on individuals, families and organizations.

National School Boards Association
COVID-19: Preparing for Widespread Illness in Your School Community: Provides information and strategies for situational planning to address COVID-19 challenges in a school district. Offers a planning checklist for school leaders to plan for an outbreak and other general guidance resources.

REMS TA Center
Continuity of Teaching and Learning Online Resources: Presents free products and resources to support education agencies in their infectious disease planning efforts. Accesses training packages, publications, online courses, tabletop exercises and more on our new COVID-19 Resources Page.

The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning [CASEL]
SEL Resources During COVID-19: Explains how social and emotional learning [SEL] offers a powerful means to explore and express emotions, build relationships, and support each other – children and adults alike – during this challenging time.  This site offers sets of guidelines for three distinct audiences: parents and caregivers, educators, and leaders.

Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University
Partner Resources, Tools and Guides - COVID-19 Resources: Lists links to national and international resources that can help families, school social workers and other helpers to address a variety of concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Center’s team of experts has curated on-line resources spanning family needs from child care to housing, from food insecurity to health care and medical information.  A growing set of recordings in the Center’s “Brain Architects Podcast” series addresses contemporary COVID-19-related topics.

Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
CCSSO Supporting States Amid Coronavirus Outbreak: Presents guidance and resources from federal agencies to maintain efforts of state education leaders, support of schools, and districts in their preparation for, and response to, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in the United States. The website also includes CCSSO webinar slide decks, links to on-line resources for parents, and to support e-learning and provision of special education and related services during the national emergency.

National Academy for State Health Policy
COVID-19 State Action Center: Publishes resources to both feature, and inform, pertinent developments in state-level health policy to address and manage the CIVID-19 pandemic.  

National Center for Systematic Improvement Webinar Series: Strategic Resource Management in Response to COVID-19: Archives a series of recorded webinars featuring experts who share best practices to help state education leadership teams to make informed decisions and best utilize available resources during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Returning to School During and After Crisis: A Guide to Supporting States, Districts, Schools, Educators, and Students through a Multi-Tiered Systems of Support Framework during the 2020-2021 School Year: Describes the use of a multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) framework to support students, families, and educators during the transitions back to school during and following the global pandemic in a manner that prioritizes their health and safety, social and emotional needs, and behavioral and academic growth.

ASCA Toolkit: Virtual School Counseling Guidelines: Provides guidance and materials to support school counselors to provide effective services and support to students during COVID-19-related emergency shutdowns. The American School Counselor Association [ASCA] furnishes recorded webinars, FAQs, pertinent professional and ethical standards and a thorough position statement on virtual school counseling.

Virtual Service Delivery in Response to COVID-19 Disruptions: Provides guidance to school psychologists to support their provision of services to students with respect to technology, record keeping, privacy, and validity of measures. The National Association of School Psychologists [NASP] encourages school psychologists to strive to ensure all students have equitable access to mental health and other school psychological services provided remotely, mindful of special considerations for students with disabilities, students from low-income economically marginalized communities, students in rural areas, and students in unstable home environments. School psychologists should work with administrators to ensure that continued service delivery is available to all students who need it, including creative problem-solving to ensure that students who do not have access to a computer, other technology-related devices, and/or internet are able to access telehealth services. This site offers a general 7-step problem-solving model (Armistead, Williams & Jacob, 2011) to support this function.

National Association of School Nurses: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Resources: Provides guidance and numerous resources to assist school nurses in planning for post-COVID return to school for students, provision of virtual care, use of personal protective equipment (PPE), safe transmittal of resources between home and school, teaching students and families about risks and safe behaviors, and more.  

School Social Workers Association of America [SSWAA]: Response to COVID-19 Health Crisis and the Role of School Social Workers: Offers four basic, overarching recommendations, and references selected resources to help school social workers manage during the COVID-19 crisis.  The SSWAA states that “Many students are confused and fearful and are looking to us and their parents for a sense of calm and hope in this tough time. We know that many of our students’ families are carrying the heavy burdens of figuring out child care, health care, and their own work situation at the very time when our country largely doesn’t provide a social safety net that might ease that burden. All these things alone are likely to produce significant and potentially ongoing trauma to vulnerable families, and we will need to do what we can to ameliorate those impacts in the weeks to come. We also should anticipate that our school educator colleagues are also dealing with multiple demands and worries and that those impacts will make a strong impression on the schools we all (hopefully) return to soon.”

Strategies for Trauma-Informed Distance Learning: Offers some general strategies, with specific examples, for how to recognize and respond to students’ social and emotional needs while teaching remotely. The Center to Improve Social and Emotional Learning and School Safety [CISELSS] has organized these strategies according to neuroscientist Bruce Perry’s “3 Rs” approach to intervention: Regulate, Relate, and Reason.

Planning for Virtual/Distance School Counseling During an Emergency Shutdown: Recommends planning steps for school districts for continuity of mental health supports and services when schools must be shut down on an emergency basis. Reinforces American School Counselor Association standards for school counselors to support them through their transition to delivering the school counseling curriculum to on-line platforms, and emphasizes the need to ensure updated lists of outside MH services, social/emotional and physical well-being support to enable indicated referrals.

Re-Opening America: What Patients Should Know about Seeking Healthcare (Spanish version): Provides recommendations from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services [CMS – June 8, 2020] to help ensure that non-emergency in-person healthcare delivery will resume safely, and that patients can begin to receive needed in-person treatment that may have been postponed due to the public health emergency.

COVID-19 OBSSR Research Tools: Lists and links to data collection instruments, including surveys, for assessing COVID-19-related behavioral and social sciences domains for clinical and population research.  The National Institutes of Health [NIH] Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research has compiled this table, whose contents can be accessed to detect/identify physical and mental health impacts of the pandemic and its consequences.  Included tools can support screening among students, families and even educators as a predicate to arranging responsive treatment and support when indicated.

Telehealth Approaches

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
General Provider Telehealth and Telemedicine Tool Kit: Contains resources related to telehealth and telemedicine, including waiver information related to COVID-19, as well as general policy and set-up/implementation guidance from CMS.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
Medicare Telemedicine Health Care Provider Fact Sheet: Medicare Coverage and Payment of Virtual Services: Offers information from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on broadened access to Medicare telehealth services in response to COVID-19.

Checklist for Initiating Telehealth Services: Provides prompts for questions a program should consider an implementing a new tele-health site or program.  This tool, furnished by the Great Plains Telehealth Resource & Assistance Center [gpTRAC], can be used by schools and community-partnered mental health agencies to guide establishment and launch of initial and expanded telehealth services.  

Making a Good Connection: Engaging Students and Families in School Tele-Mental Health: Hosts a three-part webinar series geared toward providers who are making the transition from in-person to telehealth services. Session content focuses on practical strategies and equity concerns related to engaging children, adolescents and families using distance technology. This website of SAMHSA’s Mental Health Technology Transfer Center [MHTTC] Network includes webinar session recordings and slides, and related FAQs and resource materials.

Planning for Virtual/Distance School Counseling During an Emergency Shutdown: Explains how schools can deliver comprehensive virtual school counseling programs during emergency school closures. The American School Counselor Association recommends that school counselors continue to teach the school counseling curriculum as much as possible, but prioritize the most critical academic, career, and social-emotional lessons.

Clinical Innovations in Telehealth Learning Series: Offered a 4-session on-line series of learning events in May-June 2020 targeting high-priority clinical issues for providers using telehealth.  The learning series was produced by SAMHSA’s MHTTC Network.  Experts in clinical care and telehealth devoted the first segment of each hour-long session to a specific topic, then addressed questions submitted by registrants.  This site now hosts recordings of the four presentations, and accompanying resources, including an FAQ document.

National Telehealth Policy Resource Center, Center for Connected Health Policy
COVID-19 Related State Actions: Includes updated actions to remove telehealth barriers broken down by state, compiled by the National Telehealth Policy Resource Center, Center for Connected Health Policy.

National Telehealth Policy Resource Center, Center for Connected Health Policy
Current Telehealth-Related State Laws and Reimbursement Policies: Includes information on telehealth-related laws, regulation and Medicaid programs in all fifty states and the District of Columbia from the National Telehealth Policy Resource Center, Center for Connected Health Policy.

Office and Technology Checklist for Tele-Psychological Services: Provides a checklist to determine whether video-conferencing services are appropriate for an individual, of technology considerations, for set-up, preparing for and undertaking therapeutic sessions.  The American Psychological Association published this checklist as the COVID-19 national emergency began in March 2020. 

Telehealth Tips: Provides more than 20 practical tips from a certified telemental health therapist. Licensed marriage and family therapist Pam Suraci shares guidance from her experience in a 27-minute video interview.

Telemental Health 101: Provides a videotaped training video to help prepare school mental health clinicians to use telemental health to provide services and supports to students and families. Jennifer Cox, LCSW-C, director of the University of Maryland School Mental Health Program, prepared this 47-minute training video to support the transition from in-person to virtual formats in response to extended widespread school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ASCA Toolkit: Virtual School Counseling Guidelines: Provides guidance and materials to support school counselors to provide effective services and support to students during COVID-19-related emergency shutdowns. The American School Counselor Association [ASCA] furnishes recorded webinars, FAQs, pertinent professional and ethical standards and a thorough position statement on virtual school counseling.

Virtual Service Delivery in Response to COVID-19 Disruptions: Provides guidance to school psychologists to support their provision of services to students with respect to technology, record keeping, privacy, and validity of measures. The National Association of School Psychologists [NASP] encourages school psychologists to strive to ensure all students have equitable access to mental health and other school psychological services provided remotely, mindful of special considerations for students with disabilities, students from low-income economically marginalized communities, students in rural areas, and students in unstable home environments. School psychologists should work with administrators to ensure that continued service delivery is available to all students who need it, including creative problem-solving to ensure that students who do not have access to a computer, other technology-related devices, and/or internet are able to access telehealth services. This site offers a general 7-step problem-solving model (Armistead, Williams & Jacob, 2011) to support this function.

Indicators for Dynamic School Decision-Making: Presents a variety of decisions about in-person learning as local conditions evolve throughout the pandemic. When coupled with local data about community spread, these indicators can assist local health officials, school administrators, and communities prepare, plan, and respond to COVID-19.

An Initial Guide to Leveraging the Power of Social and Emotional Learning as You Prepare to Reopen and Renew Your School Community: Shares actionable recommendations to help school leadership teams plan for the social emotional learning [SEL] needs of all students and adults during the upcoming transition into summer and the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year. This guide positions SEL as a critical underpinning to the success of overall transition planning, recognizing school leaders have multiple other considerations for reopening schools, including academics, operations, access to technology, and physical health.

The Return: How Should Education Leaders Prepare for Reentry and Beyond?: Offers and supports four major recommendations for school leaders to prepare for students’ return to school in the aftermath of the national COVID-19 emergency.  This report is a collaboration between Chiefs for Change, a nonprofit, bipartisan network of state and district education chiefs; and the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Education Policy.

COVID-19 and Whole Child Efforts: Describes the importance of attending to the basic needs and well being of children and youth as central to supporting their success in school, and the particular salience of that holistic approach for supporting students’ return to classrooms in the aftermath of the COVID-19 national emergency.  This brief from the American Institutes for Research defines key themes and terms to support shared understanding across community and school system leaders, and crosswalks prominent guidance for school reopening to the related Whole Child framework concepts.

Reopening Schools after COVID-19 Closures: Explores options to assist state education leaders’ decision-making about these key questions: (1) When and how should schools reopen, once it is safe from a health perspective to do so?, (2) What could school schedule, student placement and staffing options look like when schools reopen?, and (3) How should we provide support to students (particularly those most in-need) as schools reopen? This toolkit will be frequently updated.

Getting Back to School after Disruptions: Resources for Making Your School Year Safer, More Predictable, and More Positive: Describes how multi-tiered systems of supports [MTSS], such as PBIS, are ideal frameworks for implementing strategies to support students coming back to school after experiencing trauma from public health crises, weather disasters, or other upsetting events that may have exposed them to unpredictable schedules, inconsistent supervision, food insecurity or other disruption. Students in such circumstances desperately need school to be a safe, predictable and positive setting.  This practice guide, updated by the Center on PBIS to reflect the current COVID-19 pandemic, recommends six strategies for school teams to ensure a safe, predictable, and positive school year.

Kentucky: COVID-19 Considerations for Reopening Schools Supporting Student and Staff Wellness: Addresses planning considerations for the social and emotional well-being of students and staff during the transition when schools reopen in late 2020.  “While the usual transitional concerns will be present when schools reopen, it is anticipated that this fall’s return to school will be particularly challenging due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Teachers and administrators should operate on the assumption that everyone will have experienced some degree of anxiety and stress, uncertainty, illness, grief and loss… This guidance will help districts think through the challenges they may face this fall and be ready to provide the services Kentucky’s students will need to succeed and thrive in this challenging environment.”

Missouri: Pandemic Recovery Considerations: Re-Entry and Reopening of Schools: Lists and explores eight major topics for schools to consider as they make plans to reopen.  Missouri has authorized individual schools and local health departments to make the final decisions about which precautions make sense in each school and community.  The Center for Education Safety of the Missouri School Boards Association has developed this document as a template to guide local discussion regarding reopening schools.  It provides examples of protocols schools could implement, if feasible, during a “phased-in approach” to bringing students and staff back to school. The material in the document is evolving as new information and recommendations are issued by federal and state agencies.

Recognizing the Role of Afterschool and Summer Programs and Systems in Reopening and Rebuilding: Describes the role that afterschool and summer programs and systems can play in conjoint strategies with school leaders to support youth, families and communities to prepare for and accomplish school reopening.   This succinct brief by the American Institutes for Research explains how afterschool and summer programs can contribute to such strategies, illuminates examples from the field, and identifies numerous resources that can help programs and practitioners to capitalize on opportunities to rebuild and return even stronger than before COVID-19.

Reopening Schools Safely: New Evidence on Mitigating COVID-19 Spread: Offers schools and districts considerations for public health and educational factors such as potential learning loss when planning for the 2020-21 school year.

Keeping Pace: Strategies for Ensuring Equitable Continuity of Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: This fact sheet highlights evidence-based and promising practices that local eduction agencies can consider when developing or updating their continuity of learning plans.

Preparing for a Safe Return to Schools: CDC webpage offering guidance to aid school administrators as they consider how to protect the health, safety, and wellbeing of students, teachers, other school staff, their families, and communities and prepare for educating students this fall.

Preparing K-12 School Administrators for a Safe Return to School in Fall 2020: Intends to aid school administrators as they consider how to protect the health, safety, and wellbeing of students, teachers, other school staff, their families and communities, and prepare for educating students this fall. This official guidance, issued on July 23, 2020 by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], is provided for K-12 school administrators (i.e. school district superintendents, school principals, and assistant principals). The guidance described in this document is based on the best available evidence at this time. This guidance is meant to supplement—not replace—any state, local, territorial, or tribal health and safety laws, rules, and regulations with which schools must comply.

CDC Considerations for Schools (Updated May 19, 2020): Offers a set of considerations for ways in which schools can help protect students, teachers, administrators and staff, and slow the spread of COVID-19. This CDC webpage intends to support schools in determining, in collaboration with states and local health officials, whether and how to address included considerations while adjusting to meet the unique needs and circumstances of the local community.  The webpage offers guiding principles, resources, and considerations for reducing spread, maintaining healthy school environments and operations, what to do when someone gets sick.  [After reviewing these considerations, school administrators can use CDC’s K-12 School Readiness and Planning Tool to protect students, staff and communities. 

NGA Education’s State Reopening Tracking: Indicates actions that states have taken to reopen educational settings, including childcare settings, camps and summer school programming, K-12 schools, and postsecondary institutions.  The included chart displays an evolving analysis of reopening in the education sector but is not exhaustive of statewide actions. The list addresses statewide guidance but does not address K-12 school or school district level guidance.

Tracking Our COVID-19 Response: Tracks each state’s progress against the pandemic, including status on key measures, testing activity, and health system sustainability. Using the gating criteria provided by the White House, a group of public health and crisis experts tracked each state's progress on reduction in symptoms and cases, health system readiness, and testing.  These data can support state- and community-level decision-making, including for school re-opening.

Back to School Planning: Checklists to Guide Parents, Guardians and Caregivers: Provides a series of checklists for parents/families to plan and prepare for students’ return to academic learning in 2020-21. The CDC provide guidance, checklists and action steps for: planning for in-person classes (use of cloth face masks; considerations for mental and social-emotional well-being); and for virtual or at-home learning (including mental health and social-emotional well-being considerations). This CDC website also provides links to several resources to help parents navigate stress and uncertainty related to COVID-19 and their students’ school activities. 

Phase 2 Restart and Recovery: Highlights healthy and safe protocols for reopening schools, parent and family engagement supports, and guidance on trauma-informed social and emotional learning. The Council of Chief State School Officer’s [CCSSO] Restart and Recovery plan is intended to support complex planning and preparation demands on states as they restart schools and recover student learning. 

Reopening US Schools in the Era of COVID-19: Practical Guidance from Other Nations: Provides insights and lessons learned to date from the experiences of other countries that have already reopened schools including Denmark, Germany, Israel, Japan, and China. The JAMA [Journal of the American Medical Association] Network produced this summary on June 30, 2020.

What Is Cohorting?: Describes a key strategy schools may use to limit contact between students and staff as part of their efforts to limit transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19.  Cohorting strategies keep groups of students (and sometimes staff) together over a pre-determined period. Ideally, the students and staff within a cohort will only have physical proximity with others in the same cohort. The CDC provides this information to inform school practices that may help prevent the spread of COVID-19 by limiting cross-over of students and teachers to the extent possible.    

The Two Pandemics Call for Commitment to Embedding Mental Health Concerns in All Forms of Schooling: Presents “A Brief Analysis & Call to Action” through which the co-directors of the Center for Mental Health in Schools [UCLA] argue that “leaders concerned with advancing mental health in school need to focus on much more than just increasing clinical services,” and emphasize promoting youth development, wellness, social and emotional learning, and fostering the emergence of a caring, supportive, and nurturing climate throughout a school. Their paper challenges prevailing notions of the prevalent conceptions of a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS).   

9 Questions for District and School Leaders to Consider in Getting Ready for the 2020-21 School Year: Offers a set of questions for school and district leaders to ask during summer planning, suggested by the members of the advisory board of ED’s Region 9 Comprehensive Center.

Blueprint for Back to School: Provides a “sketched” framework for federal officials, state policymakers, education and community leaders to plan appropriately for school reopening.  The American Enterprise Institute offers a blueprint for comprehensive support strategies for school operations, whole child supports, school personnel, academics, and distance learning, against a backdrop of pertinent public health considerations. A two-page summary of the blueprint is also available.

COVID-19 Resource Guide for High School Professionals: Furnishes a substantial set of resources created or curated by the JED Foundation to support educators’ efforts to help students to maintain mental and emotional health while they strive to maintain focus on their studies.  

Preventing A Lost School Year Guide: The Crucial Importance of Motivating Students & Engaging Families: Asserts “six essentials for motivating and supporting students,” and links directly to several guides and other supportive resources addressing grading practices, student advisement, social-emotional learning for students, and family engagement tools.   This guide was developed by the Stand for Children Leadership Center.

Evaluating Data Types: A Guide for Decision Makers Using Data to Understand the Extent and Spread of COVID-19: Aims to help leaders and decision makers to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of data on the COVID-19 pandemic in their communities by applying a set of criteria to available types of data available to support decision making (e.g. about the timing, pace and nature of school re-opening). This product of the Societal Experts Action Network of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine examines seven data types: the number of confirmed cases, hospitalizations, emergency department visits, reported confirmed COVID-19 deaths, excess deaths, fraction of viral tests that are positive, and representative prevalence surveys (including both viral and antibody tests). Because any single data type is likely to yield an under- or over- estimate of the extent and spread of the disease, it is important to consider multiple data types and be cautious in relying on estimates without considering sources of bias.

COVID-19 Planning Considerations: Guidance for School Re-entry: Lists and describes numerous factors that should influence and shape collaborative decision-making among school districts, state and local health departments to facilitate a safe and appropriate return to in-person school for K-12 students.   This resource, from the American Academy of Pediatrics, focuses especially on student-centered and on environmental considerations, and provides a curated set of resources from both AAP and CDC to support preparations for returning to school.   

Pediatricians, Educators and Superintendents Urge a Safe Return to School This Fall: States the combined, consensus position of four national organizations -- the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Education Association (NEA) and the School Superintendents Association (AASA) – to help guide state and community-level decision makers to plan and prepare for students’ safe return to school for the 2020-21 school year.  The statement was issued on July 10, 2020 to balance AAP’s strong advocacy “that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school” with acknowledgement that “schools in areas with high levels of COVID-19 community spread should not be compelled to reopen against the judgment of local (public health) experts.”

Statewide Committee to Safely Reopen Florida's Public Schools: Priorities and Recommendations: Emphasizes the importance of a focus on equity in school reopening plan. Through such a lens, the Florida Education Association convened its Reopening Schools Task Force to include the voices, feedback and perspective of diverse members of the state’s education community.  This resource offers a set of expectations for each school and school district. The statewide committee advocates that similar, local stakeholder groups should be convened during summer 2020 that can apply these expectations through the local planning processes.

When to Quarantine: Stay Home If You Might Have Been Exposed to COVID-19: Provides explicit guidance from CDC for quarantining to keep someone who might have been exposed to COVID-19 away from others. This aspect of guidance is directly referenced in CDC’s K-12 School Readiness and Planning Tool.

The Risk That Students Could Arrive at School with the Coronavirus: Provides county-level estimates of the likelihood that students would encounter an infected person in the first week if school started today, to help planners anticipate when it might be safe to open schools for in-person instruction.  The official CDC guidance for re-opening schools (July 23, 2020) lists COVID-19 transmission rates in the immediate community and in the communities in which students, teachers, and staff live as the first consideration for school administrators’ planning. These estimates, from epidemiologists at the University of Texas – Austin, consider the likelihood of contact in four scenarios – students learning together in pods of up to ten; and students attending school of up to 100, 500, and 1,000 students – based on local health surveillance data from the preceding seven days. 

Return-to-School Working Group (Massachusetts): Chronicles the activities, deliberations and decision-making of the SEA’s working group, beginning with a focus on summer programming, and then drafting the restart and recovery plan for the next academic year. 

Leveraging the Power of Social Emotional Learning as You Prepare to Reopen and Renew Your School Community: Shares a framework with actionable recommendations to help school leadership teams plan for the social emotional learning [SEL] needs of all students and adults during the beginning of the upcoming new school year. This CASEL guide positions SEL as a critical underpinning to the success of transition planning, recognizing school leaders have multiple other considerations for reopening schools, including academics, operations, access to technology, and physical health.

UCLA Brief COVID-19 Screen for Child/Adolescent PTSD: Offers a no-cost screening tool for potential PTSD to triage potential impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on students and their families.  The tool is designed for use by professionals across a range of child serving systems, including behavioral health, primary care, pediatrics, schools, child welfare and juvenile justice. The pandemic exposure questions are followed by an 11-item set of validated questions about the frequency of PTSD symptoms in the past month. The score sheet provides an algorithm for determining the need for ongoing monitoring or a full PTSD assessment and, if indicated, evidence-based trauma-focused treatment. The UCLA Brief COVID-19 Screen for Child/Adolescent PTSD is available in English and Spanish. 

A Plan to Safely Reopen America’s Schools and Communities: Provides a roadmap for navigating steps for transitioning from lockdowns to other public health tools to limit the transmission of COVID-19. This product of the American Federation of Teachers [AFT] focuses particularly on reopening school buildings. AFT “expects the plan to evolve and adapt over time,” and should build on five pillars that draw on the best available science and public health guidance, and the expertise of educators and health practitioners.

Guidance for Cleaning and Disinfecting Public Spaces, Workplaces, Businesses, Schools, and Homes: Presents guidance jointly developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) about appropriate methods to ensure safe, clean and sanitary environments including schools, homes and businesses. Guidance at this site is explicitly part of the official United States Government guidelines, Opening Up America Again.

Indoor Air and Coronavirus (COVID-19): Discusses growing evidence that the COVID-19 virus can remain airborne for longer times and further distances than originally thought, and therefore the possibility that spread of COVID-19 may occur via airborne particles in indoor environments. This US Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] website introduces steps that can be taken to reduce potential airborne transmission related to the layout and design of buildings, occupancy, and types of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. EPA recommends increasing ventilation with outdoor air and air filtration to supplement social distancing, wearing cloth face coverings or masks, surface cleaning and disinfecting, handwashing, and other precautions. A related page of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) is also provided.

Handwashing: Clean Hands Save Lives: Provides official science-based guidance from the CDC about when and how to wash one’s hands to prevent transmission of COVID-19 and other infections.  This website presents clear instructions for students, parents and other caregivers (e.g. school staff), explains the science that supports the instructions, and introduces CDC’s Life Is Better with Clean Hands social marketing campaign materials to support dissemination of this important public health information.  Many materials/contents are suitable for direct teaching to K-12 students. 

Use of Cloth Face Coverings to Help Slow the Spread of COVID-19: Provides practical information and guidance about the use of cloth face coverings to slow and prevent the spread of infections like COVID-19, including particular considerations for children, and for people with special health care needs.  The CDC cites this information from the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), Division of Viral Diseases in its Readiness and Planning Tool.

Masks for Prevention of COVID-19 in Community and Healthcare Settings: A Living Rapid Review: Informs practice pointers developed by the American College of Physicians with up-to-date evidence through regular search of the literature and review of findings of emerging studies. The US DHHS Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ] established this “rapid evidence product” in recognition that the field is currently struggling with urgent questions about how to respond to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Health and service systems, clinicians, policymakers, and the general public want timely, credible evidence to inform critical decisions. In the face of a rapidly changing field amid an ongoing pandemic, AHRQ’s Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) will continue to update this review when report findings change as a result of new research. 

How to Clean and Disinfect Schools to Help Slow the Spread of the Flu (Spanish language version): Shares specific guidance from the CDC for cleaning and disinfecting as part of a broad approach to preventing spread of infectious diseases in school.

6 Steps for Safe and Effective Disinfectant Use: Provides a one-page poster from the EPA to guide schools’ use of disinfectants to ensure a healthy indoor environment for students, teachers, custodians, and staff.   

Best Safety and Hygiene Practices for Public Workspaces in the COVID-19 Environment: Explores the challenges of operating workplaces with a public interaction component in the COVID-19 environment. This 1-hour webinar recording (6/23/20), sharing specific, practical guidance, was produced by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine [NASEM], and features the Federal Facilities Council, a cooperative association of more than 20 federal agencies committed to identifying and advancing technologies, processes and practices that improve the management, operations and evaluation of federal facilities.  Dr. Nancy Burton from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health discusses how to physically prepare facilities (including school campuses) for reopening and operations; and Ms. Robin Coyne, CIH from Spike Occupational Health & Safety, LLC discusses practical considerations that will arise when the public begins entering a facility.   

Guidance for Returning to Work: Guides employers and workers in safely returning to work and reopening businesses during the evolving Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Employers can use this guidance to develop policies and procedures to ensure the safety and health of their employees. This guidance focuses on the need for employers to develop and implement strategies for basic hygiene (e.g., hand hygiene, cleaning and disinfection), social distancing, identification and isolation of sick employees, workplace controls and flexibilities, and employee training. This guidance, from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA], pertains not only to school facilities as workplaces, but also for employer- and business-based on-the-job learning sites for adolescents as part of their career and technical education, and for community voluntarism and extra-curricular activities.                                                 

List N: Disinfectants for Use Against SARS-CoV-02 (COVID-19): Lists products that meet criteria of the EPA for cleaning, disinfecting, and sanitizing facilities, equipment, supplies and products. This list, most recently updated 7/1/20, is referenced by the CDC in its published Considerations for K-12 Schools and accompanying Readiness and Planning Tool.

FDA Advises Consumers Not to Use Hand Sanitizer Products Manufactured by Eskbiochem: Advises consumers to avoid hand sanitizer products sold by this manufacturer, whose products can be toxic when absorbed through the skin, or ingested.  The Food and Drug Administration [FDA] issued this advisory on 6/19/20.

Ten Ways Healthcare Systems Can Operate Effectively During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Provides practical approaches that can be used to protect health care personnel, patients and communities.  This input from the CDC can serve as a useful reference for school nurse, counseling and other professional staff who interact in close physical proximity with students to optimize safety and minimize risks of viral transmission. A concise one-sheet brief version is also provided for efficient dissemination.

Cloth Face Masks in Schools: CDC webpage offering guidance for K-12 school administrators on the use of cloth face coverings in schools.