It's exciting to see so many students successfully back in classrooms for in-person learning. Secretary Miguel Cardona amplified this in his “Return to School Road Trip.” The Secretary visited elementary, middle, and high schools in several states. In his words, “This road trip wasn’t just about shaking hands and taking pictures; it was about learning how we can work better together. Our @USEdGov team has been spending the week having in-depth conversations with students, educators, and community members to do just that.”
A focus of OESE’s work over the last several months has been how we can help states, districts, and schools reengage students who became disconnected during the pandemic. In our review of the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER) state plans, we noted that many states are focused on reengaging these students, and this critical topic is the focus of this month’s newsletter. We are highlighting the Student Engagement and Attendance Center, which provides technical assistance to state educational agencies (SEAs) and local educational agencies (LEAs) about chronic absenteeism and student engagement. Some of their latest resources include Returning to School: Strategies for Reengaging PreK-12 Students as well as attendance reflection tools at both the LEA and SEA levels. Other materials worth reviewing are webinars and publications from the Center for Education Equity, an Equity Assistance Center, that address engaging students from diverse family, ethnic, and sexual orientations. As we look at reengagement, we need to focus on not only having students return, but also address mental health needs as students process the last year and a half. It’s not just about returning to school, but also thriving as they progress through the year.
I recognize that reengaging students is just one of the many issues schools face this year. Here in OESE, we will continue to strive to support you to meet the needs of students, families, and of course the indispensable school personnel, including teachers, administrators, bus drivers, and all of the other people who keep schools vibrant for students.
Ruth Ryder
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The Student Engagement and Attendance Center (SEAC) supports SEAs and LEAs in their efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism and increase student engagement. More specifically, it seeks to identify and disseminate evidence-based promising practices and research and to establish peer learning opportunities, guided by subject matter experts, that allow for stakeholders to learn effective strategies from one another. Over the past year, SEAC has developed two key TA initiatives: the SEAC Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Network and the Student and Family Reengagement Learning Series.
The P2P Network provided states with technical assistance in two critical areas of need, as identified by SEAs: measuring, collecting, analyzing, and reporting attendance data; and supports to improve attendance and engagement. Participants shared challenges, as well as promising practices and strategies, with one another on a variety of related topics, including defining and implementing key attendance terminology, school climate, social and emotional learning, and adapting attendance practices for hybrid or remote settings.
The Student and Family Reengagement Learning Series supported 20 states and their partners in responding to the challenges that SEAs, LEAs, and schools experienced during the pandemic, including chronic absenteeism, student enrollment, and disconnections with students and families. SEAC shared best practices drawn from experts and the field to facilitate increased reengagement with students and families during the 2021-22 academic year.
These initiatives, in addition to other projects, are culminating in a growing list of publicly available presentations and resources, including:
On Tuesday, Oct. 5 from 2-3 p.m. ET, SEAC will host a webinar entitled Expanding Supports for Student Health and Mental Health: Featuring Lessons Learned from Nebraska and the Puget Sound Educational Service District. To register for this webinar, visit this website.
SEAC is operated by Insight Policy Research and the American Institutes for Research. It is authorized under section 4103(a) of Title IV, Part A, Subpart 3, of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended. For additional more information on SEAC, please visit its website, or contact SEAC Project Directors Jarle Crocker, at jcrocker@insightpolicyresearch.com, or Jenny Scala, at jscala@air.org.
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Meet Department Staff Member Bryan Keohane
Meet Bryan Keohane, Education Program Specialist, who works with SEAC through his role in the Office of Program and Grantee Support Services, OESE.
How long have you been at the Department?
- Long enough to have to pause and think to properly answer this question! Just kidding — I’ve worked at the Department for 17 years, starting at the very end of calendar year 2004.
What do you most enjoy about working at the Department?
- A few things stand out to me. First, my colleagues! I’m continuously impressed and humbled by the dedication, talent, and professionalism of those around me. Through their commitment to the Department’s mission of fostering educational excellence for all, their teamwork-oriented mentality, their generosity to sharing knowledge, and, most of all, their collegiality and humor, they make for great colleagues. It doesn’t hurt that they also enjoy a good cup of coffee almost as much as I do!
- The second item I appreciate about working at the Department is that I’m continuously challenged. I learn something new every day — from both colleagues and our stakeholders. From my colleagues, I learn of new approaches and information, and from our stakeholders (primarily grantees), I learn of both the challenges confronting educators and the unique solutions occurring across the U.S. to address these challenges. These elements keep the work interesting, engaging, and meaningful.
What is one thing you would like to see happen as a result of OESE’s collective efforts this year?
- My goal is that SEAC continues to identify strategies for engaging students and families that demonstrate promise and the ability to be adapted and replicated elsewhere. Many states and districts share challenges for student attendance and engagement, particularly for special populations. Correspondingly, my optimism inclines me to believe that many states and districts are meeting these challenges with unique and innovative strategies and solutions. I want SEAC to continue identifying and sharing these strategies and modify, adapt, or create tools that support these efforts. Further, because we are all in this together, I would like to continue to identify partners that share the goals of increasing student attendance and engagement at the local, state, and national levels and that facilitate connections to one another.
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COVID-19 and School Reopening Resources
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shared health tips for a successful school year for students, teachers, school staff, and their families. The CDC also published a list of questions for parents and caregivers to ask schools to learn more about their COVID-19 precautions. The CDC has specific COVID-19 guidance for K-12 schools and information on ways to maximize protection from the variants of the virus.
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 Return to School Roadmap: A Guide for K-12 Schools and Communities for the 2021-2022 School Year
The Biden Administration has developed a Return to School Roadmap to support educators and school leaders, parents, families, and communities and to lead students on a path to return to in-person learning this fall, where they are safe and supported. The Roadmap contains three “Landmark” priorities for each school, district, and state as they work to reengage students this summer and bring them back into classrooms. These priorities can be advanced using funding from the American Rescue Plan, which provided historic investments to states and districts as they work to reopen schools safely and address the impacts of COVID-19 on our nation’s students and schools. The goal of the Roadmap is to make sure every student has the support and opportunities they need to heal, learn, and grow in their classrooms and to create an environment where they belong and can thrive.
From Sept. 20-24, Secretary Cardona launched the “Return to School Road Trip,” a bus tour to showcase students and communities safely returning to in-person learning. Throughout the tour, Secretary Cardona, Deputy Secretary Cindy Marten, and local school leaders joined students, parents, educators, and school communities for events that highlighted schools and communities that have safely welcomed students back to in-person learning.
The “Return to School Road Trip” featured stops in Eau Claire, Madison, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Palatine and Chicago, Illinois; Kendallville, Indiana; Toledo, Ohio; and Mt. Pleasant, Lansing, Detroit, and Canton, Michigan. Secretary Cardona visited students from prekindergarten through higher education, highlighting how students, families, and the educators and staff who serve them are excited and ready for safe in-person learning this fall.
Please visit the Roadmap and road trip press release for additional information, and check out videos from the road trip on YouTube.
Becoming Trauma Informed: Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma
This brief by the National Comprehensive Center introduces readers to adverse childhood experiences, so educators can understand the role of trauma, its effect on children and learning, and the importance of addressing it in school settings, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Becoming Trauma Informed: Taking the First Step to Becoming a Trauma-Informed School
This brief by the National Comprehensive Center provides guidance for the implementation of trauma informed (TI) approaches at the school, district, and state levels. Becoming Trauma Informed offers the multitiered system of support as a promising framework for integrating TI with social and emotional learning practices that are centered on equity, to improve social, emotional, and academic outcomes for students.
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Implementing Trauma-Informed Practices in Rural Schools
This brief by the National Comprehensive Center highlights the need for, and the importance of, implementing TI practices and approaches in rural school communities and shares recommendations for TI planning and implementation by schools and districts.
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Education Stories From the Field Phase 3: Planning for Recovery and Accelerated Learning
The Education Stories From the Field series from the National Comprehensive Center includes a series of in-depth interviews with state education leaders in Missouri, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming. In this series, chief state school officers shared their primary focus areas and concerns as they prepared to bring the 2020-21 school year to a close, planned for an unusual summer, and laid the groundwork for 2021-22. This blog post includes a summary of key takeaways from the interviews, including the chiefs’ thoughts on how to best invest one-time large sums of American Rescue Plan funds on behalf of the states and their schools.
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Lessons from the Field – Returning to School: Strategies for Reengaging Students
Earlier this year, the Office of Safe and Supportive Schools and the National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments hosted a webinar series to support educational settings in safely sustaining or returning to in-person instruction. The series features lessons learned and best practices from faculty; staff; and representatives from schools, districts, institutions of higher education, early childhood education providers, and other places of educational instruction, describing approaches to operating during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as strategies for reconnecting with students returning to school this fall.
The archived webinars can be accessed on this page.
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Back-to-School Week Resources
To support grantees as they prepare for the 2021-2022 school year, OESE sponsored Back-to-School Week, featuring resources and events to support the safe reopening of schools across the country. To view five days’ worth of sessions, visit the Safer Schools and Campuses Best Practices Clearinghouse website.
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Equity Resources for Reengaging Students
The Center for Education Equity, the Region I Equity Assistance Center, offers the following resources for responsive and inclusive strategies for reengaging students and families throughout the school year:
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Regional Education Laboratory (REL) Tool: Cost-Feasibility Analysis Toolkit for Supplemental Online Programs: User Guide
Online, blended, and digital learning in K-12 schools in the United States is a growing phenomenon, especially in response to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-21. Supplemental online programs are a popular approach to learning that allow students to enroll in online courses in addition to the traditional face-to-face courses offered at their schools.
To make fully informed decisions about implementing supplemental online programs, state and local education leaders need information on the resources required for implementing the program (such as staff, time, and materials) and their associated costs. Cost-feasibility analyses can help education leaders systematically gather and analyze the comprehensive program cost information that they need when deciding whether to adopt such programs. Cost-feasibility analysis helps determine whether implementation is affordable and can also indicate whether the payers can afford to implement the program as intended (known as implementation fidelity).
To facilitate this process, REL Appalachia developed the Cost-Feasibility Analysis (CFA) Toolkit. The CFA tool kit guides users through a four-stage process that yields cost information that can support decision-making about implementing a supplemental online program. The tool kit includes guidance, helpful resources, and an Excel-based cost-estimation tool that support users as they plan for the analysis (stage 1), collect data (stage 2), estimate program costs (stage 3), and determine the feasibility of implementing the supplemental online program (stage 4).
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Message From the Office of Indian Education Director
Although October marks the beginning of a new federal fiscal year, we know that your work to prepare for FY 2022 began months ago. This month, the Office of Indian Education (OIE) is focused on how we can support your work to reengage students during the pandemic. Our goal is to create a seamless experience as an Indian Education grantee so you can focus on services to Native students.
We encourage you to stay connected to our work via the OIE webpage and follow us on Twitter @OIEIndianEd for more updates!
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Formula Grant Updates
The OIE Formula Team recognizes the hard work of educators and school leaders as schools have returned to various modes of instruction, while supporting Title VI services and activities. Please view our new project director webinar. Annual Performance Report (APR) information for FY 2019 can be found on our website, including opening and closing dates and other requirements for the APR. Please also check for updates on the OIE’s EASIE Community of Practice website and visit our Indian Education Formula Grants (Formula) webpages.
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Discretionary Grant Updates
The discretionary team would like to recognize the continued investment in technical assistance to the OIE grantee community. Some of our FY 2021 technical assistance highlights consisted of:
- 43 talking circles
- Seven new grantee orientations/kickoffs
- Three budget workshops
- 12 distance learning webinars
- 12 project planning/reporting webinars
- 20 high needs coaching sessions
We recently solicited formal feedback on technical assistance for discretionary grant programs and will share the final results soon. We look forward to another busy year supporting your programs!
The team also is engaged in the American Rescue Plan-American Indian Resilience in Education award-making process. Please check out the new webpage for updates on the program.
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Brief: Integrating Family, Youth, and Community Preparedness With Educational Initiatives
As part of school preparedness, schools can collaborate, coordinate, and communicate with their community partners to help integrate youth, family, and community preparedness into their educational initiatives. One of the most effective strategies to achieve this is for schools and community partners to work together to identify and address gaps by building from existing resources. This brief, Integrating Family, Youth, and Community Preparedness With Educational Initiatives, provides information and resources for youth preparedness and provides strategies for integrating the topic with key educational initiatives in the before-, during-, and after-school settings.
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U.S. Department of Education Awards $84.8 Million in Projects to Native Hawaiian Education Program
The Department recently awarded 35 grants totaling $84.8 million of American Rescue Plan funds through the Native Hawaiian Education program. These grants go to Native Hawaiian educational organizations, Native Hawaiian community-based organizations, and public and private nonprofit organizations, agencies, and institutions with experience in developing or operating Native Hawaiian programs or programs of language instruction to address a significant need to assist Native Hawaiians and to supplement and expand educational programs. Visit this page for more information about this program, as well as grantee information.
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U.S. Department of Education Awards Over $100 Million to Alaska Native Education Organizations
The Department recently awarded 33 new grants totaling more than $100.7 million through the Alaska Native Education (ANE) program. These grants go to Alaska Native Organizations and entities located in Alaska that are governed predominately by Alaska Natives support innovative projects that recognize and address the unique educational needs of Alaska Native children and adults. These grants are funded primarily by the American Rescue Plan, which provided an additional $85 million in funding to the ANE program.
Grantees under the ANE program use their funds for such activities as the development of curricula and education programs that address the education needs of Alaska Native students, and the development and operation of student enrichment programs in science and mathematics. Eligible activities also include professional development for educators, activities carried out through Even Start programs and Head Start programs, family literacy services, and dropout prevention programs. More information about this program, as well as grantee information, can be found on this webpage.
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Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands approved for $160 million from the American Rescue Plan Outlying Areas State Educational Agencies Fund
On Aug. 18, the Department announced the approval of the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands Public School System’s (CNMI PSS) American Rescue Plan implementation plan. CNMI PSS’s plan details how $160 million in American Rescue Plan Outlying Areas State Educational Agencies funds will be used to safely reopen and sustain the safe operation of schools and equitably expand opportunity for students who need it most, particularly those most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The approval of the CNMI PSS implementation plan is part of the Department’s broader effort to support teachers and other educators as they work to reengage students impacted by the pandemic, address inequities exacerbated by COVID-19, and build the education system back better than before the pandemic. For more information, please see the Department’s official press release.
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This newsletter may reference and contain links to external sources. The opinions expressed in these sources do not reflect the views, positions, or policies of the U.S. Department of Education, nor should their inclusion be considered an endorsement of any organization.
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