Schools are closing again: here’s what families need to know

Traffic to schoolclosures.org has jumped 1,146% since last week.

With Omicron spreading across the country, schools are closing again and families are rightly concerned about what the future will look like.

While nobody wants this to happen again, some level of school closures is inevitable. While we hope for the best, if what happened last time is any indication, we at school closures, believe we may be expecting another 3–6 months of full-on remote school.

What we have seen Tompkins County and other areas first hit by this variant suggests we need to prepare for the worst. Omicron is highly transmissible and unlike the first variant, is impacting children worse than adults.

With schools closing again, we are renewing efforts and are here to help. Any family who needs it can contact us here for live support or search our website, schoolclosures.org, for comprehensive information on education, food, childcare, mental health, social-emotional development and more.

In 2020, our coalition of 80 partner organizations and 300 volunteers helped over 100,000 families through the pandemic. We assisted families with not only educational support, but mental health, access to food, emergency childcare and other critical areas impacted by school closures.

We can get you the help you need and we will not send you down any rabbit holes. We will stay with you until we find a solution to your crisis. You are not alone.

In the meanwhile, here are our six main tips and tools to help get you through this.

1. Ask your employer for help.

These are highly unusual times and no parent should be expected to perform business as usual. Many employers have been lenient in allowing families to have flexible hours or reduced time. If your employer is not being flexible, contact us and we will help coach you on how to communicate or find alternative work options.

2. Free curriculum planner

The good news is that in recent years, a huge number of learning apps and curriculum options (many of them free) have emerged for parents learning from home. This tool will help you find the ideal mastery-based learning app or physical curriculum, based on your child’s interests and family’s needs, to ensure your child stays on track academically.

3. Free mastery-based tutoring

Our free tutoring project, masteryhour.org, offers free tutoring to any family who needs it. The tutors are generous, passionate college students who want to make an impact. Studies from Benjamin Bloom and the Annenberg institute show that mastery learning improves student outcomes by 2 sigma (versus a group, classroom setting), regardless of whether a child is learning from a trained and certified teacher or a student/parent/caregiver, so tutoring can help a lot.

4. Social-emotional support/ friend finder:

Families are rightly concerned that their children’s absence from school will lead to loneliness. But developmental psychologists point out that social learning does not have to happen in a big group. The most important relationship is between you and your child. It may feel odd or like a far inferior solution, but we’ve actually found that i-pad/table playdates can be quite engaging and lead to deep, lasting friendships between kids! You probably have a friend from school or cousin your child can connect with but we’ve also developed a friend finder to help parents connect with families near them if there is no one at your school for your child to connect with. Please join our online community of parents and teachers for additional support.

5. Working from Home with Kids

We recommend parents carve out 2–3 hour blocks (no longer and dependent on the age group) when children study and parents work. Every situation is different, so we’ve created the Ultimate Guide to Working From Home with Kids to address every situation. It includes a searchable directory of activities to do at home with children, submitted by families around the world

6. Mental Health Support

As the saying goes, put on your oxygen mask first before assisting your child. While it’s a cliché, it’s true. This pandemic has taken a huge toll on all of us. You can not help your child well until you’ve addressed your own needs. Our friends at Crisis Text Line provide 24/7 support to families in crisis. They also handle lots of crisis requests from teens. Text HOME to 741741 to reach a volunteer Crisis Counselor. They can also help connect you to free, live counseling near you

More resources are available for free on schoolclosures.org Families can contact us at any time and we will call you or respond via email until your concern is resolvd.

We are here for you it’s going to be OK. We will get through this together.