The 3 C’s: Supporting Equity for English Learners During the Coronavirus Pandemic and Beyond

Comfort, Communicate, and Connect

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are all facing challenges in our personal and professional lives, the likes of which have never been seen. For our English learners, the fastest growing subgroup of students in the US, we are seeing the special challenges these students and their families face every day now magnified with schools being closed. At Confianza, our focus is providing access and opportunity to multilingual learners through our work with professional learning leaders, coaches, and teachers. We are working directly with our client schools and districts to respond in real time to the challenges of keeping teaching and learning going in some way, shape, or form. As the Founder and Director of Confianza, I’d like to share what we’re learning about what professional learning leaders can do, during this crisis, to address issues of equity for our ELs -- Comfort, Communicate, and Connect.

 

  • Hi, my name is Sarah Ottow, and I'm the founder and director of Confianza, a professional learning organization dedicated to supporting educators of multilingual learners, which, in our view, is all educators.

    And I'm here to talk with you about three major things that I've learned over the last several weeks in how we are responding to the coronavirus pandemic in our emergency remote teaching and learning experience.

    I'd like to share with you these three tips, and if you'd like more information, please go to my blog that goes into more depth and gives reflective questions for your school or district. Three Cs: comfort, communicate, and connect.

    Number one, comfort. Before we dive into the teaching and learning, let's back up and make sure that the basic needs of our students and families and of each other and our colleagues are taken care of. This is a crisis and traumatic for so many people, so if we can try to find out what's happening: have people lost their jobs, are there health concerns?

    If we can't solve the problems that families are going through as schools, let's remember, that it's on us to connect families with the community-based organizations that can. So please make sure that we are providing the comfort to our students and families, particularly our English learners, who are often already very vulnerable. However, this population is not a monolith. There is no one size fits all, and it's really important to get to know our families, and now more than ever, we should have gotten to know them, hopefully, and if we have newcomers, make sure that we have a way to get to know what they need and comfort them.

    Number two, communicate. We talk about two-way communication at Confianza, because it's not enough just to send a robo-call or an email. Two-way communication is mutually respectful and actually embodies the word confianza. Having confianza in each other means I trust you, you trust me, and we have respect in each other. And that means that schools need to have, and if you don't already, this is the time to have it: translation apps that go two-way and/or interpreters to use to connect to families to make sure that we're not just delivering information, but they feel safe in expressing their needs back to us.

    Number three, connect. This is especially important now and always, but focusing on the power of relationships. Yes, we need to keep the curriculum going in many cases, but let's not do that at the expense of capitalizing on personal relationships to get us through this pandemic. So that means taking time to listen to each other, taking time to share how we're feeling, letting kids and families express themselves, having the kids interject ideas into the online learning space, which, of course, we always wanna do to have student-centered learning, but now more than ever, this is imperative, as we wanna make sure to keep kids' spirits high and to make sure that families are part of the learning environment, that we're not excluding them through different online tools and such.

    So please keep these three things in mind and do let us know what you think. And again, check out the blog. Wishing you all as well as can be expected at this time. Thank you.

 

Comfort

First and foremost, leaders should focus on comforting students and families by addressing basic needs. You may have heard the saying that we can’t focus on Blooms until we get Maslow under control. That means we need to learn about and, to the best of our ability, tackle survival issues for our students and our families now. One leader told me this week, “not everyone in my district understands what my EL families are really going through” because, for many, jobs have been lost, undocumented statuses drive fear, and overall, there are so many unknowns. Furthermore, the digital divide is one major area of equity we are seeing more glaringly than ever. “If the expectation is to have children on computers, provide computers,” a leader stated, “because some households have several families living there and only one phone with no computer.” Plus, platforms can be confusing for families if the school has not used online learning in the past. Given that this time is full of uncertainty around economic security, health and other basic needs, I recommend asking the following questions of your school/district now:

  • Are students and families safe and healthy? How can educators check in to see if students and families have their basic needs met?

  • Do students and families have access to food? Can the school provide breakfast and lunch for the households?

  • What resources can the school and/or community provide now to make sure basic needs are met, including access to wifi and devices?

Communicate

When reaching out to EL families, we need to make sure that what we are communicating to families is, in fact, accessible by those who do not have proficiency in English. As one leader shared with me, “I don’t think I’ve ever been this passionate about my job before because now we are seeing which educators know how to effectively reach out to multilingual populations and who does not.” For example, by sending home electronic surveys in English asking who has wifi access for remote learning, we may leave out 1) those caregivers who do not have proficient literacy skills in English and/or 2) those who do not have devices at all on which to view and respond to the survey. Therefore, I recommend asking of your educators:

  • Is the communication we are sending home to families actually accessible to all families? If not, what ways besides email can we reach out (e.g. phone calls, texting, platforms that translate to home languages)?

  • Are EL educators’ expertise being leveraged at this time to support what needs families have, what families need, and what communication strategies can be effective now? What accommodations need to be made for ELs (e.g. modeling of online learning procedures expectations, scaffolds we would provide in the face-to-face classrooms, blended supports comprised of print-outs instead of all online learning)? Are we overemphasizing writing tasks or are we balancing all domains — reading, writing, listening and speaking?

  • Can leaders take note of any inconsistencies in accessible, two-way communication for EL families so that a more proactive and inclusive set of policies and practices can be put in place now going forward?

Connect

“No one was prepared for this and suddenly, it’s full steam ahead,” a leader told me this past week, “I really wish we could just take this day by day and see what we need to get through.” Let’s use this as an opportunity to slow down, breathe, and really connect with each other. We can focus on the power of relationships to get us through. Yes, ideally, we can keep teaching and learning going, but let’s not forget how important it is to check in and share how we are each experiencing this “new normal.” Let’s not overemphasize remote learning at the expense of organic connection and alternative ways of learning between all people--students, educators, caregivers, the community. “We’re keeping it simple right now,” disclosed a leader, “we are giving students academic assignments and we are also asking for students’ and caregivers’ ideas about creative projects, down time, and outdoor activities when possible, too.” 

Social-emotional support should be woven into academic learning and now is a great time to make that a new reality. Take time to pause, reflect and ask yourself and your stakeholders:

  • Are we providing the time and space to process these changes -- emotionally and logistically? Or are we pushing ahead with over-programmed schedules and expectations that may be unrealistic at this time?

  • How are we hearing from students about their experiences right now? Can teachers check in through phone calls or video chats to be less impersonal than email-only outreach?

  • How can schools capitalize on families’ funds of knowledge and not just the “official” curriculum? Can we balance the needs of core instruction with other ways of authentic learning in the home? How can families be partners who we work with to get through this together?

Resources

I’d like to share some key resources that may be useful to leaders at this time:

Leading for Equity, Professional Learning, Family Student EngagementSarah Ottow1b, 5c, t4