Hello and thank you for joining us
today to learn about the planning for
the Next Normal at School Playbook,
COVID Prevention chapter.
We'll walk through briefly,
walk through a couple of plays from the
chapter as well as supporting resources.
I'm Flora Daniel manager at Kaiser
Permanente and I am joined by Alex Mays
co-author of the COVID-19 Prevention chapter.
Thank you for joining us today, Alex.
Can you share a little bit
about your background and experience?
Sure. Hi Flora.
Thank you so much for having me.
It's wonderful to be here. So I'm
the senior national program director
at Healthy Schools Campaign,
which is a national nonprofit that
focuses on ensuring all students and
staff have the opportunity to learn and
work in a healthy school environment.
I've been with Healthy Schools
Campaign for 11 years and I've
worked at the intersection of health
and education for almost 15 years.
And for the last year and a half,
my work has really focused on supporting
states and school districts in
responding to COVID and a lot of the
information shared in this checklist
and the playbook on chapter on COVID
prevention reflects the best practices
that we've learned from this work.
Great thank you for that introduction and
before we dive into kind of discussing
some of some specific plays and resources,
I want to give a brief overview
of the COVID-19 prevention chapter
checklist and which includes tips that
you can utilize in order to enhance
your COVID-19 prevention strategy.
So the first play is provide staff and
teachers with training opportunities
to support COVID-19 prevention
within the school building.
Take advantage of your staff's
expertise and health and wellness to
develop your prevention strategy.
Engage students'
families to help develop and
implement your prevention strategy.
Work with community partners and
agencies to develop and implement
your prevention strategy.
And lastly,
destigmatize COVID-19 to support
emotional mental and physical health
and families and communities.
Now here's a glimpse of what the full
playbook checklist looks like on this screen.
And Alex, I'd love to hear from
you if you could tell us why it's
important to discuss COVID safety and
prevention as we plan to return to school
and how does the checklist help us do that?
Sure, so as we think about safely
reopening schools and keeping them open,
we really have to think about the
measures that can be implemented in
schools to keep students and staff safe,
particularly for individuals who are unable
to get vaccinated at this point in time.
So for this chapter,
what we really wanted to
focus on was how schools
can open with health at the center.
So that means the chapter
focuses on strategies that build
the capacity of school districts and
schools to implement federal, state,
and local public health guidance.
We really think of this as a companion
guide to recommendations from public
health experts and hope that it will
provide districts and schools with
useful information to create school
environments that are set up for
successful implementation of those more
clinical public health guidelines.
Great and kind of digging into
the plays within this chapter.
What's a play that you like
to highlight in some supporting
resources that would help with
implementation of that play?
So one of the most important plays
on this checklist, I think, is the one
that focuses on providing staff and
teachers with training so that they can
not only support the schools COVID response,
but so that they also feel that
they have the support and knowledge
really needed to do this work.
What we feel is really important.
What is highlighted in this checklist
is how to go beyond training related
to academic instruction and ensure
school staff are receiving training on
best practices for COVID prevention,
how to support students during
these challenging times,
and really important how to support
their own social and emotional health.
So we recognize that this is not
what school staff signed up for,
but we feel like it's really critical
to equip them with this knowledge and
skills so that they feel adequately
prepared to face the challenges at hand.
And it's also really important that
schools think about providing that training,
not just to teachers and administrators,
but how to provide the training and
engage all individuals that work within
the school building and support the school.
So schools should consider how to provide
training and support to to custodial staff,
school health providers,
bus driver, cafeteria workers,
secretaries and others as they
think about the training that they
want to implement around this.
So one of the key strategies that we
highlight on the checklist is just
partnering with local public health
and community partners to organize
training around this work that could
be on COVID transmission and symptoms
from the local COVID situation as well
as best practices for really creating
a safe and healthy school environment.
And we also know students and their
families have a great deal of respect
and trust in teachers and school
staff and that they can be highly
effective messengers when it comes
to ensuring families understand the
plan that's in place and really feel
like their voices are being heard.
So we highlight how providing staff
with training on how to communicate
with students and families during these
challenging times will be critical
to really supporting a robust family
engagement strategy and also ensuring
that schools really staff continue
to stay connected with students,
families and their caregivers and
are equipped to really support them in this
and navigating the
changing environment. So one important
resource that I like to highlight as a
part of this this play is the guidance
from the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention on COVID prevention.
K12 schools and this piece is kind
of central to this whole
play this whole chapter,
the checklist,
and it's continuously being updated by
CDC and was actually just revised in
early July to reflect the continually
changing environment around this work.
Well, thank you Alex.
It sounds like there's some a really
comprehensive resources available through
the CDC that's up today and ready to use,
and that the chapter provides,
and this specific play provides a strong
model for schools to implement to keep
everyone informed and engaged and safe.
So thank you for walking us through that.
Well, if you could highlight a second
play and resource from the chapter,
which one would it be?
Another one that I really like is,
uhm, how important it is really for
schools to take advantage of staff
expertise and health and wellness.
And recognizing that there are individuals
within the school building and district
that have a tremendous amount of expertise
in health and wellness and prevention work.
So we really encourage schools and districts
to identify who these individuals are,
how they can help,
plan and implement a COVID
prevention strategy,
and really work with them to
reopen safely and stay open.
So that could include school nurses,
school behavioral health providers,
custodial staff, health education,
PE teachers. Just really thinking about those
individuals who are in your school
that have that key expertise.
And so as you're developing your
plans related to COVID prevention,
invite these individuals to the table.
Think about how to leverage their
expertise to more effectively
communicate with staff and families,
and they can really be key resources
too in terms of partnering with
community organizations and
others to support this work.
I want to recognize we know not
every school has a full time
school nurse or health education
teacher or certified PE teacher.
So it's really important to look at
who you do have within your building
that has helped them wellness expertise
and include them in the conversations.
And so I'll highlight one resource
as a part of this play.
Is that the National Association of
School Nurses maintains a fantastic
reference page on COVID-19.
I encourage you to check out the great
resources they have it there on there.
It's a lot of fantastic information,
but I think it also does a really nice
job of painting a picture of the role
that school health professionals can play in
COVID response within the school building.
Thank you Alex and I know there
this chapter of course is filled with all
very important plays and resources.
But if you had to select a third
play and resource to highlight,
can you share what that would be?
The third one I would pick is the
importance of engaging students,
families and caregivers in this work,
and it's just so essential to
the successful implementation of
a COVID prevention strategy.
Students, families, and caregivers need to understand
what the new policies and procedures will be,
and getting their buy in for these
new plans is just essential to
the effective implementation.
So that can include inviting families to
planning meetings for reopening schools,
communicating with families about
when to send their child to
school, new safety protocols.
And how schools planning to really keep
their child safe while school is open.
And I think it's also really critical as
a part of this to help families understand
the programs and services that are or are
not going to be available at the school.
So for example, you know will after
school programs still be available?
What will the school meal programs look like?
Will their child have access to
health services during the school day
and in the event that any of these
services or programs are taking place,
schools can really play a key
role in helping parents
connect with additional supports
to address those needs and that the
school might no longer be able to
meet or provide. And one resource
to really help you do that is from
the Children's Defense Fund.
They have a great repository of resources
for families which cover everything
from accessing services and supports
to self care to educational materials.
So if you're looking for good materials
to share with families in your community,
I encourage you to start there.
Awesome and thank you
Alex for walking us through a couple
examples of the plays from this
chapter and resources.
Free resources that are available to access
as support activating these plays. As we wrap
do you have any final thoughts
you'd like to share?
Sure,
I guess I would just underscore
that there are a lot of opportunities
to leverage existing assets and
infrastructure to support effective
implementation of a COVID prevention strategy.
So really encouraging schools and
districts to look at those assets.
You know whether that's existing
staff with health and wellness
expertise or partnerships in place,
there's a lot of work that's going on,
and it's important to think
about how to build on that.
And I think you know the pandemic
has just shed light on how much
schools do everyday and how their
role is so much more than academics.
And we hope that the information in
this checklist in these plays will
really help schools understand that.
They're not alone and have a lot
of existing resources that can
be leveraged to do this work.
Absolutely and thank you for that
for that final thought and thank you for
joining us today and walking us through
on the COVID-19 chapter. To access
the checklist and additional resources,
visit the Thriving Schools website
using the link that's on the screen.
You'll be able to download the checklist
and look through the plays
as well as the supporting resources.
Thanks again for joining us
today and take care.