Connecting Parents with Student Learning During Covid: An Apartment Outreach Project
School districts throughout the country have been working hard to address internet connectivity issues. As instruction has gone online, getting students devices and adequate connectivity has been a critical challenge. Once connected, however, more nuanced challenges have emerged. For many parents, helping their students with online learning and figuring out classes is a difficult task at best.
In normal times, schools might promote learning opportunities at schools for parents. Of course, these are not normal times. Social distancing (especially indoors) and large scale trainings are not practical. Masks and providing a safe and inclusive environment are essential. The dual challenges of COVID and forced online learning led Beaverton School District’s teacher Rick Bush to apply for a grant to create the “Canvas Caravan Project”, a grass roots parent education project which focuses on giving parents the knowledge to help their students be successful in a distance learning world. (Beaverton is a city that borders Portland, Oregon, and the Beaverton School District has provided devices to their students). The main focus is to provide timely, safe, instruction in an easily accessible outdoor setting so that parents can help their students meet the challenges of distance learning.
The following is an interview with Rick which describes the origin and rollout of the project — the first of many gatherings taking place on Sept. 23rd.
Briefly describe this “Canvas Caravan” project and why you chose to organize it?
The Canvas caravan project came out of a conversation between Sam Warren (another Tech Teacher in our district) and me in July during the time we were starting to plan the Middle School Technology curriculum for this year. She shared what her team did in the spring to try to connect with families. At one point, she said something like… “if we could just show people how it (canvas, our online learning platform) works….” We immediately started brainstorming a list of things we would need to make that happen at a social distance: a high-lumen projector, portable screen, hot spot, and portable battery. Ryan Hoxie — our Library and Instructional Technology Teacher — suggested we apply for a Beaverton Education Foundation Choice grant. We quickly reached out to the team at BEF and we were off and running!
What other people did you need to bring in to make this success?
In our district, we are fortunate to have structures that nurture successful teams. The Beaverton Education Foundation Beaverton Choice Projects provides a great structure to get funding for innovative projects like this. We were able to leverage our school social media to reach out to our community to provide a large portion of the funding. The middle school Student Manager position and the work they did in the spring is crucial to continuing relationships with families. Our district also has had a Hotspot Program for a couple of years now for students who lack adequate connectivity. Previous experiences with outdoor technology education projects with our Future Bus also provided a great model for how we could reach out to the community outside the school building. Without their leadership and vision in developing mobile community programs, I’m not sure that we would have had the concept so readily accessible. The Future Bus’s Eric Lemoine help with logistics, tents, back up equipment, and equipment transportation was essential. Without help from colleagues we wouldn’t have been be able to get a program like this off the ground.
How did you choose your first location?
When we started the conversation to get the project running I already had our Student Manager, Kris Damiano in the back of my mind. He did a great job reaching out to families who were having trouble connecting to Online Learning in the spring. He put a list of addresses into Google Maps to figure out the best route between families so that he could be efficient with his time. That map made it clear where we needed to concentrate our time. When we we were trying to decide on a project location, our assistant principal, Shawn Swick, knew exactly where we needed to go because of Kris’s work. We reached out to the apartment complex and laid out the our plan and how we would work safely with social distance, and they were really receptive!
What are key considerations for others who are interested in trying this?
Planning for social distance on the day of the event is of utmost importance. The equipment list is easy. I think the most important part of making something like this successful is the team of people you gather at the building level. Colleagues with different skill sets are crucial to determine which families need the most help connecting to distance learning. Once you have that structure in place, determining a location is also relatively easy.
I think it’s also important to remember that the focus of the presentation should be on empowering parents to help their children. Chances are that students are already pretty savvy with the online learning platform, and Canvas has a pretty powerful Parent phone application. Connecting parents to a way that they can easily support and monitor their student’s progress is a critical component to making distance learning successful.
From Brick Buildings to Kitchen Tables
This initial outreach project lasted an hour and served 7 parents. In addition to instruction, families received snacks and academic supplies. Given Covid and social distancing recommendations, working outside in an open area was key to this project’s first meeting. Just as important, though, is making sure to contact the parents who need the most help with online learning training. Getting into contact with school personnel who know families in need of training and working to find out outdoor spaces (like apartment complexes or parks) is crucial. Parents want the best for their children, but the influx of online tools and platforms and a classroom that has moved from a brick building to a kitchen table can be overwhelming. Working together with small groups of parents is a good step in assuring that all parents can support their students in these unprecedented times. It takes a team to put plan and implement an outreach project like this, but educating parents at the start of the year will provide lasting benefits for parents, students, and the school community as a whole.
