The coronavirus pandemic has reshaped the role of teachers, and Indiana educators identify ways that school, district and state leaders can improve their response to the crisis in a report released Thursday.
Recommendations in the Teach Plus report address resources for immediate and long-term needs exacerbated by the pandemic, mental health support for educators and implementing innovative ideas to better meet students’ needs.
Listening to educators and giving them the time and resources they need is a must, said Rachel Hathaway, Teach Plus Indiana executive director.
“We also mustn’t lose sight of the opportunity to leverage educators’ learnings and innovative solutions to reimagine the profession and create a more equitable education system for all of Indiana’s students,” Hathaway said in a statement.
Teach Plus is a national nonprofit empowering teachers to lead improvements in educational policy and practice.
“Improving As We Go: Learning from Indiana District Reentry Plans” draws on an analysis of 20 district reentry plans and focus groups with 50 teachers, who provided perspectives on topics including student and teacher mental health; social and emotional learning resources in schools; and how schools can emerge from the pandemic stronger.
Broadened expectations for teachers have resulted in burnout among educators, the study found.
The overnight switch to virtual learning led to teachers providing technical support to students and their families while scrambling to adjust their own instruction, the report said.
This abrupt transition also reaffirmed teachers’ roles as connectors who support students and engage the wider school community, the report said, noting that teachers used online platforms, phone calls, texts and emails to connect with students and families.
Students have needed more social emotional support because they are experiencing higher levels of trauma – such as from hunger, abuse and isolation – than ever before, the report added.
Teach Plus found that 84% of focus group participants said they are more concerned about their students’ mental health than in a typical school year. About 34% felt their school or district was “not very well” or “not at all well prepared” to tend to these needs.
“Educators, who interact with their students daily, know firsthand that the disruption caused by the pandemic amplified the need to better support student mental and emotional wellbeing,” the report said.
Recommendations include providing teachers better access and more financial support to seek mental health care services and giving them adequate resources and time in their regular schedules for professional development. For the latter, Teach Plus calls on the legislature to revise laws to allow districts more flexibility in creating their master schedules.
The pandemic is also an opportunity for educators to reimagine school – for creating teacher task forces to brainstorm, review and implement innovative ideas – to better meet their students’ specific needs, the report said.
For instance, the report suggests, schools that have many students thriving in virtual settings should make this learning option available after the pandemic ends.
“Today, old solutions are no longer applicable,” Greg Sparks, Teach Plus Indiana Policy Fellow and Indianapolis high school teacher, said in a statement.
“The COVID experience calls for utilizing teacher voice, a focus on student and staff culture, and an implementation of social emotional learning to advance equity and student engagement.”
