The Tennessee Department of Education has released the second set of reopening toolkits in a series of over 20 topic-specific resources to assist district leaders in making local decisions for school reopening this coming school year.
“Our department has invested a tremendous amount of time, thoughtfulness, and expertise to ensure we provide the best guidance for district and school leaders as they make local decisions, and I am grateful for the effort across the department and state,” said Commissioner Penny Schwinn.
Today, these five toolkits are available for districts to utilize:
Technology: This toolkit highlights the important role technology may play in daily instruction, whether taking place in the school building or in a distance learning environment. Schools may leverage this opportunity to further build on their instructional technology strategies, offering students and teachers additional blended learning experiences to further promote academic progress, but will first need to survey the capacity and needs of their students and staff.
Wellbeing & Mental Health: This toolkit is designed to assist district leaders, school administrators, and school counselors in providing opportunities to support wellness of school staff and social, emotional, and physical wellbeing of students. The guidance in this document also outlines important considerations for continuing emotional and mental health supports for an in-person, virtual distance learning environment, or hybrid approach.
Counseling: This toolkit will assist district leaders, school administrators, and school counselors in providing opportunities to support wellness of school staff and social, emotional, physical, and academic wellbeing of students.
Early Childhood: This toolkit provides developmentally appropriate guidance to assist programs in their planning for safe reopening of early childhood programs.
Consolidated Funding: This toolkit provides a checklist, best practices, and information on braiding and blending to maximize funding. It also includes timelines and resources that will be helpful to districts as they work to utilize available funding to meet their unique needs.
To reflect district practices and findings, the department will continue to update toolkits after release. Today’s release makes ten total toolkits available for districts to use as they make decisions for the coming school year.
The first five toolkits in the series were released yesterday and the additional toolkits will be released over the next two weeks following this schedule:
Monday, June 15, 2020
School Nutrition
Transportation
Special Populations
Finance
Implementation Guide Templates:
Tennessee Department of Education Pathway Selection Tool
2020-21 School Calendar Template
Wednesday, June 17, 2020
Academics
Charter Schools
Nonpublic Schools
Access & Opportunity
Postsecondary Transitions
Thursday, June 18, 2020
Staffing
Professional Development
Assessing Student Learning
Governance
Friday, June 19, 2020
Health & Public Health
School Improvement
Safety & Operations
Procedures and videos
Monday, June22, 2020
Continued Learning Plans, Template, and Example
Expanded Planning Tool
Last week, the department released an Overview Guide for LEAs, which is intended to provide broad questions and considerations for local districts as each seeks to make the best local decisions for the fall.
The reopening toolkits, along with other guidance documents and resources, are available to schools and districts on the Tennessee Department of Education’s reopening guidance webpage: https://www.tn.gov/education/health-and-safety/update-on-coronavirus/reopening-guidance.html.