How do you move student learning forward in the midst of a crisis? 

Ever since New York City’s schools closed their doors in March, The Young Women’s Leadership School of the Bronx (TYWLS Bronx), Bronx High School for Law and Community Service (Law & Community), and Fort Hamilton High School have wrestled with that question. The approach of each school: invest early in structures that support younger students for later success, and take time during this crisis to slow down and put student wellness at the center.

At first glance, the three schools seem very different. TYWLS Bronx is an all-girls small school serving grades 6-12 and focuses on empowering young women; Law & Community is a co-ed small high school specializing in criminal law and service; Fort Hamilton is a Brooklyn-based comprehensive high school with over 4,000 students, which is four times more students than TYWLS Bronx and Law & Community have combined. However, the three schools have a key thing in common: they’re part of the New Visions College Readiness Network for School Improvement (CR NSI), with school teams dedicated to ensuring students are academically and personally successful on the way to realizing postsecondary aspirations. 

All schools that are part of the CR NSI convene postsecondary success teams (PST) that focus on increasing the number of low-income students of color graduating from high school on-time and prepared for college and career. All 34 CR NSI schools are linked by a common focus on two early predictors of later postsecondary success: (1) ending freshman year with an 80 or higher grade point average (GPA), and (2) achieving the college-ready Regents math score that exempts students from taking remedial courses at the City University of New York, where two-thirds of NYC high school graduates enroll. Research has found that 9th grade GPA predicts a student’s likelihood of graduating high school and persisting in college, underlining the importance of creating school supports that foster early success in high school.

Developing structures that ensure students start high school strong is especially salient now. Without the daily routines schools provide, students can struggle to plan for their own day and organize their learning. It’s easy to become quickly overwhelmed in a remote learning environment and then disengage, and that risk is greater for younger students and vulnerable students. “It’s a challenge for everyone, and we especially see our ninth graders struggling,” explains Abby Hahn, a Special Education teacher at TYWLS Bronx and PST member. “Many of our younger students haven’t developed the executive functioning skills that allow them to navigate this new context.”

At TYWLS Bronx, the PST used 9th grade seminars at the beginning of the year – nicknamed “GPA Busters” by the students – to coach students on creating daily plans for courses. The structures that the team began putting in place prior to school closure are able to take on a new urgency now. From their homes, students continue to send to-do lists not just around academic planning but around their wellness – sometimes sending pictures of themselves in skincare masks as evidence. In follow-up one-on-one conversations, PST members coach students on establishing actionable personal plans for self-regulation, even down to setting alarms. The relationships that PST members established prior to school closure are still bearing fruit now, with students sometimes initiating their own one-on-one check-ins because they view their mentors as trusted adults who can give them the support they need. 

At Law & Community, student well-being is also at the center of the learning agenda. By the second week after school closure, Law & Community had begun implementing a wellness tracker that ensured an adult connected with every student weekly and recorded anecdotals on difficulties students were having. School staff then used the tracker to follow-up with emerging subcategories of need. This ranged from Google Classroom orientation to social emotional counseling for students who faced housing insecurity or who experienced losses in their family. The PST continues to act as an incubator team and is the first group in the school to begin drafting and implementing live lessons as the school transitions to some synchronous elements for the rest of the year.

Prior to school closure, the Fort Hamilton PST already was using Google Classroom to post advisory lessons for students. Now in the remote context, advisors are equipped to continue seamlessly with using Google Classroom for lessons, while also checking in with students synchronously via Google Meets. With many students facing challenges at home and struggling with the transition to remote learning, the PST has concentrated on ensuring every student feels supported and cared for, planning virtual college trips to institutions students are interested in as well as more engaging, celebratory events such as Digital DJ Dance Parties.

 “The relationships that we’ve built with our students matters most in times like these,” said Kaye Houlihan, Principal at Fort Hamilton High School.  “Yes, we will always focus on making sure our students are moving forward academically, but right now, our first priority is making sure that they are OK, that they are taking care of themselves. Our first priority right now is compassion.”

For these three schools, continuity lives on through the resilient relationships PST members made early in the year that still endure, both with students and with one another as teammates in a shared enterprise to achieve the CR NSI goals. Even now, the compassionate and student-centered efforts that teams are making to advance learning is an investment for the future to come: when school doors open again, staff and students won’t perceive a transition to an unfamiliar land, but instead can celebrate physically rejoining a community that has consistently made its presence felt through painful and uncertain times.