Answer:
For most students and parents, that means staying at home through the end of this school year and participating in some form of distance learning.
School buildings are closed. Yet, parents, students, and staff face more challenges, and have more questions than ever. How you listen to your school community, and respond to their needs, will help you establish trust, limit distractions, and focus on delivering essential services and instruction in a post COVID-19 world.
At K12 Insight, we often talk about the importance of providing great customer experiences in our schools. These days, your attention on this front is absolutely critical.
The core of our approach is empowering school leaders to provide streamlined two-way communication that keeps students, parents, staff, and community members reassured.
Since March, our team has partnered with dozens of school districts to stand up free COVID-19 Response Centers. Powered by our Let’s Talk! K-12 customer experience solution, these centers help to unify school communications (across channels and mailboxes), so school leaders can focus on the complex challenges their schools continue to face during the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you’re interested in standing up your own COVID-19 Response Center, go here.
Or check out our recent blog post on how school leaders are using their Response Centers to keep community members engaged and reassured.
Of course, it’s important to understand that technology by itself won’t bring your school community back together.
You have to listen—and listening takes serious skills. Fortunately, these are skills you and your team can learn.
Every Tuesday at 2 pm EST | 11 am PST, I host a virtual training for K-12 school leaders, demonstrating practical skills for listening. Called Leading by Reassuring, our weekly training series shares practical ideas and tips and tricks to make listening a part of your culture, and shows you how to do it in an online and distance-learning environment.
In one of our most recent sessions, I outlined five key skills for improved listening and asked participating school leaders to rank how good they were at each.
As you work your way through this list, ask yourself: “Am I using each of these skills to effectively communicate during this crisis?” If not, now is the time to rethink how you communicate with students, parents, and staff. Get this right and you’ll be on the fast track to building trust with your community in this new normal.
