With your help, we continue to make an impact
Across our community and across the world, families and individuals are starting to settle into their new “routines.” Our new normal is staying at home and wearing masks and gloves during the essential times we need to leave the house. For some, we are working from make-shift offices in our homes, while others are trying to figure out how to pay rent as their employer has been forced to close, ending their job and source of income.
Students’ new normal is school at home. Assignments come from teacher emails, video chats or phone calls or arrive in a backpack either picked up by a family member or dropped off on a doorstep by a school community liaison. Some families are able to make this transition happen fairly well, while others struggle to juggle their own work-from-home schedule while now being a tutor/educator. And for some children, they do not even have the support of an adult in their home to ensure that their work is being completed and that they are connecting with their teachers.
Impact on Education is there for the students and teachers of Boulder Valley School District. We are driven to ensure that all students have the opportunities to receive a great education. We look for the barriers and work to break them down. Though we have been tackling obstacles and battling the achievement gap since our existence, we are in a crisis that exposes the barriers, but also sheds light on how amazing our partnership comes together to support ALL STUDENTS.
We continue to work with Boulder Valley School District as they adapt to educating children in these unprecedented times. We remain nimble to meet emerging needs and poised to take immediate action to ensure that the essential needs of students are met and that their education can proceed. We continue to listen to parents, families and our partners at BVSD.
In week two of home learning, we can already see the successes of our actions and the Critical Needs Fund:
We are proud to see that 96% of BVSD students connected with their teachers last week. The teachers and community liaisons have worked hard to make sure that students are not only accessing educational materials, but they are making connections again with their school and peers, they are being reminded that there are other adults in their lives that care about them.
To make this possible, we helped acquire and distribute:
Over 2,000 backpacks to students across the district filled with the basic tools – paper, pencils, crayons, calculators, work packets and notes from their school principals that they are loved. Watch the video of a distribution day here
Over $10,000 age appropriate books to families who do not have shelves of reading books to turn to during this time of confinement
Over 7,000 chromebooks with the help of district IT staff are working with families to properly set them up and get access to the internet.
And, so many of our children are still receiving nutritious meals from school – BVSD continues to be the one place that they can count on to have a full belly so that they could concentrate on their studies.
To make this possible, we have been able to utilize the Critical Needs Funds and leverage partnerships.
Just this week 20,224 meals have been distributed – bringing the total to 71,056 meals since March 17th
And, due to a partnership with BVSD Food Services and the nonprofit Conscious Alliance and their sponsor, Hormel, these families will all have a ham to prepare for Sunday’s Easter dinner.
And lastly, to make all the behind the scenes support happen, BVSD has hundreds of essential workers who we need to make sure are safe.
To make this possible we have:
Collected hundreds of hand-sewn and industrial masks from the community
These BVSD team members leave their homes every day to help make the emergency plans happen. They care for essential employees’ children, prepare and distribute food bags, they go to the homes of our most directly affected families to deliver food, gift cards for essentials and school supplies, they sit on the curbs of our school buildings to distribute laptops and backpacks, they clean all the school building to ensure they are ready for students to return, they receive donations and deliveries in the warehouse – they keep and promote the community of what is school!
We are grateful to be able to help the district tackle many of the challenges! A supportive community means the world to so many of our families:
We truly are #AllTogetherBVSD
UPDATE (4/20/2020): THANK YOU to a fantastic community – our mask needs have been fulfilled!)
CURRENT NEED– FACE MASKS: BVSD is providing care to children of “Essential Employees.” We must help these teachers and children stay safe, so we’re asking for volunteers to donate face masks that we’ll distribute to students, teachers and other building personnel.
If you are a group or individual with a donation of 5 masks or more, please email us to schedule a pick up time. Bulk collections will continue through April 17th.
Addition Resources:
Please click here to learn more about BVSD’s Home Learning Kickoff Plan
Please click here to learn more about BVSD’s Materials and Food Distribution Plan
Please click here to learn more about Emergency Food Distribution
Please click here to learn about the Boulder Valley School District’s response
Please click here to learn more about resources in Boulder County
Please click here to learn about the State of Colorado public health and action plan
Read reporting on BVSD and IoE efforts to support students
Read in Broomfield Enterprise: Broomfield Community Foundation awards first round of coronavirus-related grants
Read in Daily Camera: BVSD’s Impact on Education collecting cloth masks for emergency childcare centers
Read in Daily Camera: BVSD is showing that school is a community
Read in Brad Feld blog: Boulder Non-Profits to Support for Covid-19 Relief
Read in Daily Camera: BVSD, SVVSD launch remote learning with schools closed amid coronavirus
Read in Daily Camera: BVSD starts Chromebook distribution ahead of home learning during coronavirus
Read in Daily Camera: A note from the publisher to Daily Camera readers
Read in Broomfield Enterprise: Impact on Education announces $100,000 Critical Needs Fund Match
Read in Daily Camera: BVSD hands out about 1,450 bags of food amid coronavirus pandemic
View: Photos of BVSD Sees Increased Demand for Food While School is Out
Read in Daily Camera: BVSD, SVVSD provide updates on at-home learning plans
