Monday, June 15, 2020 | 04:12pm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, June 15, 2020

TDOE Releases First 5 School Reopening Toolkits to Provide Districts with Guidance and Resources after COVID-19 School Closures

Department Will Release 26 Reopening Toolkits to Support District Plans for Fall

NASHVILLE, TN— Today, the Tennessee Department of Education has released the first five reopening toolkits in a series of 20+ topic-specific resources to help guide district leaders in local decision-making for school reopening this fall.

In addition to the Overview Guide for LEAs, which serves as a high-level guidance document to provide broad questions and considerations for local districts, there will be 26 toolkits released over the next two weeks focused on key topics to assist Tennessee’s district and school leaders as they make local reopening plans.

“These reopening toolkits represent an incredible amount of work done across our districts and the department to gather best practices, recommendations, and information that will help spur critical and creative thinking about how our state—and our nation—navigates a completely new era of education,” said Commissioner Penny Schwinn. “We hope these toolkits provide our district and school leaders with considerations and guidance as they make the best local decisions for the upcoming school year.”

The department will continue to update toolkits after release to reflect district practices.

Today, these are the first five toolkits that are available for districts to utilize:

• School Nutrition: By building upon experiences of the spring school closures in 2020, districts should inform strategies on how to ensure continuity of meal services through new and evolving contexts. This toolkit provides an overview for district leaders and local school nutrition directors on strategies and considerations to approach re-opening of schools, exploring alternative nutrition operations, and capturing the best practices from the spring closures.
• Transportation: School transportation plays a key role in school operations and the opportunities to support student wellbeing. This toolkit provides an overview of considerations, strategies, and resources to help districts ensure that student transportation continues to play a support role to students in keeping them as safe as possible going to and from school.
• Special Populations: Just as supporting our special populations during school closure required additional intentionality, such will be the case upon reopening. This toolkit focuses on reopening strategies for continuing educational opportunities and services regarding our special populations, including special education and English learners.
• Finance: Faced with economic uncertainties that may impact district budgets, finance directors will need to rethink fiscal strategies, leverage federal grant flexibilities and opportunities, and pursue competitive grants while maintaining strong internal practices on data quality and fiscal controls. This toolkit will provide district leaders with financial-related action items and considerations for the reopening of schools.
• Implementation Guide Templates:
  • Tennessee Department of Education Pathway Selection Tool: This tool is designed to assist districts as they review and make plans based off considerations in the reopening toolkits.
  • 2020-21 School Calendar Template: This calendar workbook is a template designed to help school districts make decisions on school calendars for the 2020-21 school year.

The forthcoming reopening toolkits will also be robust resources to dig deeper into considerations, best practices, and recommendations around additional critical topics. The following toolkits will be released following this schedule:

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

• Technology
• Wellbeing & Mental Health
• Counseling
• Early Childhood
• Consolidated Funding

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, June 22, 2020

• Continuous Learning Plans, Template, and Example
• Expanded Planning Tool

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.