Advocacy Group Recommends Strategies for Schools to Ensure Equity during COVID-19 Recovery

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:          

Lilia Melikechi
Communications Manager
Massachusetts Advocates for Children
lmelikechi@massadvocates.org
(617) 357-8431 x3232

Advocacy Group Recommends Strategies for Schools to Ensure Equity during COVID-19 Recovery

It’s a pivotal moment in education.

That’s what a new report from Boston child advocacy organization Massachusetts Advocates for Children (MAC) asserts.

“This pandemic is far from over, but as students go back to school this year, we must address the inequities that worsened during school closures. Students of color, students with disabilities, English learners – the students who faced the greatest barriers in education prior to the pandemic have been hit hardest by it,” explains MAC Executive Director Kevin Murray.

The report, A Pivotal Moment: Ensuring an Equitable COVID-19 Recovery in Massachusetts Schools, outlines eight recommendations, along with strategies for their implementation, for schools to address the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 school closures on their most vulnerable students.

The eight recommendations include a dramatic expansion of mental health services in schools, stronger family-school relationships, and classroom-based professional development centering culturally responsive and racially equitable practices.

“We are now at a pivotal moment in which schools have a responsibility to meet the widened opportunity gap in an inclusive, supportive, and equitable way, “ Murray stated, “Fortunately, schools also have an unprecedented opportunity to implement these recommendations because of the coming infusion of state and federal resources.”

A Pivotal Moment was written in collaboration with the Advisory Group for an Equitable Recovery, a group of education experts made up of service providers, school administrators, parents, educators, and community organizers. 

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