Cleveland came into the pandemic with a history of collaboration among civic organizations and schools. In summer 2020, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) and partners--community organizations, funders, and out-of-school-time organizations--saw that students were in a crisis and came together to establish full-day remote-learning…

The Oakland REACH (REACH), a parent-run education advocacy group embedded in a predominantly Black and Latinx community in Oakland, California, responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by developing programming in response to community needs and found an opportunity to shape practices in schools. REACH's story demonstrates the potential for…

Data on the popularity of alternative educational models like "pandemic pods," homeschooling, "hybrid" homeschooling, and tutoring has been anecdotal, episodic, and parochial. Journalistic accounts of new learning communities in some cities and some states have profiled schools, the educators that teach in them, and the…

Prepandemic, the Denver-based African Leadership Group (ALG) helped immigrant families navigate public schooling, finding that districts generally did not respond adequately to immigrant students' and families' needs. Knowing that children from African immigrant families were among those most at risk of falling behind when COVID forced school…

During the spring of 2020, two months into the global COVID-19 pandemic, four leading CBOs in Boston--the YMCA of Greater Boston, Latinos For Education (LFE), Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA), and The BASE--came together to discuss what they can do to help underserved children in the city experiencing education disruption. In response to the…

Before the pandemic, Community Works in New Orleans, Louisiana ran large-group (100- to 200-student) after-school and out-of-school-time programs that integrated enrichment and academics for youth in grades K-8. When school buildings closed in March 2020, Community Works started offering more versatile programming options to meet the needs of…

Hyde Park Neighborhood Club (HPNC) is a small, hyper-local community-based organization that, before the pandemic, provided after-school care and enrichment to children living on the South Side of Chicago. During the pandemic, HPNC created a learning pod for children in grades K-8 to provide parents in the community with childcare and students…

Neighborhood North, a play-oriented community museum in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, had just opened when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and schools closed. The museum's mission is to increase educational equity in the community. Neighborhood North leaders immediately saw a need to support students at risk of falling behind in school with academic…