Global School Leaders

Dear GSL Partners,

Thank you for coming together on Monday to begin the discussion around our network’s response to COVID-19. We hope that you and your families are safe and that you are taking care of yourselves.

Since we spoke, the crisis has deepened around the world and the reality of the situation is becoming more apparent. The responsibility that each of you are taking for the communities your programs serve inspires us. Since our call, we’ve heard further stories of you reaching out directly to government officials, leaders, teachers, and even former students in both a professional and personal capacity. We also have appreciated the urgency to which you all have responded to the crisis and the clear plan of action developed by Dignitas as well as Pemimpin experimenting with ways to engage school leaders online.

We were further moved to action by our call on Monday and have been thinking about how important it is for us to collectively play a leadership role at this time. In our internal discussions, two primary thoughts have centered us:

1. We must keep the physical and mental well-being of our leaders, teachers and students at the top of our actions
2. This moment highlights the critical leadership role our SLs must rise to in service of their schools and communities. To that end, we must first and foremost model the same care and urgency that we hope to see from our SLs.

While our contexts are different, our organizations are collectively tied together by a fierce belief in the importance of school leadership not just to the academic outcomes of children but to the development of our communities. We must address the needs of our school leaders so that they, in turn, can ensure that every child is cared for and their basic needs are met. Parents see the SLs as community leaders, but our SLs have never addressed something like this before (and neither have any of us). We at GSL want to bring our 5 organizations together to provide motivation and thought-partnership as we face this unprecedented crisis.

We drafted this attached tool that codifies a framework for action that builds off of these ideas and the thoughts you shared with us this week. Below is three-step initial response that we wanted to discuss with you all on our call next week. If any of you is already doing work on one or more of these three or wanting to start before Monday, that would greatly inform our conversation.

1. Set-Up Communication Channels: On our call, most of you mentioned that you already had in place a communication channel between Program Managers and School Leaders. Program Managers have a key opportunity to check in on, find resources to support, and motivate the SLs to ensure that they have the energy and ability to serve their communities, despite the personal challenges they may be facing. With the PM’s support, SLs should then check in with their teachers with a reassuring and positive message, inquiries about their needs, and follow up communications to keep them motivated and safe. Teachers in turn can reach out to their students and parents with similar messages. These calls can be done directly by the teachers, or through a network of parent “champions.” Through these calls, it is important to determine the best way to build community - bringing leaders together on group calls, using existing communication channels, etc. Program Managers tracking this data will help ensure that each family that we are serving has received communication from their school. It can also serve as a model for the more engaged school leaders to follow.
2. Understanding Community Needs: Based on the information that is emerging from the communication chain, we can facilitate responses to community needs. Some communities might have a different need than others. Families in one area might be struggling with essential supplies while another community might have that figured out. Program Managers can put this data together and sharing regular updates on the assets/ needs of the communities. Further, they can support school leaders with resources and strategies to act to meet these needs by linking them to resources that we may know are available through our NGO networks. As you collect data, our team is ready to support you in looking through what you’re learning and find ways to address needs.
3. Responding to Needs and Inspiring with Stories of Hope: From our experience, people are looking for ideas about how they can help. Many of the resources that are circulating are not adapted to the needs of communities in which we work. It is important for us to surface and document stories about how school leaders are finding ways to respond to provide insight and motivation for others, both in our networks and beyond. In addition to stories, we can share data from what we are finding so that SLs have access to evidence-based information about the state of their communities.

We want to make a special note here about low fee private schools - these school leaders might be worried about their financial viability, retaining teachers, and losing students. They are also less likely than government SLs to be getting guidance and resources. Now is the time for SLs to be proactive in being there for their students and families - apart from the short run benefits of caring for the community, in the longer run, this will strengthen the loyalty from their students and their families to their schools.

At GSL, we want to help in whatever ways you think is most valuable. In particular, we are ready to create tools and templates for all of the above steps to work. Below is a list of resources we have considered generating over time. When we talk, please add to this list:

• An initial checklist and tracker that can help guide step 1 of this process
• A simple script about COVID-19 and how to stay safe that could be used as talking points
• A template for locally available resources available to SLs
• Common databases and communication tools to enable sharing of information across the network
• Resources for SLs to build community among their students in the coming weeks and encourage learning that does not require technology

Thanks for all the work you are doing to keep children safe and healthy and learning. We are hopeful that if we all do the maximum in the current situation we can play a small part in pushing through this crisis and coming out stronger.

Step up communication streams

Analyze data and develop a plan of action

Find and distribute resources