As the Senior Content Specialist for Aspire Public Schools, focusing on 6-12 literacy, Amy Youngman holds equitable instruction very close to her heart. Most of the California-based charter school’s students are from historically under-served communities. Unfortunately, the injustices and obstacles preventing many of these students from receiving a high-quality education have only grown during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Faced with unprecedented technical and adaptive challenges, Amy and the Aspire team connected with Pivot Learning and UnboundEd to utilize the Equity Reset Toolkit. The toolkit, created in response to spring 2020 school closures due to the pandemic, provides resources to support a data collection and analysis process focused on addressing equitable learning recovery in K-12 English language arts (ELA) and math. Amy and the team embarked on this process to better understand the impact of COVID-19 and determine what needs to be done to ensure their scholars receive the necessary instructional, resource, and social-emotional supports to thrive.