The day after NYC public schools closed their doors, Principal Kourtney Boyd asked if the Citizen Schools New York (CSNY) team at P.S. 157 could help by calling parents and putting together a list of students’ tech needs at home. Campus Director Jay Torres was ready to deliver—at that very moment. She and her team of AmeriCorps Teaching Fellows had collected this information from the beginning of the school year, having prioritized parent involvement as an important driver of student engagement—“this is the core” says Teaching Fellow Brenda Amaya.

Brenda is even on a texting basis with some parents, like Angel’s mom: “We genuinely care about our students. When school first closed, I saw Angel wasn’t doing his assignments and texted his mom. I found out it was because they didn’t have a computer.” As a Spanish speaker, Brenda explained how Angel’s mom had just missed the window for device pickup—she hadn’t seen the principal’s email in time. So Brenda helped her create an account on ParentSquare and fill out a form to get one mailed home.

This focus on building relationships with parents has made the CSNY team a crucial resource in P.S. 157’s transition to virtual learning. Through daily calls home, CSNY Teaching Fellows are the first to hear and respond to parents—majority Latinx—with language barriers that make it difficult to navigate the resources available to them. 

Funnily enough, for 8th grader Malachi’s mom Marcia, the assumption of a language barrier was the issue. “Marcia called me saying she couldn’t operate the computer she picked up because it was all in Spanish! We laughed about it because we’re both from the Caribbean—we just speak English,” Teaching Fellow Melesa Hall shares. “It’s great to see them looking to us for support. Parents know we’re here for them and they’ll reach out to us.” 

Partnerships like these are especially important for the students whose parents are essential workers, and therefore unable to supervise their children during school hours. “The children not being in regular school is difficult. I find it hard to keep track of the work and constantly reminding them to complete a task,” says Marcia. “Citizen Schools is very supportive and helps me with this through messages and phone calls.”

Now equipped with a laptop, Malachi says he is “coping well, it’s not really hard learning from home. I have more access to technology at home, I can sleep in and still get work done. I am not worried about the future.” His sister Abigail, a 7th grader, is having a tougher time adjusting, saying “Everything is harder from home. I want to come back to school because it is boring at home and I miss my friends. But my gym class videos are my favorite virtual activity! And Ms. Amaya’s [Brenda’s] academic league session because she helps me with my homework.” 

In addition to daily calls home, Teaching Fellows lead a variety of virtual clubs and activities, which help support students’ social emotional needs. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Brenda runs Art Club, a virtual continuation of an important outlet for students set on attending an art school. “These students are serious—some of them used to go to a program at Pratt Institute every Saturday. We were doing painting before the pandemic, but now we’re doing pencil drawings and the basics of line. They still love it and want to do a virtual exhibition” says Brenda. Through virtual experiences like these, P.S. 157 students are provided channels to express and share how they’re feeling. 

P.S. 157 Teaching Fellows also coordinate our virtual apprenticeships with Citizen Teachers from Google for Writing Academy, Pencil Code and Scratch, which was formerly Lego Robotics. Since the robots for Lego Robotics were locked inside the school, Citizen Teacher Harry Bullen was “dedicated, flexible and creative. We brainstormed a few ideas and decided to program animation in Scratch and the students love it. Only two are joining on a regular basis since some students are still waiting to get devices, but it’s still amazing how these kids are able to switch gears and adapt to new situations” says Melesa, who partners with Harry for Scratch. 

Read more about Harry and how other Google Citizen Teachers are mobilizing for Citizen Schools students here.