In the Spring of 2021, Neighborhood North was invited to participate in a study being conducted by the RAND Corporation’s Pittsburgh office and the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education to learn from families, educators, community-based organizations, and school districts as they work to support students during the COVID-19 pandemic through the small learning communities known as “pods” or “hubs.” The study aimed to capture the experiences of our learning pod staff and families and understand what was helping or hindering our work during this time by conducting individual telephone interviews with selected Neighborhood North staff and partners and selected parents/guardians of learning pod students. Through Neighborhood North’s participation, along with the study of a variety of other learning pods across the nation during this time, RAND and CRPE hope to identify emerging trends, best practices, and sticking points.  The desire is to help create an informed and nuanced conversation about how to support families, educators, community-based organizations, and school systems as we navigate the ongoing pandemic, as well as to inform public reports that synthesize the experiences and insights of participants and the lessons learned across the study so others can learn from the work we are doing into the future. 

You can download and read the report here.