It goes without saying that 2020 has been a year like no other we’ve experienced at Turning the Page. We had been planning and looking forward to a year full of Community Night workshops, Parent Leadership Conferences in Washington DC and Chicago, and Summer Learning Experiences across both cities. When the pandemic flared up through the country and schools began to close, we knew we had to come up with a whole new set of programs to continue to engage the parents we work with.
While the year didn’t turn out quite as we’d planned, there were still plenty of highlights along the way. Read on to see how we’ve continued to engage parents and families during this particularly challenging time:
Response to COVID-19
March 2020 was a time of uncertainty, but the one thing we knew we needed to do was keep supporting the parents we work with. While holding true to our core principles, and within a few days of school closures in March 2020, Turning the Page remade programs such as Community Nights, First & Forever, and parent leadership into Digital Resource Hub, Family Room and Mobile Meetings.
Through the Digital Hub we were able to disseminate resources for families around school-specific information, adapting to remote learning, how to acquire devices, educational resources about math, science, & literacy, and more.
Knowing we needed to stay connected with parents one-on-one, we called parents and set up Mobile Meetings. These sessions included identifying educational needs, tailoring resources to individual families to support at-home learning, and creating predictable structures and routines which are proven to be essential for students to thrive and succeed.
Our Family Room events were a way to keep families engaged and provide unique experiences at home. Some of our earliest partners and collaborators included the DC Public Library, the National Institute of Health, Howard University, the National Museum of African American History & Culture, the National Air & Space Museum, and authors such as Lisa Maggiore, Sharon Langley, Amy Nathan, Erica Perl, and Christine Platt.
“Your resources were right at the beginning of the closure…keeping us in tune, keeping up with what kids can do differently, so I really think you guys did an awesome job as starting as early as you did, where the school system kind of fell a little behind and then caught up with things that the kids can do. So I think you guys were really important!”
– TTP Parent
Summer Programming
To replicate our Summer Learning Experiences, we hosted three virtual field trips. The first one was to the National Museum of Natural History with a behind the scenes look at a jellyfish feeding with scientist Allen Collins. The second one included a tour of a wind farm as well as a live wind turbine climb in partnership with WRISE (Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy) and Apex Clean Energy. And taking advantage of the virtual setting, our third trip was to the Wellington Zoo, 16 time zones away from DC all the way in New Zealand. We learned about animals and wildlife native to New Zealand such as an alpine parrot called a Kea, different types of geckos, and giant crickets called wētā.
In August 2020, Turning the Page launched a new Digital Resource Hub using the online platform and app, Edmodo. Parents can join our online community using either cell phone or email. Once connected, they can view and use a variety of content specific to their school or parent leadership group. Set up to resemble social media, we can spread the word about school and community events and parents can engage with posts by liking, commenting, and participating in polls. Resources are both shared and stored, meaning that parents do not have to dig or search for a specific post in order to find what they need. We have a full database sorted into categories most relevant to our families including math, social-emotional learning, science, literacy, and more. We have also been able to hold two physically distanced book distribution events in each city for families who attend our partner schools and have delivered books to families as well. Between August and December 2020, we distributed 1,816 books to 203 families.
“I’m reaching out to let you know how excited my preschoolers were to come home to a surprise package and every colorful book they were excited to have me read! We sat up all night reading and enjoying the books!”
-TTP Parent after a book distribution day
Parent Spotlights
Turning the Page fundamentally believes in a parent’s power to make real change for their children. So much of parents’ successes are behind closed doors and go unrecognized. In light of everything happening this year, we wanted to take the time to celebrate the extraordinary parents that we work with in the Washington D.C. and Chicago communities.
In DC, we highlighted three Turner Elementary parents: Aaron Strickland, Dorian Thomas, and Lashanda Sanguinetti. In Chicago, we learned of the experiences of Sumner Elementary parent Rovonna Baldwin and Legacy parent Rosalie Gaines.
“[Chicago Programs Manager Jenn Oswald] calls to check on me and my boys all the time to make sure we’re on top of work or see if we need help with anything. It could be not even related to school, it could be food-wise or stuff for the household. If she doesn’t have the information I need right away, she’s gonna look it up and get it to me. She is my go-to person, my Jenn!”
– Rovonna Baldwin
The New School Year
As the school year began (and still with distance learning), we continued to update the resources available on the Digital Hub and continued to connect with parents during Mobile Meetings. We partnered with the Lincoln Park Zoo for a behind-the-scenes tour. We also held three events of a four-part series with writer Candace Fleming and illustrator Eric Rohmann and includes writing exercises and discussing the importance of families writing stories together as a creative outlet. Candace Fleming is a Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner and author of more than forty books for children and young adults, and Eric Rohmann received the Caldecott Medal for his book My Friend Rabbit.
We’re currently planning for our final Family Room event of the year before the holiday break with author Fred Bowen and Coretta Scott King winning-illustrator James Ransome. They will be chatting about their book Gridiron and answering questions about the writing and illustrating process.
Creative Fundraising
Turning the Page has yearly “pop-up” book sales in Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Each Carpe Librum (“seize the book“) location sells books, CDs, DVDs, and vinyl records that were donated by the public. All proceeds go to Turning the Page in support of our program initiatives. While our physical stores have mostly been closed to in-person shopping this year, we were able to hold a few outdoor sales in each city – 14 book sales in DC and 3 in Chicago. We are grateful for the opportunity to work with our partners and wanted to take the time to thank them and highlight their own work. They have helped us during an extremely challenging time and we appreciate their collaboration and support of our mission.
For the first time ever, we have been delivering books to customers around DC and shipping book packages across the nation through our new Curated By Carpe Librum program. We are also currently offering private shopping sprees in two DC locations and have become an affiliate with Bookshop (for those interested in new books).
Looking Ahead
While we can’t predict what 2021 and the future of schooling will look like, we know that there will continue to be challenges and an urgent need for parents to step in now and know that they have the support system required for their children’s success.
We hope that you save the date and join us for a virtual event on Thursday February 4th, 2021, where will celebrate the parents we work with and hear directly from them their challenges and successes throughout the year. We’ll be sharing more details soon – we hope you can join us!