Funding for School Communications

🏦 The federal gov't has allocated ESSER I & 2 funds to schools for Covid recovery.

🚌 Schools must spend the funds on: student learning loss; technologies for education; Reaching ELL/ML families; providing mental health supports.

🤑 ESSER I funds must be spent by 9/20/22 & ESSER 2 by 9/30/2023

🧑🏾‍💻 Smore can help with all of it.

The grant money must be used to address the following:

• Addressing the unique needs of low-income children, English learners, racial and ethnic minorities, and others
• Addressing students' learning loss
• Providing mental health services and supports

Additionally, 1% of Title 1 funds must be spent on involving parents in their child's education.

• Newsletters can be built around remediation for any skill or content area, and can include a resources, links, and content aimed at addressing areas in which students need extra attention.
• With Smore’s shared mailing lists and collaboration features, teachers can create differentiated newsletters with content and materials that meet the needs of learners where they are.
• Translation features mean that multilingual parents can read the newsletter in their home language, enabling them to better support their child’s learning.
  

• Smore's media features allow educators to embed photos with ease. Teachers commonly add images of student projects, a snapshot of the lunch menu, or a photo of the lost-and-found.
  
• Smore supports embedding YouTube videos, as well. Educators often share instructional resources with colleagues, or include videos for parents that address what students are learning in the classroom. Sometimes, they'll record their own updates and embed them in the newsletters themselves.
• PDFs and Office documents can also be shared in Smore newsletters, so things like permission slips or important documents can be easily sent home -- all without touching the bottom of a knapsack.
• It's easy to embed forms or surveys into newsletters, so that educators can have a handle on parent preferences.
• Have parent-teacher conferences coming up? Smore's Event feature allows you to embed events and collect RSVPs.
• Smore has also become part of many educators' toolkits for remote learning. It's easy to make learning interactive -- even from a distance.

• From Arabic to Vietnamese (100+ languages), support multilingual families with templates in their home language.
• With its one-click translation feature, Smore enables schools to communicate effectively with students and their families who are English learners, and who further might be accessing school information via mobile.
• Smore remembers your readers’ preferred browser language and automatically translates the web version of your newsletters for recipients.
  

• Smore enables schools to send home emotional support materials, surveys, and event dates to support families during the pandemic
• It's easy to access and distribute pre-made newsletter templates that feature mental health resources for parents, students, and educators themselves.
• This is all done with the goal of making school communication one less thing to worry about, and enabling educators to focus on themselves and their core responsibilities.