Effective and Supportive Transitions for Children, Families, and Educators

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children, families, and educators and the importance of transition as a lever to mitigate those impacts is the impetus for a new project and collaboration between New America and EducationCounsel.

Every state, school district, and community leader needs to understand what children and the adults in their lives have experienced over the last 18+ months, what they need to move forward successfully in the short term, and what long-term transformations will be needed to make significant system improvements.

In order to ensure a seamless transition for children, families, and educators, state and local officials must cooperate to establish permanent effective and supportive transition policies and practices that recognize this as a year-long process that includes collaboration across early childhood settings and elementary schools. They must also align what children and families experience and how they experience it, as well as continuous improvement efforts.

COVID-19 provides us with an opportunity to reimagine and recommit to strengthening transitions between early childhood and K-12 systems. It is now up to states and local communities to make the transformations that are needed and sustain and build on them for the long-term.

Below we have curated transition-related work, including toolkits and reports from New America and EducationCounsel, blog posts, and resources from other organizations. We will continue to update this page to provide writing and resources that reflect what we are learning over the next year.