AISD launches web resource for community learning spaces

Today, Austin ISD students start their first four weeks of school – not physically at school, but learning remotely. To help parents and caregivers in this effort, the district has launched new web pages supporting the resources it calls community learning spaces. A community learning space, according to AISD, is “a place outside school where a legal guardian takes the student to receive in-person supervision, access to digital resources and other support.” These spaces are not run by AISD staff, but “facilitated by community organizations, groups of parents, faith-based organizations or other public entities” to provide “in-person support to students during times of remote off-campus instruction.” Among other things, the new web pages include training for remote student learning, FAQs for caregivers, locations of community learning spaces, and video tutorials for AISD technology devices. While such concepts are also called learning pods, the district prefers to use the term community learning space “because it represents the many ways individuals and organizations have stepped up to support students during the pandemic.”