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Students can lose more than academic ground during school disruptions. They can also lose the foundation of academic habits and routines needed to recoup their learning.

鈥淭he structured and orderly environments that schools generally provide are really important to help kids learn routines, these social norms of how do you get yourself prepared? How do you get organized? And the disruptions of the pandemic really threw those for a loop,鈥� said Ronn Nozoe, the chief executive officer of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. 鈥淎nd so we saw and still see kids struggling to get back in the groove and find their way back into the typical operations of the school day and how things should go in schools.鈥�

After two years of fallout from the pandemic鈥攁ll the school closures, trauma, widespread teacher and student absences, and social distancing鈥攅xperts say students continue to struggle with academic habits they鈥檝e forgotten, or never fully learned. In a nationally representative survey taken in January and February, 80 percent of educators told the EdWeek Research Center that their students鈥� social skills and emotional maturity levels are somewhat or much less advanced now than they were in 2019.

But some educators and experts say helping students regain a sense of leadership and ownership in schools can both improve their engagement and help them recover their academic habits.

Collier County, Fla., public schools are among 5,000 schools nationwide that have adopted the Leader in Me program to reinforce skills among students and adults. The program, based on Stephen Covey鈥檚 book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, provides training and executive coaching for principals and teachers to support leadership, culture, and academics in school. Through 38 鈥渒ey concept鈥� lessons for each grade level, each about 15-30 minutes long, teachers model ways for students to first 鈥渓ead themselves鈥� through personal responsibility, planning, and decisionmaking, then 鈥渓ead others鈥� through attentive listening, conflict resolution, and teamwork, according to a Harvard University evaluation of the program.

鈥淚f you look at the seven habits from a student level, we focus on executive function skills, right? That鈥檚 really habits one through three: I鈥檓 responsible for myself. I need to set and plan goals. I need to manage my time accurately,鈥� said Meg Thompson, the vice president and general manager of FranklinCovey Education, which runs Leader in Me, and the author of The 4 Disciplines of Execution for Educators. 鈥淲e have been hearing from a number of our client schools. They feel like they would not have survived the pandemic had the kids not had this [executive function skills] foundation. And now post-pandemic, it鈥檚 the structure that they鈥檙e using to put themselves back together.鈥�

Harvard University鈥檚 2021 found that across multiple studies, the Leader in Me program was associated with reduced behavior problems and absenteeism, more-positive perceptions of school climate, and higher math and reading/language arts test performance, particularly for Black students.

Schools build students鈥� identity as leaders

During the pandemic, Collier County has expanded Leader in Me to 25 of its 52 schools, with all grades including a 30-minute lesson two days a week on social-emotional learning activities.

Educators 鈥渟aw the need for their kids to have structure, to understand a belief in themselves to be leaders, to help their future and their down-the-road careers,鈥� said Kamela Patton, Collier County鈥檚 schools superintendent.

The district serves 43,000 students in schools spread across an area bigger than Delaware. About 65 percent of students live in poverty, and 55 percent do not speak English at home鈥擲panish and Haitian Creole are the most common of the more than 100 home languages.

Patton said twice-weekly districtwide activities help students and teachers build a shared sense of identity. Most recently, students and teachers created building-wide human chains to close a circuit and light a lightbulb as a demonstration of both the electricity and the need for individual members to contribute to a team. 鈥淎nything we鈥檙e trying to do, we鈥檙e trying to do it over a large space,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o if you don鈥檛 have systems in place, you鈥檙e not gonna move that needle.鈥�

In Immokalee, Fla., academic disruptions didn鈥檛 start with the pandemic鈥攖hey are a way of life. More than 40 percent of the students in Pinecrest Elementary School live in migrant farmworker families who seasonally travel between Collier County and other farm and packing communities in Florida, Tennessee, and elsewhere. Nearly all of the students are Black or Hispanic, and more than 60 percent are learning English as a second language.

The state had just given Pinecrest a failing accountability grade and threatened the school with closure or charter takeover when Laura Mendicino took over as principal in May 2020, in the teeth of the pandemic. Mendicino, who had successfully implemented Leader in Me at her previous school, Highlands Elementary, prioritized implementing the program at Pinecrest, too.

鈥淎llowing students to really start to make decisions on campus and have that ownership of our campus really impacted the culture of the school, which naturally impacted the academics,鈥� Mendicino said. 鈥淲ithin a year, we went from an F to a C [on the state鈥檚 school accountability rankings]. The following year, we went from a C to an A, and have maintained that A ever since.鈥�

Executive coaching helps set culture

Teachers and principals receive executive coaching on the habits, in six to 12 sessions of an hour to 90 minutes each.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not just training for kids. Teachers are learning better habits, too鈥攂eing proactive, beginning with the end in mind鈥攊n their own personal lives, 鈥� because you can鈥檛 sit there and reinforce it with kids and not pick it up yourself,鈥� Patton said.

Patton and Mendicino said training, support, and even individual coaching to improve academic habits among principals and teachers are crucial to building a 鈥渃ulture of leadership and responsibility鈥� in schools.

鈥淚t truly is a two-year process where [teachers and students] have to live it,鈥� Mendicino said. 鈥淭hey have to understand what it means to set aligned, attainable, and measurable goals and then see how 鈥� those strategies and those actions that we do every day are going to impact the goals. We track the things that we鈥檙e doing every day, because it should inch us closer and closer to meeting our goal at the end.鈥�

For example, Mendicino said, her teachers have focused on one habit鈥斺�渢hinking win-win鈥濃�攖o help students get back into the habit of working together after years of first virtual, then socially distanced, instruction. 鈥淔or so long, they sat 6 feet apart. They had masks on; their teachers had masks on. It was such an isolated way to teach students,鈥� Mendicino said. 鈥淭hinking win-win,鈥� one of Covey鈥檚 original 鈥渉abits,鈥� involves teaching students to value cooperation over competition when working in a team, and looking for solutions to interpersonal problems that benefit both sides.

鈥溾�夆�楾hinking win-win鈥� has been huge with our kids because we鈥檝e had to almost retrain kids how to work together collaboratively,鈥� she said. 鈥淪o we鈥檝e had to go back to teaching kids how to speak with each other: how to listen; how to seek to understand what their peers are saying, process that, and then reply based on the [peer鈥檚] emotional standpoint, the context, their background understanding鈥攁nd do it in a way that鈥檚 respectful.鈥�

Modeling good academic habits also means being willing to show students your own struggles during the pandemic, Patton said. A self-described 鈥渙rganizational freak,鈥� Patton makes a point of talking with students about how stress and lack of time in the last two years have hurt her own ability to stay organized and how she finds small ways to improve.

鈥淭hese last two years [my inbox] is a mess all the time. Every day, I鈥檓 losing five minutes digging through [it],鈥� Patton said. 鈥淪o if I鈥檓 overwhelmed as an adult, you can guarantee our kids are overwhelmed during these times.鈥�