Hosting a community-building event in the wake of COVID-19 may seem like an impossible task, but building community is more important than ever in our current environment.

Schoolwide community building helps connect students, parents, teachers, and leaders. These personal connections will foster new school traditions and promote a sense of purpose, inclusiveness, and responsibility. You may find parents are interested in helping facilitate an event. If so, here are three ideas for your next virtual community-building event.

Host a Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger hunts are always fun. Host a virtual family scavenger hunt to engage students, families, and staff. Create a list of household items you want students to find. Then, schedule a Zoom meeting for everyone to join.
Set a timer for three minutes. Then, direct students to head off and find as many things as they can. A household scavenger hunt is especially good for sibling groups and lower school students.

Plan a Pizza Party
Start your planning by creating pizza kits to sell to parents. These kits should include at least four dough balls, flour, cornmeal, and toppings. Sell the pizza kits to families online, and schedule a time for parents to pick them up.
Plan a Zoom event over consecutive evenings, segmenting your invitees per division level. Create a video to share beforehand, demonstrating how to make the perfect pizza. During the Zoom event, everyone will assemble their pie.

Schedule a Movie Night
What better way to boost community engagement than to schedule a socially distanced movie night? This event is great for schools with outdoor space. Create individual snack bags for students with typical movie fare. Allow students to choose the movie, and project it on an outdoor screen.

During our upcoming workshop, Student-Centered Scheduling Design, we’ll go over how to evaluate your school’s current schedule design, challenges (and myths) of traditional approaches, and how to design a better schedule.