This eBook has been prepared by our collective to help parents prepare for their children returning to classes as schools begin to reopen in various ways amidst the continuing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Our intention is to offer practical and actionable tips that parents, grandparents, and others raising children and teens can use to boost their family’s well being. We hope educators will find our tips useful as well. Our recommendations are drawn from findings from the science of flourishing and evidence-based practices in the field of Positive Psychology.

We recognize that every school district has its own way of reopening school buildings in terms of timing and rules. We also realize that these guidelines and decisions may be fluid depending upon the prevalence and community spread of virus cases in a particular country, community, county, system, state or region. Some schools may even be offering hybrid learning opportunities where students can be in a school building for in-person learning part of the day or week, and take classes virtually for the remaining class time. Some parents may have the option to not send their children to their school building at all, and do learning virtually - sometimes called remote or distance learning - exclusively.

At the time of this writing, there are continued deliberations about how and when school buildings will and should reopen as school leaders consult with medical professionals, educators, and families, in order to make decisions about how best to serve students, teachers, administrators, and staff. We recommend that you check often with your child’s school and local school district for continuing updates.

If you are still making the decision on whether to send your child back to in-person classes, please see our 'Questions to Consider' section to help you think things through. We hope that all stakeholders in education from parents to teachers and from educational leaders and staff members to students will find our tips useful in helping to successfully transition back to school, whenever, wherever, and however that may be.

We wish everyone well.