Gus Jacobson: Is there anything in Crew that we can do to kind of support us when we feel like we are kind of sliding back?

Student: So, I guess I’ll share. So, right now, I feel good.

Gus Jacobson: Crew is where a teacher and a small cohort of students comes together for half an hour every day to work on things such as character development, academic learning habits, and also just to build community.

Ariella: Something that I really value about Crew is we are able to say anything that we want. We usually have around 10 to 15 people in our crew. We are like a family.

Amy: It’s a safe space to talk about how you’re feeling and everything there is kept private. You can talk about everything that’s been bottled up, things at home, and nobody will judge you.

Gus Jacobson: Especially in a remote setting, the Crew has really become a very important place to just have some consistency and some routine. We try to make sure that students feel comfortable even if that means that they are not on camera.

Gus Jacobson: I just kind of say, “I want you to participate, whatever that means for you today.” There may be typing into the same doc or they’re posting things to a padlet or they’re annotating something on Zoom or they’re in the chat bar.

Gus Jacobson: One thing that I like to do at the start of every Crew meeting is to just check in with students and kind of see what energy they’re bringing into the room. So, we’re just going to do a bit of a check-in. Can you annotate where you’re at right now?

Ariella: I think he takes time to check in with us, because he actually deeply cares about us being remote. He really wants to make sure one of us is not left behind.

Gus Jacobson: Where are we today? How are we feeling in general?

Ariella: We’re mostly, like, in the yellow and green: calm, easy-going.

Gus Jacobson: After we check in, we’re really looking at what the needs of the class are. We might be doing something that’s focused on building character or if how we’re doing in a certain class or with the habit of work and learning. So, for example, in how to make best use of your organizational space online, how to send an email.

Gus Jacobson: Think of a teacher in your life that you would be interested in sending a warm message, maybe a thank you, and when you have that person in mind, give me a thumbs up.

Gus Jacobson: And then on other days of the week students might want to ask for classroom support.

Amy: Sometimes school can be overwhelming, so every now and then we’ll check in on our academics.

Student: For those who had, like, math today can someone, like, tell me what they were talking about to do since I wasn’t here?

Sarah: And, so, remember how we were doing the equation, like, Y equals MX plus B? We basically put it on a graph.

Gus Jacobson: And we also have students just venting and reflecting, talking about mental health and about how we’re doing.

Amy: I have other programs after school and it’s really difficult to sometimes manage both, especially whenever we have break we always get, like, a bunch of homework from each class that we have to finish.

Sarah: It’s like break hasn’t even started yet and we have, like, three things to do. Like, when do you expect us to do all of this?

Gus Jacobson: I just, like, so appreciate that we’re having this conversation with each other and, like, responding to each other. I’m happy to continue this conversation tomorrow. I think what I’ll do is..

Amy: Crew is just a space where I feel safe now. The fact that, like, other schools don’t have it, it’s kind of mind-boggling, because I wouldn’t really be able to function without it.

Ariella: And I really appreciate my teacher, because even though we are remote, he has been doing a lot of work to keep our community tightly knitted while we’re being divided.

Gus Jacobson: Crew is really essential to our work in a remote setting. So, every day, they’re seen, they’re valued, they’re an integral part of the Crew community.

Gus Jacobson: Thank you.

Student: Good-bye.

Gus Jacobson: Bye.

Students: Bye.