If you’re a preservice teacher, student teacher, or in your first few years in the classroom, you might feel like big schoolwide initiatives are someone else’s job.
But when it comes to Children’s Grief Awareness Day, your voice and ideas matter—a lot.
Children’s Grief Awareness Day happens every year on the third Thursday in November (November 20, 2025). It’s a reminder that grieving students are in every classroom, and that schools can be powerful places of comfort, connection, and healing.
The Coalition to Support Grieving Students has created a practical guidance document to help schools recognize this day in meaningful ways. As part of KDP’s partnership with the Coalition, here’s a digest just for you—with ideas you can actually use.
Step 1: Start with a conversation
You don’t need a formal title to get things moving.
Consider reaching out to:
- Your cooperating teacher or mentor
- A school counselor, social worker, or psychologist
- Your principal or assistant principal
- A faculty advisor in your teacher prep program
You might say something like:
“I’ve been learning about Children’s Grief Awareness Day and the Coalition to Support Grieving Students. There are some free resources and simple activities we could use. Would you be open to looking at them together?”
The guidance document includes sample school activities that can be scaled up or down depending on context.
Step 2: Explore becoming a “Grief-Sensitive School”
One of the Coalition’s top suggestions is for schools to pledge to become a Grief-Sensitive School.
That doesn’t mean your school suddenly has to do everything perfectly. It means committing to:
- Recognizing that grieving students are present and need support
- Building staff awareness
- Using available resources and training
- Creating policies and practices that consider grief
If your school has already taken the pledge, you can:
- Ask how the commitment shows up in everyday practice
- Encourage nearby schools or your district to consider becoming grief-sensitive too
As a newer educator, you can be the person who keeps this conversation alive.
Step 3: Suggest one simple staff action
The guidance highlights several realistic options for November:
If a full PD session isn’t possible, you might propose a “microlearning” at a staff meeting: 5–10 minutes to introduce one video module and a tip sheet.
Step 4: Focus on students’ peer relationships
One of the most powerful ways to support grieving kids is by helping their classmates understand how to respond with empathy instead of avoidance or teasing.
The Coalition suggests:
- Age-appropriate classroom lessons on grief and how to support a grieving peer
- Student-led projects for Children’s Grief Awareness Day (posters, morning announcements, kindness campaigns, etc.)
If you’re student teaching or in a practicum, ask your cooperating teacher if you can co-plan:
- A short discussion about how people feel and act when they’re grieving
- A class brainstorm of “helpful things to say” versus “hurtful things to say”
- A simple project like creating affirmation cards or a kindness wall for classmates who are going through tough times
Step 5: Connect with families and community supports
Schools don’t have to do this alone. The guidance encourages schools to:
As a young educator, you might:
- Ask your counselor or social worker what community grief resources exist.
- Share the Coalition’s family booklet After a Loved One Dies with a caregiver in coordination with your school’s mental health staff.
- Offer to help your PTO or faculty sponsor prepare a brief info sheet or newsletter blurb about Children’s Grief Awareness Day.
Step 6: Remember the most important “activity”
The sample activities in the guidance are helpful, but the Coalition also emphasizes that sometimes the most important step is the simplest:
Encourage each educator to reach out to at least one grieving child in their classroom.
That can look like:
- A quiet, private check-in before or after class
- Offering a flexible deadline
- Letting the student know in advance that a particular lesson, book, or event might be emotionally tough and asking how you can support them
If you do nothing else on Children’s Grief Awareness Day, doing that for one student is already a powerful contribution.
You’re building the kind of profession you want to join
As a preservice or early-career teacher, you’re not “just” learning classroom management and lesson planning. You’re helping shape what it means to be an educator in this moment in history.
By recognizing Children’s Grief Awareness Day and using the resources from the Coalition to Support Grieving Students, you’re:
- Saying that students’ full humanity belongs in the classroom
- Helping to reduce stigma and isolation around grief
- Contributing to a school culture where no child has to carry loss alone
That’s third-act, legacy-level work, no matter where you are in your teaching journey.