Families and Communities as Collaborators. The Small school as an Educational Community. Model at the Time of the COVID-19 Health Emergency and Beyond'.

In this paper, after having illustrated in detail the "small school as an educating community" model (modello “piccola scuola come comunità educante”) and its theoretical foundations, we will see how this model has been applied when the teaching activities have gone, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, from being exclusively on-site to being completely off-site due to the COVID-19 health emergency. The experience of the Unified School District of Bussoleno (Istituto Comprensivo di Bussoleno), in the Piedmontese mountains in the north of Italy, will be presented. Specifically, this experience involved two multi-classes, made up of first/second graders and third/fourth graders, respectively, of the small primary school in the complex of Bruzolo, as well as a class made up of eighth graders of the Unified School District. Finally, we will see how this model will be applied in this period of profound uncertainty, both for the school and for our society as a whole, in which at any time the teaching, from being on-site, can become blended or completely off- site for all students, or just for some.