Insights and actionable findings from three years of research on the specific social-emotional and school culture factors that matter most for academic growth. This Insight Brief shares key findings, resources, and guiding questions for school leaders developing and implementing back to school plans in the COVID-19 era. 

Our national portfolio of innovative schools and our Expanded Definition of Student Success (EDSS) longitudinal dataset provide a robust set of insights about effective innovations and practices. We believe these insights point to critical actions educators should take to build the post-Covid future. 

Our EDSS framework focuses on three key components of student development: a strong academic foundation; positive school culture and climate; and social-emotional mindsets, habits, and skills that help young people pursue their most ambitious dreams and plans. 

We leverage this framework to advance both excellence and equity across our national portfolio of 110 innovative public schools. These schools will serve more than 82,000 students at full enrollment, and educate a higher proportion of Black, Latino, low-income students and students with disabilities than the national average. 

Since Fall 2016, we have surveyed students every semester to understand and improve their schooling experience. Because our EDSS dataset spans multiple years, it represents an incredibly rich source of information about student performance and wellbeing from before, during, and after Covid-related school closures.

Looking across our portfolio of schools, we find evidence of resilience and recovery tied to a commitment to positive school culture and social-emotional learning. Indeed our data suggests that with early and targeted interventions to support social-emotional learning, it is possible to interrupt and recover from Covid-era academic backsliding.

Alongside our EDSS evaluation partners at Education Analytics, we generated four specific insights that educators can use to map out multiple routes to recovery. We will share more specific stories of the actions school leaders have taken to achieve these results in future publications. 

Insight 1: School culture improved and students demonstrated new depths of social emotional skills at the height of the pandemic

When we examined indicators measuring the health of school culture — such as school safety, teacher-student relationships, classroom engagement, perceptions of fairness, and rigorous expectations — we found that students reported statistically significant improvements when schools reopened in the 2020-21 school year than before the pandemic. To illustrate with one powerful example, between Spring 2017 and Spring 2021, we see a 15-point increase in the way 8th graders assess the strength of their relationships with teachers. It is emblematic of an overall trend we see in nearly every grade level.

These numbers challenge the dominant narrative that Covid-era schooling resulted only in losses for students. Our data show that the Herculean efforts teachers undertook to make their students feel safe, welcome, and nurtured made a real difference in their students’ lives. 

In the social-emotional domain, students reported statistically significant higher ratings on their levels of self-management, self- and social-awareness, and learning strategies in 2020-21 relative to pre-pandemic baselines in 2018-19 across multiple grades. See, for example, the consistently higher self-management scores among students in Fall 2020 compared to Fall 2018.

In our view, these results demonstrate the distinctive mindsets, habits, and skills that students drew on to navigate the uncertainty and crisis they faced during the pandemic. 

Insight 2. Students with strong social emotional skills and favorable perceptions of school culture before Covid performed better academically when school reopened

We found that over an 18-month period from Fall 2019 to Spring 2021, student impressions of school culture and their self-ratings on social-emotional learning were positively correlated with math and reading outcomes, as measured by NWEA’s MAP Growth assessments.

In other words, students who had highly favorable impressions of their school’s culture and/or strong perceptions of their social-emotional skills before the beginning of the pandemic subsequently went on to achieve higher scores in math and reading when schools reopened. This is a clear demonstration of the long-term influence of environmental conditions and social-emotional learning as a support for academic success.

It also emphasizes the importance of longitudinal studies focused on multiple dimensions of positive youth development. Because our schools survey students year-over-year, we can illuminate the compounding effect of an expanded definition of student success, especially since some school culture and social-emotional factors need a longer time frame to bear fruit.

Insight 3. Strong social-emotional learning protected middle school girls from Covid-era learning losses

Our EDSS dataset is rich enough to explore the educational experience of specific student subgroups and the interaction between different variables such as gender, grade level, and school subject. 

This led to an important discovery about the relationship between social-emotional learning and progress in math for middle school girls during the pandemic. We found that girls in grades 6-8 with high SEL skills pre-Covid exceeded typical growth trajectories in math that were established before the pandemic. More simply: They did not experience learning loss. In fact, this group of students demonstrated nearly three-times the amount of math growth in 18 months as their female peers who reported low SEL skills pre-pandemic.

This finding gives us another convincing data point that Covid-era learning loss is neither inevitable nor insurmountable. Early and targeted social-emotional interventions can provide a foundation for later academic success.

Insight 4. Students were more likely to meet their growth goals in math and reading when they had strong positive perceptions of school culture

When we probed the relationship between student performance in academics and their perception of school culture, we found a strong relationship. For example, in 2021-22, elementary school students who had the most favorable impressions of school culture were nearly two times more likely (62% vs. 34%) to meet their growth goals in math. The inverse held as well. If students were in the bottom quartile of school culture ratings, they were more likely to miss their growth goals in math.

A similar—though not as dramatic—trend played out when we looked at the quartile distribution of school culture ratings and the likelihood of meeting growth goals in reading. The number of elementary, middle, and high school students surpassing their growth targets tended to increase as students exhibited more favorable impression of school culture. 

These findings shed light on the importance of factors like rigorous expectations, teacher-student relationships, and student engagement. They suggest there is a baseline positive perception of school culture that students need to perform well in school. Our analyses point to the critical importance of getting beyond the 25th percentile threshold to support the academic performance of students, especially at the elementary and middle school levels for math. For high school students and reading, the threshold is higher, reaching the 50th percentile of positive impressions of school culture to improve the likelihood of meeting growth goals.

We also compared the amount of academic growth of students who scored the lowest (i.e., below the 25th percentile) or highest (i.e., above the 75th percentile) on each construct of our EDSS framework from Fall 2021 to Spring 2022. 

This allowed us to learn that among elementary school students, sense of belonging was the most consequential variable on differences in math outcomes. Students with the strongest sense of belonging had significantly more growth in math than their peers who felt the least connected to school. This difference is the estimated benefit of attending school for an additional 4.7 months on top of a typical 180-day school year. Differences in perceptions of school safety had the largest practical impact on reading scores at the elementary level: Students who felt the safest demonstrated reading growth that is equivalent to 4 additional months of instruction.

In the middle school years (i.e., grades 6-8), students with the highest relative scores on sense of belonging, rigorous expectations, and the social-emotional competency of growth mindset had statistically significant more math growth. These differences are estimated to add 1.5 to 2 months of learning to their schooling experience.

At the high school level, when students felt exceptionally safe in their school, their reading trajectories were boosted as if they had received 4.5 months of additional instruction relative to their peers who felt the least safe in school.

These results speak to the importance of looking at student survey results by grade bands and paying special attention to those at the lowest end of select measures.

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The pandemic dealt a serious blow to student academic progress. It laid bare and heightened long-standing inequities in our schools. Given the magnitude of these challenges, charting a viable path forward can seem like an overwhelming task.

Yet when we consider the experience of students across our schools, the reflections of our school leaders, and the insights generated through our EDSS dataset, we see ample reasons to be optimistic. Across our portfolio of innovative schools, we’ve identified promising practices that educators have implemented during the pandemic that are worth keeping for good. We will share more of these practices in future blog posts.

This is the value of embracing measures of progress beyond test scores alone. By understanding student perceptions of their school climate and culture, how they are building social-emotional learning skills, and integrating these experiences with measures of academic growth, we can identify strategies that help young people thrive.

As portfolio member Margie Lopez Wait, Head of School at Las Américas ASPIRA Academy in Newark, Delaware shared: “Our impact and success is in the hearts and minds of our students. It is seen in their smiles, felt in their hugs, and realized in their confidence. This is the data that means the most.”

Earlier this year, we released an analysis of the tools teachers said they were using most often in our 2019 survey with Gallup on “Education Technology Use in Schools.” In that analysis, we found that most teachers were using different digital learning tools, painting a picture of a highly-fragmented marketplace. We also found that elementary school teachers were more likely than their secondary school counterparts to name subject-specific digital learning tools instead of more content-agnostic platforms. As part of our follow-up survey this past summer, we were interested in how these previous trends might be shifting in the transition to distance learning.

So what’s changed in the past year?

Not a lot. Similar to 2019, many of the secondary teachers were less likely than elementary teachers to name subject-specific tools. Compared to K-5 teachers, teachers in grades 6–8 and 9–12 mentioned more content-agnostic tools that are designed to be used across subjects (e.g., Google Apps and quiz solutions) than subject-specific tools (e.g., Raz-Kids and Lexia). This orientation aligned with the relative selection priorities of teachers at different grade levels. Fifty-one percent of elementary school teachers consider a tool’s ability to “personalize learning based on students’ skill levels” to be the most important selection criterion compared to 41% of middle school teachers and 32% of high school teachers. For middle school and high school teachers leaning on more content-agnostic platforms, being “easy to use” takes on greater importance. In fact, for high school teachers, it is the most important priority. That said, content-agnostic tools did stand out more across all grade levels than in the previous year. This makes sense in the context of the shift to distance learning, as teachers have had to increase their reliance upon more general content distribution platforms to facilitate their virtual classrooms.

For one in four teachers, the digital learning tool that they used most commonly is unique to them.

One thing that has changed in 2020 is even greater fragmentation in digital learning tool selection. In 2019, only one digital learning tool was named by more than 25% of teacher respondents as one of their most often used tools for their subject. The majority of digital learning tools within each subject were only named by 5% of teachers or less, meaning that most teachers used different learning tools. In 2020, this fragmentation has increased, as no tool was named by more than 14% of teachers within a given subject. The majority of digital learning tools within each subject are now only named by 2% of teachers or less. This isn’t surprising given what we know about the transition to distance learning. It was often not perfectly-coordinated, varied extensively across school sites and classrooms, and relied upon a supply of digital tools not designed for 100% virtual use. As teachers and schools scrambled to put together new distance learning experiences, many were forced to assemble a patchwork of solutions to support their students’ needs.

Forty-two percent of parents say their confidence in the quality of education provided at their child’s school decreased over the past six months. Extensive fragmentation in tool selection may have a role in this.

This lack of coherence could be one of the reasons why parents have such negative perceptions of digital learning tools. In six of eight indicators, the majority of parents say that ed tech is less effective than non-digital tools. Forty-two percent of parents say their confidence in the quality of education provided at their child’s school decreased over the past six months. Extensive fragmentation in tool selection and the challenges this presented in implementation potentially have a role in this.

As we look ahead, we wonder if this will change as digital learning tool selection becomes more centralized and standardized. It’s important to note that this survey was conducted in the summer of 2020, a time in which the digital learning tool strategies for many classrooms were still very much in flux. As these strategies more fully crystalize throughout the rest of this school year, teachers’ most commonly used tools could consolidate. Of course, this increased fragmentation could also become the norm. As educators and families tailor their digital tool portfolios to their unique needs, some may find they favor the customization. Either way, the outcome — like much of the current education landscape — is far from settled.

For access to the report’s expanded findings, please visit the report’s homepage on our website. If you have any questions about the data or NewSchools, please contact Justin Wedell.

In 2019, NewSchools partnered with Gallup to release “Education Technology Use in Schools,” a comprehensive report to better understand ed tech’s perceptions and usage. This past summer, we conducted a follow-up survey of parents, teachers, and students to evaluate how ed tech’s engagement may be changing in the pandemic context. We also surveyed how these groups feel about the coming school year and the supports they’ll need to be successful.

Some of our findings are particularly salient for ed tech innovators — those building and deploying the education technology upon which schools and families must rely. We’ve highlighted these findings because we feel they are the most relevant for innovators to consider as they develop new features and supports to empower parents, teachers, and students right now. Some of the findings remain aligned to our 2019 ed tech innovator takeaways, but most represent the demands of our new normal.

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1. Ed tech is still (obviously) everywhere, and teachers are here for it. In 2019, 81% of teachers saw great value in using ed tech tools and were even more optimistic (85%) about its future value. In 2020, teachers have become more positive on ed tech’s value, with 85% of teachers seeing great value using ed tech tools now and 90% seeing great value in using them in the future. Ed tech use was commonplace before the pandemic and rapidly becoming a standard part of the day-to-day education experience. With the onset of distance learning for many of our nation’s public schools, ed tech’s increased role has not yet dampened the positive perspective that most educators hold on its utility. How is your company building on this trust to better serve teachers in this moment?

2. Middle and high school students still want better, not just more, ed tech. Only about one in five middle and high school students would like to use ed tech less in the upcoming school year. Both groups’ desires for improvements in ed tech quality remain similar to those voiced in 2019. Middle schoolers’ top requests still include ed tech that’s more fun, interesting, and game-oriented. Only three in 10 middle schoolers say that school makes them want to learn more. Ed tech tools must rise to the occasion to better engage them.

High schoolers’ top requests still revolve around how ed tech might empower their learning, including better saving and organizing their work, tracking their learning progress, and interacting with their teachers more. Like middle schoolers, about three in 10 high schoolers agree that their schoolwork makes them want to learn more. Only 35% of high schoolers say they can connect what they’re learning in school to life outside the classroom, compared to 44% of high schoolers in 2019. How might your product, now and in the future, better meet these expectations?

3. Personalized instruction is now the top priority across subjects. When reviewing teachers’ top selection priorities by subject, “personalized instruction” is now the number one selection criteria across all subjects. This is a departure from 2019, when personalized instruction was the top priority for core subjects, but not areas such as science and history/social studies. Except for reading, “easy to use” is also now present in the top three selection priorities for teachers across all subjects. How do your product and your messaging measure up against these priorities?

4. Parents and teachers have different ed tech selection priorities. Teachers and parents align on their top ed tech selection criterion — personalized instruction — , and both also look for products that are easy to use. However, whereas teachers are looking for tools that can provide immediate and actionable feedback, parents place more importance on student engagement and overall learning outcomes. How does your messaging and customer support align to these different user needs?

5. Teachers are still the #1 most trusted resource when selecting ed tech, but the importance of evidence is rising. Teachers still overwhelmingly rank “other teachers” as the most trusted source for helping them decide what ed tech tools to use. Parents and students also consider teachers to be their most trusted resource for selecting ed tech. However, a notable difference in 2020 is the rising importance of evidence for ed tech selection. Whereas only 18% of teachers cited evidence-based reports in 2019, they are now considered a trusted resource by 27% of teachers. Case studies have seen growth in esteem with the teacher populations and are now cited by 13% of teachers compared to only 6% in 2019. Parents, meanwhile, rely much more heavily on evidence-based reports and case studies than do teachers. How are you engaging teacher influencers in your focus area? How are you making your efficacy portfolio more visible and accessible?

6. For special education teachers, perceptions of ed tech’s effectiveness have dropped significantly during the pandemic. Across the board, teacher perceptions of ed tech’s effectiveness dropped in 2020, signaling potential ed tech fatigue as well as a new understanding of ed tech’s limits in the context of the pandemic. These drops are most significant for teachers whose main subject is special education. When considering ed tech’s effectiveness in serving students with special needs or disabilities, teachers gave lower marks to digital tools’ ability to make content accessible, support the development of life skills, and encourage communication and collaboration with peers. What feedback have you received from your teacher users, and what are you doing to engage in equity-centered improvements?

7. Ed tech companies must do a better job providing support to a diverse user base. When asked about the types of ed tech tools to which they had access, the majority of teachers, parents, and students considered them to be excellent or good. However, these positive perceptions broke down when respondents rated the quality of support they received from schools and ed tech companies to use these tools. Roughly a third of parents and students say that the support they received from ed tech companies was poor. Even more concerning are the differences that emerge when accounting for income and race. Students from low-income households and Latino parents and students were least likely to rate the support they received from ed tech companies as excellent or good. What are you doing to differentiate your customer support to amplify positive outcomes for all users?

8. Access to devices and bandwidth at home remains a challenge for some families. In 2019, we reported on the variability in device access within schools, which could make scaling in multiple schools/districts more challenging if your product doesn’t flex well to different access models. In the context of distance learning, we wanted to explore this challenge through the at-home lens. Eighty-one percent of parent respondents say their child has access to a family-owned computer to complete school work at home, while 35% say their child has access to a school-provided computer. These numbers shift, however, when accounting for household income. In lower-income households, only 68% of parents cite having access to a family-owned computer compared to 88% of parents in higher-income households. With regards to internet access, a similar story emerges. While 96% of parents in higher-income households say their internet is reliable-to-very-reliable, only 81% of parents in lower-income households say the same. How is your solution working to meet the needs of those families with more limited access?

9. Families’ biggest need isn’t device access; it’s clarity. When asked what support their families and students most need to help them be successful in the upcoming school year, an overwhelming majority of teachers, parents, and students say “clear expectations for daily/weekly school work.” For parents and students, “consistent communication” and “regular access to teachers” round out their top three. While teachers rank device access as second-most important, it’s notable that it sits at the bottom of the list for parents and students — a potential reflection of that need for greater clarity and communication between the groups. How can ed tech companies facilitate more explicit expectations and dialogue between schools and families to support student success better this year?

10. Ed tech companies must turn parents from detractors to promoters. While teachers and students have maintained relatively positive perceptions of ed tech and its role in high-quality teaching and learning, parents have a decidedly negative view. In six of eight indicators, the majority of parents say that ed tech is less effective than non-digital tools. This is emblematic of broader parent dissatisfaction with ed tech that emerged throughout the survey results. We hypothesize that the less-than-ideal onboarding experience for most parents to these digital tools is one of the driving factors here. As schools and families dig in for a long and uncertain future of distance learning this year, we wonder how ed tech companies might improve their products and their support to win over parent users.

For access to the report’s expanded findings, please visit the report’s homepage on our website. If you have any questions about the data or NewSchools, please contact Justin Wedell.

Equity-minded entrepreneurs gravitate to the exciting work of creating something new because they are deeply committed to building a more just and compassionate world. Earlier this year, few leaders would have imagined a threat to their organization arriving in the form of a pandemic, which would upend revenue forecasts, operations, and prospects for long-term survival. And yet, the effects of COVID-19 and the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and many others, have highlighted the criticality of work that addresses and dismantles systemic and structural racism against people of color, particularly Black individuals.

Given this, nonprofit leaders must find ways to safeguard and courageously advance their mission. Even as leaders set out to listen and care for communities in pain, they must also navigate the impact of economic and societal uncertainties to withstand and overcome extraordinary challenges facing the nonprofit sector. Our friends at the Bridgespan Group and The Management Center recently shared several principles, strategies, and tools with leaders we fund through our Diverse Leaders investment area. Here are four major takeaways:

1. Scenario planning starts with values.
   Understanding who we are as leaders and organizations is imperative for staying anchored in the flurry of program implementation and technical decisions, especially when there are many unknowns and constraints. More than ever, we need leaders to step back from their work long enough to evaluate and live their values. A vital place to start is to ask, “how does equity impact our organization’s financial budgets, especially as it relates to staff capacity, wages, and benefits?” What you choose to cut, how you think about cutting it, and how you communicate these cuts will matter. Your community will remember. If one of your core values is to serve your community well, consider how to equitably share that burden among your staff, board members, and advisors. Leaders will face choices about balancing the workload and stress with new and continuing demands on staff. During this extended crisis, our collective humanity needs affirming. Leaders who model self-care permit others to do the same. Diverse teams may need to hear that attending to one’s mental health and emotional well-being is as important as meeting objectives for long-term organizational sustainability. Certainly, honoring values can be difficult, but embracing these tensions will lead to better choices.
2. Balance near-term action AND long-term planning.
   Before the pandemic, before George Floyd’s murder, the need for equity-focused work was immense across every sector. While COVID-19’s enormous economic impact may rival the Great Depression, sustained protests calling for racial justice over the past month have forced many companies to look inward at their systemic racism. While it remains to be seen whether this work will go beyond surface-level decrees and hit-and-run performative DEI workshops, equity-minded entrepreneurs must manage new inbound requests, an unknown revenue landscape, and long-term viability. Many organizations will need to manage cash and adjust operations in the near-term so that there is a runway to learn, adapt, and grow. Simultaneously, leaders must build plans to adjust the organization for a range of possible scenarios and beneficiary needs.
3. Scenario planning must be dynamic and iterative amidst changing circumstances.
   Start by identifying key drivers, risks, and opportunities. It may be helpful to start with the assumptions that will have the most significant impact on your ability to survive and thrive as an organization. Leaders can model three future possibilities using the best-, worst-, and middle-case scenarios by imagining the likely impact on revenue, programs, and teams. For example, what actions and decisions get triggered if schools are in a distance-learning mode in the fall? What if unexpected revenue comes through from a funder providing COVID-19-related investment? Now may also be an opportune moment to consider new and creative ways to achieve organizational objectives given known constraints. Revisiting your assumptions is a great way to ensure your plans remain relevant, and you’re taking appropriate measures.
4. Seek perspective from trusted collaborators, rising leaders on staff, and members of the community.
   At times, entrepreneurs of color may self-isolate for survival when faced with daunting challenges. Moreover, the imposter syndrome can also keep leaders of color from asking for help due to fear of appearing unqualified. There is another, better way: entrepreneurs can gather all of the unknowns and rally their collective to discuss and develop solutions. Look beyond seniority and engage staff on the frontlines, whose experiences and perspective are valuable assets when considering changes to programs. Use a structured process to invite and consider diverse perspectives. In the end, trust your instincts and make decisions with a clear mind and voice.

In times of crisis, leaders can allay staff and community anxiety by (re)casting an ambitious vision. Doing so requires us to remember that entrepreneurship is the thrilling pursuit to create new possibilities with our communities. By applying these principles, we can ensure that equity work thrives and helps us emerge as a stronger and more just society.

What should ed tech companies keep top of mind as they navigate our new COVID-19 reality? NewSchools recently brought together a diverse group of current and former superintendents from around the country to share their perspectives on this question. Our guests included:

• PJ Caposey, superintendent of Meridian CUSD in Illinois,
• Kevin Chase, superintendent of Yakima-based Educational Service District 105 in Washington,
• Joseph Davis, superintendent of the Ferguson-Florissant School District in Missouri,
• Traci Davis, former superintendent of the Washoe County School District in Nevada, and
• Danny Merck, superintendent of Pickens County School District in South Carolina.

Below, we’ve outlined the top takeaways from the discussion.

1. Be a partner, not a vendor. Across the board, superintendents voiced how impressed they were by their current vendors who had doubled down as partners in problem-solving through the crisis. These vendors became crucial in supporting their transition to distance learning and, in the process, built deeper loyalties in their relationships. It’s expected that these actions won’t go unnoticed as superintendents decide what to prioritize and expand in the coming years.
2. Trust in relationships. Superintendents are currently receiving a deluge of outreach from ed tech companies. It’s overwhelming, and superintendents were candid in saying that if a vendor isn’t already in their circle, it will be hard to break through. However, superintendents were amenable to recommendations from other administrators or educators. This reflects with findings from 2019’s NewSchools-Gallup survey on ed tech, in which more than 80% of educators said they trust “teachers” most when deciding what digital learning tools to use. Ed tech companies shouldn’t be afraid to ask their customers for recommendations or advice on who to reach out to — they may be surprised by how much a customer is willing to help.
3. Understand district priorities. The COVID-19 crisis has surfaced many new challenges and priorities for superintendents. Parent engagement was consistently top of mind throughout the discussion. Superintendents are now searching for new solutions to support keeping parents informed and involved as they take on new educator responsibilities within the distance learning context. Professional development for teachers is also a massive priority. Besides learning how to manage the features and functions of their technology, educators need to learn what best practice looks like for using it to create engaging learning experiences in both distance and hybrid learning scenarios. Ed tech companies should ensure that their customer support and professional development plans align with these unique needs.
4. Think beyond core subjects. While tools for core subjects are crucial, superintendents emphasized the importance of finding tools to support social-emotional learning and mental health. Students, parents, and educators are all going through a lot right now. It’s a high priority to find tools that align with their needs and ensure implementations and use that maintain a safe space for users. To the latter point, tools that require students to video chat may inadvertently expose them to social pressures based on their homes’ background. Both educators and ed tech companies must be mindful of such scenarios and bake them into usage best practices.
5. Plan for the long haul. Superintendents took care to emphasize that everything that was a problem before the pandemic is still a problem now. They caution ed tech companies against completely overhauling their products to fit the conditions of the current COVID-19 moment. Those core and supplemental learning needs that companies were previously seeking to address are not going away (and are likely being amplified). Superintendents will still be making these a priority, albeit looking for tools that can address them from various implementation scenarios. Finally, with an eye toward budgetary uncertainty, superintendents recommend that ed tech companies consider implementing multi-year subscription plans with potentially-higher first-year payments. This can mitigate risk for ed tech companies as our schools and economy enter an uncertain road to recovery,

The full recording of this discussion is here if you want to hear more great advice from these superintendents. At NewSchools, we’re focused on supporting a more equitable ed tech ecosystem. We hope that this and other resources can help educators, administrators, parents, and ed tech entrepreneurs do just that.

One hundred and eighty days per year. Six and a half hours per day.

For decades, the lines separating in-school and out-of-school time have been clear and immutable. Families, schools, after-school providers, and unions built everything around this static structure. Now, COVID-19 is radically changing the needs of students and when they learn.

As schools plan for the fall, they should seize this once-in-a-century moment to think differently about time so that students can master core academic content and grow socially and emotionally.

Even before COVID-19, many leaders made a clarion call for rethinking school time, because it was not always working for families and students. In a 2015 report from the National Center for Time and Learning, David Farbman said, “a preponderance of evidence points to the powerful association between more time in school (both generally and spent in specific activities) and better outcomes for students, especially for those who otherwise lack productive learning outside school.” Catherine Cushinberry shared a similar acknowledgment in 2016. Despite compelling logic behind new proposals, schools have remained largely unchanged due to deeply ingrained notions about schooling and the complex systems that would have to be changed to realize them.

However, it’s different now, so let’s briefly examine two ways school leaders might rethink school time — expansion and reconfiguration.

Expand Time

Schools can address increased academic and social-emotional needs by adding more time in their school years, weeks, and days for learning. Expanding time acknowledges that students are missing significant academic and social-emotional opportunities during shelter-in-place, and many experienced a lack of support pre-COVID-19.

How might schools build a longer school year? In a recent report, Chiefs for Change synthesize the research for extended, year-round schools. They point to international examples where students attend school for 190–200 days per year. In their words, “Year-round school has the potential to produce not only academic benefits for students but logistical and financial benefits for families.” Extending the school day as some districts are considering might also yield these benefits.

How can schools take advantage of new pockets of time during the week? By understanding the new schedules, needs, and rhythms of their families, schools can uncover different timeframes that can embed academic and social-emotional content. Several schools are thinking anew about after-dinner time with families to strengthen relationships and add academic enrichment. For example, Rocketship Public Schools posts optional bedtime stories for students; books are read by school operations staff, who wouldn’t otherwise get facetime with students during shelter-in-place. And ST Math supports schools to offer family math nights to provide both family connections and an engaging way to access mathematical content. Both offer meaningful engagement without taxing teachers further.

However, this does not mean that schooling must usurp all students’ time. Nor does it mean that it comes at the cost of family time and teachers’ capacity. Instead, there are clear avenues and precedent for schools to enrich students’ experiences beyond the traditional instructional venues, within what is feasible for families, and using content that is well-designed for learning and relationship-building.

Reconfigure Time

Beyond adding time, there may be even more potential for student benefit by reconfiguring the time that schools currently have. Although worrisome gaps in technology and internet access persist, technology has made learning anything anywhere a reality for most students. In the same way that station rotation models can effectively allocate a teacher’s time and allow students to engage in varying learning experiences at the same time, schools might reconfigure the existing time to limit exposure to the coronavirus and maximize in-person time.

First, schools should consider how to unbundle the elements of learning. That is, insofar as it is student-centered, schools should explore opportunities to disaggregate teaching, practice, and assessment. The flipped classroom is the most well-known example. Now, teachers have even more resources to create lessons that students can learn at any time. For instance, CommonLit shares how to turn lessons into a video lesson. As such, teachers, students, and families have more flexibility regarding when learning happens. This has profound opportunities for students and teachers. Teaching and learning is typically a synchronous experience, but making it asynchronous provides much-needed flexibility for teachers, parents, and students. Also, there can be deepened learning, as the research on distributed practice suggests.

More provocatively, Michael Petrilli of The Fordham Institute pushes schools to ask, “Why can’t our high schools look more like college?” And Andy Rotherham of Bellwether Education Partners proposes a reconceptualization of the entire senior year. These options are less feasible for the fall, but the more significant point is that reconfiguration, especially at this moment, is ripe with possibility.

Scheduling is also a clear opportunity to reconfigure time. For instance, Public Impact provides three specific block scheduling options: alternating weeks, days, a half-day schedule. Schools might adopt intercessions to bolster engagement, concentrate intervention efforts, and offer accelerations. For example, Metro Schools provides a January term, where students have a five-week window for virtual instruction on a class of interest or remediation. Kairos Academies, a middle school, configures their schedule with five-week school cycles punctuated by two-week breaks when teachers plan and engage in professional development. Each option offers ways to combat the COVID-slide and gives teachers more dedicated chunks of time to prepare within their workday.

Every option above may not be right for every school, but a combination of them holds promise for student and family autonomy without sacrificing mastery and interpersonal connection.

Parting Considerations

Adding and reconfiguring time will be extensive work for schools. It will require clever data collection, collaboration with stakeholders (e.g., parents and unions), and a deep comfort with discomfort. Yet, there are real-world examples to leverage and research to support many of these efforts. Using these exemplars and data as jumping-off points, I recommend schools consider four checkpoints before they adopt a new vision for time:

1. Align with an expanded definition of student success; Follow the research on learning science and human development.
2. Design with the community, and bring a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens to the process.
3. Identify and engage the people, tools, and processes that are needed to realize this vision.
4. Name and plan for the downstream repercussions for related systems (e.g., extracurriculars, childcare).

From school closures, economic impact, and health concerns, we know students will return to school with extraordinary needs in the fall. Schools need to respond with more and new extraordinary options for growing and learning, especially for students who are furthest from opportunity.

When schools closed in March, I naively assumed that the biggest challenge public schools would face this upcoming school year would be how to open or reopen schools safely amidst a pandemic. However, the continued violence and systemic racism oppressing communities of color, especially Black communities, reached a tipping point with the murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd, forcing an awakening for some and a national reckoning for all as we headed into the summer. 

There is no “return to normal” now. Teams opening new charter schools this fall are asking how to welcome new staff and families via Zoom, how to establish a strong school culture virtually, and how to retain students throughout a dynamic school year. Teams reopening existing schools are asking how to leverage the hard lessons learned this past spring and adjust accordingly.

This will feel like the founding year all over again, whether we are ready or not. 

As a funder of a national portfolio of innovative public schools, I humbly offer a few ways in which authorizers can rise to this challenge. 

Lead by listening to school leaders. 

Our school leaders are either waiting for some—any—guidance from federal, state, or local leaders, or spending an inordinate amount of time interpreting updated guidelines. David Noah, the founder of Comp Sci High in the Bronx, NY, didn’t wait: he proactively reached out to two global health experts to understand the CDC guidelines. Through conversations with health experts and other school leaders, Noah created an open-source reopening guide focused on principles that can help school leaders cut through the noise and plan for the fall. 

Noah’s guide is just one example of our school leaders rising to the challenge in the last few months. Charter authorizers can also lead by asking questions (“What are the challenges keeping you as school leader up at night? and “Where do you need clarity? What would be most helpful right now?”), by listening, and by surfacing where there is a need for clear direction.  

A desire to provide the “right” answers may paralyze authorizers when the real need is simply to start asking the right questions. For any of us in the business of supporting schools and their leaders, our first and primary job is to listen and then move quickly to support them. 

Provide accountability and support. 

Given the diversity of authorizers across the country, there are different views on where authorizing activities should fall on the accountability-support continuum. We believe this notion of “accountability or support” is a false dichotomy, especially now. In normal circumstances, authorizers can prioritize and proceed with traditional authorizing activities. However, there is no playbook for how school leaders navigate a pandemic that disproportionately affects students of color and those from low-income families. Now more than ever, authorizers will need to strike a balance between accountability and support. 

We have seen evidence of this in how authorizers support the launch of new schools this fall. While some might assume fewer new schools will be launching during this time, most of the teams we help to design a new school are proceeding with their opening plans and are well-positioned to do so. Authorizers support schools in several ways, from allowing schools to adjust their target student enrollment numbers to deprioritizing compliance monitoring and oversight activities, like school evaluation visits this fall. This approach can benefit all charter schools, not just new ones. Supporting schools in creating and modifying high-quality re-entry plans is a good start. 

Stay focused on the North Star.

Our school leaders are crystal clear on their North Star: to dramatically improve the learning and social-emotional outcomes of all students, especially underserved students. Charter authorizers share this goal. However, there are unresolved questions about overall school performance and accountability for the upcoming year. 

Authorizers will need to determine how to maintain accountability with increased flexibility this year. A few leading authorizers are rethinking and readjusting school performance frameworks by measuring student growth. Others are analyzing state performance frameworks for schools serving alternative populations to identify autonomies that might make sense for all schools. Each approach will be different and dependent on the local context. Defining new or enhanced freedoms in exchange for accountability, though, is a must. The impact of these decisions will be long-lasting and necessary for quality, scalable innovations to take root. 

If there is a silver lining to all of this, our school leaders are showing us how to navigate this new normal by leading with courage and nimbleness. They are not shying away from adjusting their approaches in exchange for significant results. 

Charter authorizers can and should do the same.