This post was originally published on Ahead of the Heard, the blog of Bellwether Education Partners. 

With school starting in most places in a few weeks, school and network leaders are under tremendous pressure to finalize their reopening plans. With those leaders in mind, Bellwether just released a new planning resource that includes all of the components of a reopening plan, offers questions school leaders should address, and links to concrete guidance and completed plans as examples. We know it’s an overwhelming time, but we trust that these seven worksheets and linked resources will cut through the noise and set school leaders on a strong path for the fall.

Why are we so confident? Because the modifiable and customizable templates in our tool came directly out of our team’s work supporting two schools this summer to develop their reopening plans. Through a partnership with NewSchools Venture Fund (NSVF), we spent six weeks with Urban Act Academy (a K-8 campus in Indianapolis, IN) and Comp Sci High (a 9–12 campus in Bronx, NY), meeting regularly with their leaders to help them structure, develop, and refine their plans. Their completed plans are available to view: Comp Sci HS — Instructional Plan, Comp Sci HS — Operations Plan, Urban Act Academy — Master Reopening Plan.

In working side-by-side with these two school teams, the thing that struck us most was how much there is to do in such a little amount of time. School leaders are preparing for multiple back-to-school scenarios, and for each they need to clearly define and communicate what academics, culture, talent, and operations will look like. And they are often doing this without clear guidance from their state governments.

The tools and guidance in our new planning resource capture the approach and tools we used, and are intended to help other schools facing similar complexity accelerate their progress. Here are five lessons from our work:

1. Plan for the most likely scenario first: It is likely that leaders will need to shift between fully in-person, entirely virtual, or some hybrid model throughout the year as conditions evolve. School leaders need to prepare detailed thinking for the most likely “day one” scenario before building a contingency plan for a second scenario. For example, both Urban Act and Comp Sci developed their “hybrid” models before shifting focus to the “100% virtual” model in case conditions changed. Our workbook includes a worksheet for helping prioritize among these potential scenarios.
2. Get clear on what the plan must cover: School teams must focus their energy on developing their plans, not on figuring out the complete set of questions their plan must address. To help their teams work more productively and lower overall anxiety, school leaders must ensure the planning team is clear on the end product they are working toward. To support leaders in getting that clarity, we include a checklist of components and questions to address in any reopening plan.
3. Build on others’ good thinking: School teams should not be starting from scratch. Leaders in similar situations across the country have already poured a tremendous amount of energy into planning, but it may be challenging to find and sift through everything in the public domain. Through our collaborations with Urban Act and Comp Sci, we identified helpful guidance and examples as a concrete starting point for each essential question. If plans are already in-progress or complete, leaders can use our resources to check their thinking.
4. Aim for consistency; adapt as needed: Wherever possible, develop plans that are as consistent across scenarios as possible. This consistency helps reduce the amount of change staff, students, and families will face. Then seek to adapt for different scenarios in a way that reduces the amount of new work required. For example, when developing the instructional model, a school leader should start with defining the core instructional elements that should be the same across scenarios, and then adapt the delivery format (in-person or virtual), seeking as much consistency as possible in terms of resources being used and who is delivering those resources.
5. Ensure targeted support for students with the highest need: In striving for consistency and adaptability, we don’t mean there should be a “one size fits all” approach. One goal of simplifying wherever possible is to free up planning team time to design targeted interventions for students who need them most. School teams should know which students and families faced the greatest challenges learning remotely in the Spring. Meeting the unique needs of these students could include providing additional virtual check-ins, prioritizing students for in-person instruction, and ensuring technology and transportation needs are understood and addressed.

The complete planning toolkit can be downloaded here. Contact Bellwether for feedback and suggestions at contactus@bellwethereducation.org.

Photo: Neil Thomas

As we wind down the most unconventional summer most of us have ever experienced, the nation’s attention has predictably shifted to the reopening of schools. Depending on your region, schools in your area are getting ready to implement a hybrid model or prepare to go fully remote for the foreseeable future. A few are tempting fate with in-person instruction.

While some students are faring well with distance learning, there are many more likely to be adversely affected by the remote and hybrid school schedules. Diverse learners and English language learners, specifically, face obstacles in distance learning above and beyond those of general education students. For example, students who need occupational therapy or applied behavioral analysis may need in-person services.

“Structuring personnel and time to ensure these students are getting their appropriate, legally-mandated support should be a major part of every school’s reopening plan.”

Rightly, our focus as teachers and school leaders centers on our students’ needs — how to assess their knowledge, how to differentiate instruction and materials for them, and how to support their socio-emotional development. But effective leaders also know that building out systems that allow adults to do this work best is critical. Structuring personnel and time to ensure these students are getting their appropriate, legally-mandated support should be a major part of every school’s reopening plan.

New School of San Francisco (NSSF), one of our portfolio schools, has identified three critical components of building strong teams to support their students with special needs. By 1) formalizing the collaboration between their team and parents, 2) facilitating access to services, 3) and supporting and sustaining staff, they create the structures to ensure their learners receive the best support possible during this challenging time.

In the spring, the NSSF team prioritized building a strong foundation for collaboration between the school and its families. Using a tiered intervention system of support, they implemented top tier approaches across the school while their Diverse Learner Team drove more targeted second and third-tier approaches. Top tier approaches with schoolwide effects included renegotiating the schoolwide schedule to reallocate staff time to support the most vulnerable students and prioritizing collaborative planning time on Fridays to ensure tight feedback loops. Their Diverse Learner Team also managed more granular and individualized components, such as making amendments to students’ IEPs for distance learning and monitoring the delivery of special education services. They are also responsible for supporting parents as they navigate changes, including developing an affinity group for diverse learners so families could build community and lean on each other.

“They let families know there are still people at school thinking of them.”

NSFF’s team also realized the importance of eliminating the barriers in the delivery of critical education services. The school’s trauma-informed distance learning emphasized predictability, flexibility, connection, and empowerment. To lay the groundwork for families, teachers, and staff prioritized getting wifi hotspots and devices to those that needed them. Grade level teams provided visual schedules that are easy to understand, and they sent home supplemental packets as needed. Their Diverse Learner Team managed virtual IEP meetings, supported parents in the implementation of telehealth services, and as they used resources at home. This team also helped the home-school connection and prioritized the development and strengthening of relationships with students to keep students engaged. Most importantly, they let families know there are still people at school thinking of them.

Finally, like great schools everywhere, NSSF supported and sustained its staff. As a former school leader, I’ve learned there are two ways to do this: you create the conditions for them to execute their roles to the best of their ability and celebrate those successes. NSSF convened regular meetings for the team to sync up, collaborate weekly at each grade-level, and reflect on and share best practices. The leadership team also created schedules for individual supervision and coaching and team-building opportunities throughout the week. For sustenance, the NSSF team shared leadership team video messages, team appreciations, shout-outs, and videos from students and families. There was also time for social connections with students and families embedded into the week.

As school leaders develop their priorities for the upcoming year, it’s essential to acknowledge how widely the particular needs of diverse learners may differ and have plans to provide for them. The New School of San Francisco gives us an excellent example to follow.

Occasionally, after the kids are in bed, my neighbor comes over to have a beer. Sitting six feet apart in my backyard, we compare notes on how we’re coping as we raise young kids during a pandemic and a national reckoning with racism. After the delight of discussing the new baseball season, our most recent conversation turned to our school district’s reopening plan (distance learning for now) and eventually to a new phenomenon: pandemic pods.

The perspectives on pandemic pods — sometimes called learning pods — are as varied as those on schools in general. Clara Totenberg Green’s opinion piece in the New York Times sounding the inequity alarm has received a lot of attention. Conservative pundit, Andy Smarick sees the trend as an example of bootstrapping that’s uniquely American. School choice advocate Chris Stewart sees the podding as another form of choice that should be available to everyone regardless of socioeconomic status. Even Randi Weingarten, the head of the nation’s second-largest teachers union has weighed in saying, “The pod and small group learning ideas are good ideas, but we have to ensure that they’re actually equitable.” Although pandemic pods are new, issues of race, class, opportunity, and equity surrounding them are not.

So what are pandemic pods, and what might they mean for students, families, and our education system?

What is a pandemic pod?
Pandemic pods are small groups of students that learn together while schools are closed. Parent-driven, self-organized schooling isn’t a new idea. Pandemic pods share a lot in common with other schooling models that prioritize small groups such as homeschooling, homeschool co-ops, cottage schools, microschools, and Freedom Schools of the Civil Rights Era. In these school models, parents proactively opt out of the traditional school system and take more direct control over their children’s education for a wide variety of reasons such as religious beliefs and institutionalized racism.

Unlike the examples above, pandemic pods are cropping up because of school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. What they look like ranges from two or more families supporting students using curricula and instruction provided by their school to fully independent microschools that employ teachers and create curricula.

Some parents are forming pods now, hoping to find like-minded families, hiring free agent teachers, and lobbying principals to have podded children in the same class. Much of the matchmaking is happening on Facebook or other online platforms. Others are waiting to see who’s in their kids’ classes and what the distance learning from their local schools will look like.

What might pandemic pods mean for education?
The evident and likely downside to pandemic pods is that they will exacerbate already troublesome opportunity gaps between wealthy and white students and low-income students and students of color. When low-income students and students of color are at a disadvantage with distance learning, more affluent families are in a position to supplement — or completely replace — what their public schools can provide. Parents that work from home and can afford to hire someone to support their children’s learning have access to technology, the internet, and a panoply of online platforms, apps, and materials that will be able to keep their children’s education progressing. Those who are essential workers, have a primary language that’s not English, and can’t afford devices and wifi run the risk of having their children’s learning stall. For essential workers with young children, the pandemic pits the need for childcare directly against the ability to maintain a job.

If that weren’t enough, pods could increase racial and socioeconomic segregation even beyond what we see in schools. Families that pod up are most likely to look a lot alike in terms of race and income because most schools and communities are demographically homogeneous. Even in diverse communities, families are likely to have homogeneous social networks that will result in pods without much difference.

One typical response to this is to diversify pods by forming family groups that include students of different races and income levels. It’s feasible that this could be done in some neutral way where parents of different races and socioeconomic statuses come together to form a pod. Still, since pods are a trend initiated by those with means, diversification would come at their behest. At best, diverse pods created with good intentions and deliberation would create bonds and minimize otherness between families and students who wouldn’t otherwise spend significant time together. At worst, wealthy families inviting poorer families to their pod are noblesse oblige and assuaging white guilt. As R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy wrote, “If good-willed pod families don’t interrogate why segregation happens in their life, their ability to incorporate difference is already troubled.” I like to think that diverse pods could be an inroad to diverse schools, but racial integration driven by white parents doesn’t have a strong track record in public education.

Another response is to support low-income families to establish pods so they can reap the same benefits in terms of socialization, support, and work hour supervision for their kids. And while much of the pod conversation centers on the privilege and agency of white and wealthy parents starting pods, they don’t have a monopoly on them. There’s a long history of Black families homeschooling and creating small, self-organized schools to protect their children from racism and stereotyping.

Seeing the demand for pandemic pods growing (and desperate customers with money), many nonprofits and schools have reoriented themselves to provide services that help families set them up. Three independent schools — The Portfolio School, Hudson Lab School, and Red Bridge School — have set up Learning Pods, a service that helps families form pods and then provides ongoing support. Swing Education, an organization that matches substitute teachers to schools, has created a service called Bubbles that provides background-checked teachers for pods. All of these services come with fees that are out of reach for many families. If there are similar free services, I haven’t seen them yet. But creative public and civil sector solutions are emerging.

For instance, San Francisco Mayor London Breed recently announced an initiative to set up learning hubs around the city to provide space and supervision for students with distance learning barriers. If successful, the effort will remove some obstacles for low-income students to be part of small, in-person learning environments. With everything school districts are managing to reopen in a few weeks, it’s hard to imagine them also creating an infrastructure to help lower-income parents create pods. However, individual schools might be able to pull it off over the coming months as they settle into their new models. Local governments and community-based organizations could step into the breach to facilitate pod-formation as an attempt to level the playing field. Juliet Squire and Alex Spurrier at Bellwether Education Partners propose several methods for making pandemic pods more equitable including expanding the pool of teachers and providing high-quality materials and support to parents.

For all the attention pandemic pods are receiving, the long-term effects on the U.S. education system aren’t likely to be significant relative to more enduring and further-reaching issues like de facto school segregation and funding disparities. For there to be a credible competitive threat to school districts themselves, there would have to be a perfect storm of widespread demand for Education Savings Accounts and supply of quality education service providers. We’re likely to have a vaccine before that all comes together. However, families exposed to new ways of schooling and empowered by their independence from traditional structures may opt to evolve their pod into a microschool or charter school in what could be a wave of grassroots innovation. But most likely, parents that form pods will be relieved when they can send their children back to school and return to a sense of normalcy. I know I will.

My neighbor and I didn’t come to any conclusions about what pods might mean for our neighborhood elementary school or our second-grade boys who go there. Still, we’re keeping the door open to the idea of podding up (after we know our classroom assignments) while being vigilant about what our actions might mean for others.

Updates!

• Back in May, Greg Richmond and Peter Cunningham were some of the first to advocate for reallocating secondary school buildings in The 74. Evidence about how children in different age groups transmit the coronavirus wasn’t out then, which only strengthens their argument.
• Emily Oster of ParentData blog came to a similar conclusion after diving into new data on COVID-19 transmission among children of various ages.
• The nation’s largest school district, New York City Department of Education, seems to be considering nontraditional venues for its elementary students. Earlier this month, Chancellor Richard Carranza said the city is considering using business spaces for elementary classes while Councilmember Mark Treyger proposed holding them in high schools, noting that the district had done so successfully in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy struck the city.
• Robin Lake at CPRE and The Evidence Project, is supporting an inspiring effort to review and share many district plans. Follow her here and here.

.      .      .

Trauma, learning loss, and physical safety. Pods, virtual education, and hybrid schedules. Educators are planning to reopen schools in a fog of conflicting evidence and guidance. The information, opinions, ideas, and politicization — much of it conflicting — are coming at educators as fast as they plan for the upcoming school year.

Fortunately, some things are becoming clearer and more actionable as we learn more about COVID-19. One of them is how we deliver education based on the unique needs of elementary and secondary students. What we know from education research, balancing work and childcare, and now new data on COVID-19 transmission all point to one short-term solution:

Keep middle and high school students at home and use the space to educate elementary school students.

Here’s the argument:

1. Learning loss is unequal; late elementary school students are at the most significant risk of learning loss. EdWeek reported that an “NWEA study found upper elementary students face potentially the biggest losses during school closures, in part because 4th and 5th grades are usually a time of rapid academic growth.”
2. Older learners are more accustomed to using education technology, which lessens to transition to learning in a remote setting. For example, our research with Gallup shows that before COVID-19, nearly two-thirds of middle and high school students used digital learning tools every day, whereas only 45% of elementary school students did the same.
3. Elementary students require more childcare. Parents of elementary students, on average, are facing more difficulty than parents of older students balancing work and parenting. As Deb Perelman wrote recently, you can have a kid or a job, but not both.
4. Perhaps most compelling for public health reasons, kids under 10 seem to have much lower transmission rates according to a new South Korean study. The New York Times concluded, “Children younger than 10 transmit to others much less often than adults do, but the risk is not zero. And those between the ages of 10 and 19 can spread the virus at least as well as adults do.”

If school leaders prioritize in-person instruction for elementary students, their middle and high school buildings may be their best assets for providing instruction safely.

What might this look like? With access to middle and high schools, elementary students can utilize more classrooms, bathrooms, and common spaces. Baseball fields, theaters, and courtyards offer opportunities for variation. More space means pods of students and teachers can move more freely. Buses usually used for high schools can be redeployed for younger students so they can spread out. Activities like bathroom breaks and lunch will take longer than in pre-pandemic times, but with more bathrooms and fewer students, they will not consume the day.

Start with middle and high schools, but let’s consider everything. Block off the streets in front. Use the parks, libraries, and churches.

To be sure, this doesn’t solve every problem. To pull off a complex hybrid approach, schools will need more teachers, paraprofessionals, and tutors, yet many current teachers feel unsafe teaching. Desks, chairs, sinks, and toilets will seem huge to little kids. And cleaning more buildings will add costs.

Educators, especially district leaders, have many decisions in front of them, nearly all of which have no precedent. With the use of space, there’s a data-supported path. Let’s follow the data and climb the mountain that is Back To School 2020, one creative solution at a time.

Want to read more? This blog was inspired by a productive, lively thread on LinkedIn.

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.

Photo by Andy Falconer

Are face shields just as effective as face masks? What does social distancing look like for early elementary school students? Should we take everyone’s temperature upon arrival? How often should playground equipment be cleaned?

School leaders across the country have to rethink every possible operational task as they prepare to reopen schools this fall. While there is increasingly more guidance in recent weeks from state and local officials, school leaders are grappling with how to translate these guidelines into meaningful changes in the day-to-day operations of schools.

David Noah, founder and principal of Comp Sci High in the Bronx, NY, experienced this challenge himself. In response, he brought together two nationally-recognized public health experts, Dr. Prabhjot Singh, Dr. Somava Saha, and school leaders from across the country to translate the CDC’s guidelines into tangible, evidence-based recommendations for school operations. Their collaboration resulted in a practical unofficial guide to reopening that school leaders can reference to inform planning for the fall.

Singh and Saha are crystal clear that this unofficial guide should be just that: a guide to provide additional insights where there may be open questions with guidance from local, state, and federal agencies. School leaders should review the CDC’s guidelines and consult their local public health officials.

While there is no possible way to eliminate risk in schools, school leaders can significantly reduce risk. Singh and Saha outline three foundational principles that can inform a comprehensive “risk reduction” approach to reopening.

1. Reducing time and exposure: Because COVID-19 is transmitted by droplets (not airborne), schools can mitigate the risk of spread by reducing the duration of human-to-human interactions and the level of exposure when interactions do occur. Practically speaking, this might mean incorporating hand-washing routines or wearing face masks (reducing exposure) or having lunches in classrooms rather than in the school cafeteria (reducing the duration of interactions and exposure). If the past few months are any indication, we tend to overestimate the risk of casual interactions (like hallway transitions) and underestimate the impact of prolonged time and exposure (like choir practice).
2. Batching: Batching is the core risk-reduction strategy for schools. Schools can reduce transmission across an entire school by limiting exposure between groups of students (batches). A standard classroom is a reasonable batch and better than, say, an entire grade level. The goal here is to reduce the mixing of different batches. Practically speaking, this might mean staggering transition times of entry and departure and rotating teachers (instead of students) among classrooms.
3. Monitoring: To make any of this work, schools will need to create a supportive culture with open communication so that students, families, and staff feel comfortable sharing if and when someone shows signs of COVID-19 symptoms. Schools may find that creating systems to monitor students and staff for symptoms and communicate quickly with the school community may be a better use of time and energy than implementing time-intensive monitoring systems like daily temperature checks.

Learning about the three foundational principles helped to alleviate concerns and stress for many leaders who participated in the conversations Noah organized. If not having kindergarteners physically interact with each other is an impossible task, a school leader can consider other methods related to the principle of reducing exposure. Alternatively, a school leader can consider how to increase methods for batching. The goal is to reduce risk by instituting multiple strategies across these principles and adjusting over time.

Schools will need to shift to a more intensive approach if the rate of transmission is high locally, so schools can and should reserve an “all in” approach for when they really need it. With appropriate COVID-19 preparation and upfront communication, schools will be able to welcome students back safely this fall.

You can access the unofficial guide here: bit.ly/reopeningguide. Singh provides an overview of the “risk reduction” approach and more detail of the principles in action in this video.

Educators are preparing for a fall as their school communities — and the rest of the world — grapple with the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic anti-Black racial injustice. As a national nonprofit that supports and invests in promising teams of educators and innovators who want to reimagine learning, NewSchools is well-situated to help educators cope with the onrushing wave of change. To help educators prepare to reopen their schools this fall, we have launched the Distance Learning Lessons webinar series. The webinars and accompanying resources share creative, effective, and actionable solutions from our school leaders and other experts.

We decided to launch our series with a webinar entitled, “Our Moral Imperative: Racial Equity and the Public School System.” We believe that designing and redesigning schools for equity is an essential step in addressing systemic inequities. As one of our school leaders, Shawn Hardnett, said, “His school is his protest.” We wanted to consider what it would look like if we designed schools that truly met the needs of all students — schools where learning outcomes are not predictable by race, ethnicity, income, gender, language or ability, and where educators work closely with families to design schools that embody their aspirations.

In this first webinar, Caroline Hill, founder of 228 Accelerator and Thaly Germain, founder and CEO of Onward, led participants in a discussion of the challenges and the opportunities that schools are currently facing. They grounded the conversation in the compounding adverse effects of four centuries of systemic racism coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, which disproportionately sickens and kills Black people. Hill and Germain then asked participants to consider three provocative design questions related to the purpose of school, space, and healing. Those questions are explored below with examples from the webinar and schools in our portfolio.

“How might we resource the public school to become a catalyst for America’s Healing and Reconciliation?”

The long legacy of racism in America’s education system is well known, and the pandemic has made learning even more difficult for our most vulnerable students. Shuttered schools and the subsequently well-intentioned but hastily-made plans for distance learning have harmed low-income students, students with special needs, and students of color the most. To be clear, schools were not working well for Black and brown students before COVID-19. As one participant wrote in the webinar’s chat, “The differences are being magnified and laid bare.” Simply re-creating the same systems in a new context won’t result in progress toward equity.

So how do you give all students access to the opportunities once reserved for the privileged? Webinar participants mentioned bringing more Black teachers into schools, ensuring equitable resources, moving beyond technical answers to the root causes of inequities present in schools, providing historically informed and accurate instruction, combining social-emotional learning with rigorous academic work, and a broadening of academic standards. As one said, “Stop solely focusing on narrow academic standards that do not address our nation’s true history.” Webinar participants also pointed out that leaders in education need to advocate for children and their families outside of school systems to achieve real equity.

“How might we design a pedagogical approach that creates spiritual and emotional intimacy while respecting the need to be physically distant?”

COVID-19 has exacerbated the existing separation between people from different backgrounds, which has contributed to racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia, among other forms of hate. Shelter-in-place orders have added physical distance to the emotional and spiritual gap that already existed. Hill and Germain suggested that creating an equitable society and learning environments requires radical inclusion, enabling us to become more proximate to the experiences of others.

Participants shared ideas for creating more connected learning environments. One participant pointed out that students will be meeting in smaller groups when school restarts in the fall. Others suggested that educators group students to prioritize diversity and deliberately celebrate differences. In this way, they can create intentionally diverse learning communities. Scott Bess, the CEO of one of our ventures Purdue Polytechnic High School (PPHS), provides a good example of prioritizing this. The school is an intentionally diverse school that strategically groups students for complex, problem-based learning. In addition, Scott believes that schools need to step into the role of teaching history accurately and dismantling white supremacy. At PPHS, there is a commitment to rejecting the narrowing of the academic curriculum.

“How might we create an aligned curriculum that comforts the spirit, heals the body, develops the mind, and soothes the soul?”

COVID-19 has elevated the importance of staying physically and mentally healthy, yet that’s proven difficult under such extreme circumstances. Many essential workers don’t have the privilege of working from home. Others face the stressors of job and economic insecurity while juggling increased child or eldercare responsibilities. The ongoing violence against Black Americans has surfaced how many members of our community do not feel safe simply living life because of the color of their skin. As a result, mental health needs have only increased for families, students, and educators. As Hill and Germain shared, there is a need “to heal and think about the ways we can attend to the traumas of the physical body, the emotional body, and the universal body of the community.”

Links between schools and communities can strengthen healing in both places. At Statesman Preparatory Academy for Boys, establishing warm, caring and trusted relationships is central to their model so that students feel emotionally safe and know that they belong. When Statesmen moved to distance learning in March, the team immediately focused on maintaining strong relationships with students. They mapped which staff member had the strongest connection with each student and assigned every staff member five students to check in with during planned advisory sessions and by phone. Every student had at least two daily touchpoints from a staff member. The full school community continued to come together twice each day online, just as they did before the pandemic, during a morning meeting and an end of day check-in. Ninety-five percent of their boys logged in to learn every day. The school also provides mental health support for its teaching staff, predominantly Black men, through Georgetown University so that they can process their own trauma and better support students. CEO and Founder, Shawn Hardnett, says that the school emphasizes “physical distancing” rather than “social distancing,” a distinction that is important for maintaining a focus on healing and community even when students are not in school.

Where do we go from here?

“Truth-telling, reconciliation, and healing in schools will look different than they have in the past,” Hill observed. Schools and other organizations will need to acknowledge how they have upheld inequitable environments. And as Germain pointed out, “Black educators cannot carry the full burden of the work to be done. Everyone needs to own the change in schools.” If you are interested in learning more about how to redesign your school to put equity at the center, please see this list of resources Hill and Germain shared.

We also hope that you will participate in the Distance Learning Lessons series, including the upcoming webinars that will occur throughout June and July:

• June 24th: What Will Learning Look Like This Fall: Scenario Planning for an Uncertain Future
• July 8th: Grade-Level Instruction or Personalized Pathways: Is It Possible to Prioritize Both in Distance Learning?
• July 15th: Meeting the Social-Emotional Needs of Our Students: Spotlight on a School Model
• July 22nd: Meeting the Needs of All Learners: Spotlight on English Language Learners