“Student learning is an afterthought in many state reopening plans; that’s a huge mistake”

We’ve been working with the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) to create a database of all states’ reopening plans, accompanied by a series of briefs and analyses. The database will be published soon. Meanwhile, a new blog by CRPE’s Ashley Jochim and Georgia Heyward and Public Impact’s Beth Clifford provides a peek at the early findings.

“CRPE and Public Impact are wrapping up our review of state reopening plans. If first impressions portend what’s to come, there are big reasons to be concerned,” the authors write.

What’s missing in the plans? While they provide a needed focus on protecting the health of students and staff, they let students down by failing to provide an equal focus on student learning.

“The enormity of this moment is why it is so essential that states step in now to ensure that districts offer students meaningful opportunities to learn—whether in-person, in a blended model or remotely. If states allow logistical considerations to crowd out everything else, they will place the most vulnerable students at risk of even greater learning loss in 2020–21,” the authors say.

See the full post here, and we’ll be back in your inbox soon with the full database and further analyses.

Comparing some specific state strategies

Alongside our work with CRPE, we responded to a request from Bluum, a nonprofit helping cultivate great school leaders and innovative schools in Idaho, to look at state strategies on some specific issues for reopening schools. Initially intended for policymakers and school leaders in Idaho, Bluum decided to post our working draft for wider sharing. Based on a review of national media, third-party reports, and a select number of state plans chosen based on their similarities to Idaho, the document looks at such questions as:

• whether and how states are allowing districts to measure “attendance” in new ways during remote learning,
• what flexibilities states are granting to districts on teacher evaluation, licensure, or certain state funds,
• how states are addressing technology needs,
• and more. We’ll continue to update the document as we get more information.

Public Impact’s COVID-19 Resources

Public Impact has many resources to support schools and districts during at-home or mixed-location teaching and learning, all here. They include:

• Model: Multi-Classroom Leadership with Students & Teachers in Multiple Locations
• Model: Multi-Classroom Leadership When All Students & Teachers Are at Home
• District Policies for At-Home Learning
• Stories of Educators Teaching and Leading from Home
• Database: NC Districts’ COVID-19 Response

Public Impact Out (Well, In) and About

Bryan C. Hassel, Public Impact’s co-president, will join the “Spotlighting Educational Inequity in COVID-19” panel this afternoon at 4:30 p.m. during the annual Education Writers Association conference. (Registration is closed, but follow #EWA20 on Twitter for highlights.)

Lyria Boast, vice president for data analytics at Public Impact, joined the Progressive Policy Institute’s webinar “What Worked: Remote Instruction During COVID-19,” presenting, with CRPE’s Bree Dusseault, comprehensive data on how school systems performed this spring; watch it here.

Chandler Rowland, a consultant with Public Impact who focuses on assisting districts and schools in implementing Opportunity Culture models, joined the webinar presented by Digital Promise and Brooklyn Laboratory Charter Schools, “Reopening Schools: A Scheduling Map for Educators.” Rowland discussed the portion of the new Instructional Program Scheduling Map that shows how schools following the principles of an Opportunity Culture can staff their classrooms and organize schedules to provide excellent teaching for all students, and great support for teachers.