Pennsylvania

"We reached out to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Education Laboratory to do research for us and they came back with some really useful information about how to put parameters on safe in-person instruction. Their recommendations were, if you cannot resolve the social distancing problem, you can get there through a proxy, which was to go down to 40 percent capacity on any given day to create a safer environment"

"When folks are thinking about things like rebuilding infrastructure…we think about what that means not just for conditions that were affected by the pandemic, but what that’s going to mean for school buildings going forward, and then what does that mean with regards to access and opportunity for historically underrepresented students. And so the idea of making recovery planning to be reconciled with equity outcomes kind of also allows us to put a certain narrative and discourse out into the public as well."

"Everyone will gravitate to HR investments, which is one of the areas there clearly is a tremendous need. And immediately you’re left with the thinking that you can’t use one-time funds to invest in human capital because it’s not sustainable over time. And so what we end up doing is to say, ‘All right. If human capital development is what you’re looking to do, how can you get to where you need to get with a one-time infusion of dollars?’ So the next question then becomes, can I broaden our human capital with this one-time infusion of dollars, and then where would that be?"

"I do think that in the end when you put up the guiding principles, they’re pretty universal. I think that they are agnostic to ideology when you think about disproportionality and the importance of rebuilding the system. I think it’s the entry points that differ. How someone wants to get started on that recovery is where it differs, but over time when you think about how you’re going to invest funds. That’s not an easy thing to do. Even for someone who gets good ideas with the funding, there’s no way that you can figure out now what the needs are going to be 2 or 3 years from now."

"We’ve got system thinkers, organizational thinkers, and individual thinkers, and rather than expecting them to think across all areas, we’ll use each of the areas as kind of a next step in the planning….It was really helpful early on in the pandemic when we had to make decisions that had to do with certain parts of what the institution or the school does. So, in some cases we were talking about simply instruction from remote to in person, but in other cases we were talking about provisions of services like lunch and meals and other services that are sometimes coupled to instruction or even provision of lunches like transportation. And so the ecology [unpacking issues by context] was really helpful for people to begin to think about what service is associated with each part."

"We had some issues with getting kids to log on and complete their work. Throughout the whole time period, we had 80-90 percent of our students registered as active users on Google Classroom, meaning they had logged on at least one time in the last 7 days. It didn’t necessarily mean they were doing the work, but at least we’re getting them to log on."

"As far as the instructional side, the biggest thing we learned—we went asynchronous, with teachers putting up materials for students to work on and submit. That type of approach, with no real interaction, was not the greatest. As we’re planning for next school year (fall 2020), we’ve decided to go synchronous, so students are really interacting with their teachers."

"We set up a hotline for our families. It was very busy the first couple of days. So we did get a few complaints about the phone being busy, but we kept encouraging people to call back. When people called, right on the spot the IT team was able to assign a device to an individual. Once we had that together, we started scheduling pickups."

"I would be a proponent of having those assessments in some shape or form happen, and us learning where we’re at. Because I bet we’re going to have to do some catch-up work."

"We have heard a lot of individual stories of students that are really struggling to learn via Zoom and other virtual strategies. But then we’ve also seen a lot of success stories. So it really is a challenging situation. But I will say that it seems to have gotten better with time and our teachers have gotten better at it. It’s a lot more work to teach and learn virtually and keep everybody engaged."

"This school year, one of the things that I didn’t necessarily have in place, but had to put in place, was wellness checks."

"For many of our students, some in rural areas where Internet connections aren’t as strong, I’ve been a little concerned about participation rates of some of our students."

"I do think the kids that had already been somewhat marginalized—I think that gap has gotten even worse, and that’s really disappointing to see."

"School leaders could not mandate that the kids would turn on their video, and they would record the session so that the [students] could come back later and tap into it. But the vast majority of my teachers…they felt less than 50 percent of their kids were truly engaged in the lesson."

"Very few students are going to get 100% of the curriculum [virtually] the way they would if they were sitting in a classroom."

"I think there are still some unknowns. Whether or not we’re going to have to require masks in the fall for students that are under 12, how we’re going to handle students that aren’t vaccinated. What’s the lunchroom going to look like, or an outdoor space? … We’re also thinking and focusing on the academic levels of our kids and what was lost during COVID, but wanting to push forward with acceleration and re-teaching as we progress forward. We couldn’t recreate fully in the hybrid model what we would create during a five-day school environment where everyone’s coming in, but it was great to have students in to capture some of what we would have provided in-person all year if we could have."

"Our teachers focus on building relationships in their classroom. Establishing a strong community in the classroom is essential for students to feel a sense of belonging, build trust, and fully engage in their learning. Many of our teachers are trained in trauma-informed instruction for students. We recognize that some of our students might not have been in a school setting for the past 15 months, therefore we know we must provide supports for students and adults, putting the care of their social-emotional well-being first before any learning can happen."

"Once we did reintegrate back into the school community [from remote learning], some of the socialization skills that students in their kindergarten year pick up have not necessarily been developed as quickly as we would like. So we’re already thinking about—what does orientation for those first grade students look like?"

"I think a lot of our teachers, I don’t like to use the term ‘burnt out,’ but I do think they are ready for a break. And so getting teachers that would want to teach an extended school year and teach several weeks over the summer, finding personnel to do that and hiring people, I think that’s going to be a challenge for us. Because people are just ready for a break, whether they need the money or not."

"[School leaders] are saying that teachers are tired, that they don’t want to do some of the extended learning programs this summer, and they need a break. I get that."

"I can see how it would be draining or difficult to go right from a school year into summer, but there have to be ways to extend learning opportunities differently. The research says the best time to retain summer learning is at the end of summer. If summer learning is offered, now, right after school ends, students don’t remember the learning for the entire summer."

"We’ve been able to think about how to incentivize staff members. Recognizing that burnout is real—however, we need staff to actually provide active instruction during the summer months. So how do we make it financially worthwhile? We’ve almost doubled the traditional summer salary to ensure that we have a great deal of staffing retention."

"The biggest barrier is getting personnel that would be willing to come in and give up their traditional summertime. It’s not just in education…right now, it seems like there’s really a lack, a shortage of employers being able to find employees, and the school system, I think, is in a similar situation."

"It’s a lot of money. And we’re happy to have the extra dollars. But now we’re just trying to build that within our budget context to think about things like, yes, we want to hire many new [Response to Intervention] teachers to support reading, math, and, science for students that are struggling and missed time during COVID, but we also need to think about [social-emotional learning] and the way kids feel. We want to do that with the intent of carrying this staff into the future of our programming so our children can continue to have support as our schools grow."

"If I was given five [new full-time employees], I would have selected counselors all day every day. There is definitely a need—we saw a spike in our social-emotional issues this year due to COVID."

"We have a counseling team, but they could always use more resources. They’re already brainstorming about bringing in additional help for grief counseling, bringing in additional help to support not just for our students, but also students’ families."

"We have to create structures, we have to think about funding, we have to think about resources, we have to think about spaces to provide the self-care, the resources, the counseling, the social-emotional needs, and it can’t just be a conversation, it has to take place at a systems level. So if districts are saying that we’ve now received the funding for additional social workers that [must] translate all the way to additional counseling minutes for students."