Making Reopening Schools a Wedge Issue Is Shameful
School opening, like mask wearing, has become a wedge issue in national politics. First, Senator Rand Paul attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci for excess caution on the topic. Now President Trump is demanding that all schools return to full in-person mode in the fall, and has threatened to cut funding for schools that don’t. The President has […]
What Will It Take to Reopen Schools Amid the Pandemic? 6 Experts Weigh In on the Looming Fiscal Crisis and What Services Districts Should (and Shouldn’t) Cut
This is the first in a series of invited responses to some of the big, unanswered questions facing America’s schools.
Students Count: Highlights from COVID-19 Student Surveys
A lot has been asked of American students this spring. They have been away from their friends and at the mercy of schools unprepared to educate them from a distance. We wanted to know more than anecdotes about the student experience and what they say they need and want going into the fall. We reviewed […]
An Early Plan from a Must-Watch District: Reopening in Miami-Dade
The fifth-largest school district in the country was one of the earliest in the country to move instruction online, and by our account, it delivered one of the most robust plans.
Using Assessments Wisely This Year
If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that ignoring data does not make a problem go away. As schools reopen this fall, educators face an unprecedented challenge in determining how best to meet the individual social, emotional, and academic needs of students impacted not only by prolonged school closures but by long-standing, systemic […]
The Wait for Fall Reopening Plans, and the First Details to Emerge
Parents, students, teachers, policymakers, and community members are all waiting for schools to release fall reopening plans. Four months into COVID-19, and just weeks out from the new school year, very few districts in our database report concrete expectations for the 2020-21 school year. CRPE has been watching for reopening plans for the 100 districts […]
Deficiencies in Spring and Summer Point to Where Districts Must Put Their Attention This Fall
School systems face a monumental challenge preparing for fall amid a public health and fiscal crisis. Vulnerable students can ill afford to repeat this spring, when the initial virus outbreaks and sudden closures caught schools unprepared. Gaps in spring and summer planning can point districts to the critical issues they must attend to in the […]
School’s Out for the Summer: Parents Worry about Social-Emotional Impacts of Closures
As the school year closes, parents are experiencing complex emotions: relief that the remote learning roller coaster has ended, gratitude for the educators who have worked tirelessly these last few months, and worry about the future. Parents worry—not only about the potential academic loss for students across the country, but about the social-emotional and mental […]
Building Effective Relationships with a Teacher-Family-Student Triangle
The COVID-19 pandemic has thrust parents into a new role with their kids: helping them organize their days and weeks, tracking what assignments are due, and providing instructional, social-emotional, and technical support. For schools to have effective working relationships with parents as co-teachers, they must look beyond the traditional teacher-student relationship, and they must manage […]
Schools Can Help Parents by Setting Clear Expectations
In March, schools started to roll out school closure plans in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. For families, the last few months have felt like a roller coaster as they tried to adjust to the everchanging new realities. In May, we interviewed 33 parents, including 7 who were also educators, to gain insight into these […]
