Responding to Covid-19

Opportunity Culture Initiative as a Strategy for Covid Recovery

The following organizations have recognized the innovative staffing models of the Opportunity Culture initiative as effective strategies for Covid recovery:

• US Department of Education
• Chiefs for Change
• Center for American Progress
• FutureEd
• Council of Chief State School Officers
• McKinsey & Company
• Texas Education Agency

Additionally, Indiana, Texas, Arkansas, and North Carolina have established state grant funding that can support the implementation of Opportunity Culture models.

Multi-Classroom Leadership When Schools Close Temporarily

These models, developed when Covid-19 first struck, demonstrate options for teaching and learning when everyone is remote, and when some students or teachers are remote.

District Policies for At-Home Learning

As students and teachers shift to working from home, many district policies need to shift as well. Our new publication, Recommended District Policies for At-Home Teaching and Learning, provides recommendations with a focus on: What policies are both feasible and most likely to produce strong learning outcomes for all students, especially disadvantaged learners?

Coaching Teachers Remotely During Covid

In this webinar, three excellent, experienced multi-classroom leaders detail how they support their teaching teams remotely, as their teams faced the extreme challenges of helping students through the trauma of a pandemic, racial violence, and protests while delivering excellent instruction—all while balancing their own stress and personal needs.

The RA’s Role During At-Home/Hybrid Schooling

When schools must shift to some or all teaching and learning at home, how might the reach associate role change to continue to support the team and students? This two-page guidance briefly lists RA responsibilities before, during, and after instruction during at-home teaching and learning.

Guiding a Crisis Move to At-Home Learning

Multi-classroom leaders can help smooth and lead the way for their teaching teams and students when a crisis requires a move to at-home teaching and learning. We suggest some ways MCLs can continue their job of guiding and supporting teaching teams to ensure that all students continue learning—and to provide the social-emotional support students need.

Stories of Educators Teaching & Leading from Home

With little time to prepare for at-home teaching and learning, Opportunity Culture educators innovatively stepped up to do what’s best for students.

• For This MCL, A Week of Team Planning and Parenting
• In Georgia, Leading a Team on Distance Teaching and Caring
• Keep Doing What Worked: Advice for At-Home Learning
• In Charlotte, Keeping Connected to 212 At-Home Students
• Consistency and Care: Confronting COVID-19 in a Rural School Community
• Spreading Support in Vance County During At-Home Learning
• From Start to Finish, A Focus on Relationships During At-Home Learning
• High-Touch At-Home Learning? That’s the Plan in Indianapolis School
• In Arizona, Turning Vulnerabilities Into Strengths as Teaching Goes Home
• Multi-Classroom Leaders Provide the “First Line of Defense” in Guilford County, N.C.
• In Lincoln, Arkansas, Multi-Classroom Leaders Guide the Way on At-Home Learning
• When Learning Went Home, Newly Named Multi-Classroom Leaders Jumped In
• Two MCLs’ Pandemic Tools to Monitor Student Understanding

Guide to Online Technology

In response to the COVID-19 school shutdowns, we have created a resource table to provide a quick comparison of several popular online platforms and tips for using these, safely and securely, in online classrooms.

Creating Engaging Video Lessons

Some Opportunity Culture districts turned to their multi-classroom leaders (MCLs) in spring 2020 to create a library of engaging video lessons to supplement live instruction during the shift to remote learning. This deck shares tips from some of these MCLs on the mechanics of recording lessons, and how to create engaging lessons easily.

Addressing Students’ Trauma

As educators address student learning loss from Covid-19 disruptions, they will need to address the trauma everyone has experienced in some form, both from the pandemic and the traumatic effects of racism that were highlighted during shutdown protests. This concise package of easy-to-follow tools offers tactics for responding to trauma, tips for maintaining student relationships during remote learning, a protocol for responding to hateful language in the classroom, and more.

More Resources

Public Impact worked with several organizations to compile useful pandemic-related resources; here are those resources and some others that we found helpful.

• NC Districts’ COVID-19 Response Databases: Public Impact and EdNC published two databases showing how North Carolina’s 115 school districts responded to Covid-19. The original database, posted in April 2022, tracked shifts in instruction, student support, and operations in response to school closures. Our accompanying opinion piece looked at what state leaders must do to support districts. The October 2020 NC Districts Fall 2020 Reopening Database documents details of districts’ reopening plans; early analysis suggests improved but ongoing struggles with access to technology, gaps in support for special student groups like English language learners, and disparities in offerings between higher- and lower-wealth districts.
• The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, which has extensive experience in online teaching and did a pilot last year of Remotely Located Multi-Classroom Leadership, provides guidance on online teaching during emergencies, with many video tutorials for using tech platforms, advice on considerations for students with IEPs, and more.
• EdNC.org’s coverage includes links to resources for educators.
• Brooklyn LAB worked with Public Impact and other partners to produce the Brooklyn LAB Instructional Program Scheduling Map, responding to guidance on social distancing for reopening, to help schools think through how to use teaching teams and groups of students to ensure that those receiving in-person instruction can do so safely.
• The Illustrative Mathematics Video Learning Series offers 24 videos for grades 6–8 and Algebra I that support fall readiness for students as they prepare to enter the next grade in mathematics.
• Education Resource Strategies has produced helpful resources for districts to reopen their schools under differing circumstances in the fall; see them here.
• Teach Plus posted tips for online teaching here.