As we move from weeks to months of social distancing, school closures, and remote work—and we envision an education system fundamentally changed by the COVID-19 pandemic—Education Northwest is responding to our partners’ changing needs.

Today, school and district leaders have transitioned from the initial necessity of meeting essential basic needs to delivering remote educational services in a variety of creative ways. Next school year, educational leaders will continue to be faced with complex and complicated scenarios that must focus on student well-being first while delivering educational services in both virtual and face-to-face settings.

Unsurprisingly, school and district leaders are facing a range of challenges: the needs for social and emotional learning, mental health, and trauma-informed practices will dramatically increase; student mobility and attendance will be volatile; the inequity of learning loss from the previous months will make it harder to place students in 2020–21; challenges related to student accountability and grading from this year will carry into next year; and staffing and implementing safe social distancing practices will increase expenses while budgets are significantly reduced.

It will take a collective effort to address these challenges and provide an equitable, high-quality, innovative educational system worthy of our children.

Education Northwest is here to help. Whether it is providing professional development in a virtual setting, evaluating the implementation of online curriculum, or identifying new strategies for student assessment, we are committed to supporting our partners—and making improvements so that we can all emerge from this experience stronger than we went into it.

In the meantime, we will continue to use evidence to help you solve educational challenges and improve student learning, to set all students up for success, no matter the setting.

Be well and stay safe,

Patty