Schools across Pennsylvania and around the country are beginning the 2020-2021 school year while COVID-19 remains a threat in widely varying degrees, in different communities, and at different times. Every school that is opening its building to students--part-time or full-time, starting now or later in the school year--needs to contemplate the…

After a challenging fall semester, a national survey from Public Agenda finds that K-12 teachers and parents are largely on the same page regarding education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Just over half of both teachers and parents feel that their communities value teachers more now than before the pandemic. While only one-third of parents think…

The coronavirus pandemic has altered schooling in unprecedented ways. As schools moved rapidly from in-person instruction to remote learning in early 2020, educators and policymakers faced a host of new challenges. They had to deliver online instruction, try to ensure students had access to the internet and devices, and address the…

With the health and safety of students, families, and staff as the top priority, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) announced in July of 2020 that all students would begin the 2020-2021 school year virtually on September 8, 2020, and that virtual instruction for all students would continue for six weeks through Friday, October 16,…

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) closed its campuses and district offices on March 12, 2020. On March 30, 2020, HISD moved to remote learning, which included distance learning, independent study, live online meetings, and completing assignments online or paper-based packets mailed to the home.…

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, progressively more complete data have shed light on the tremendous variation in districts' approaches to schooling. Some districts have provided fully remote learning since the outset of the pandemic, some have mostly provided in-person learning, and others have fallen somewhere in between. In this report,…

In spring 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to an unprecedented and sweeping shift in the landscape of public schooling in the United States. Beginning in March, schools across the country closed their doors and adopted remote learning supports that varied in degree and type. In May 2020, researchers from the RAND…