5 ways to honor students’ time and advance equity in a post-pandemic world

These individuals – including school and network leaders in both district and charter schools – each approached the task somewhat differently, in ways appropriate for their context. But they all committed to the following actionable strategies to make the most of people’s time in a very challenging year:

Commit to rigorous learning for every student. 2020-21 was a year of compromises. But the one thing these leaders would not compromise on was rigor. For Jeanine Zitta, Network Superintendent in St. Louis Public Schools, this led to her laser like focus on strengthening teacher planning. They might have covered fewer topics, but they made sure the skills they developed were the most important for college and career readiness, and for those they were unwilling to sacrifice depth.

Develop a sharp vision for what excellent teaching and leading looks like. Exceptional leaders understood the most supportive thing they could do for their teachers is to build a shared vision for instructional excellence. For Johnson, specifically, this meant crafting powerful tools that define instructional excellence and coaching her leadership team in how to build that shared vision.

Put lots of eyes on instruction and student work. In contrast to what happened in many places, the leaders we shadowed doubled down on lesson observation when all teaching went online. Only by having their whole leadership team analyzing what was happening between teachers and students could they identify and address the most important gaps. And only by looking at student work could they know if the teaching was effective. Heather Haines, Regional Instructional Superintendent in Denver Public Schools, exemplifies this practice by establishing a narrow set of priorities, benchmarks, and practices with her team.

Tighten the cycles of formative assessment, analysis, and response. Leaders understood that with remote learning came increased risk that gaps in teaching and learning might not be detected soon enough to address before students fell further behind. Hence they increased the amount of data they tracked, and the frequency with which they did so. They tracked student engagement and work completion along with mastery. And they responded to red flags as often as daily.

Do all of the above while taking care of your people. The social-emotional needs of students and adults have been tremendous this past year, as they will be in the year ahead. Despite the physical isolation, these leaders made sure they attended to people’s overall wellbeing. They tracked students’ emotional states and built structures to forge meaningful relationships. They gave constant shout outs and were attuned to the fact that people can only take on so much. We see examples of this care as Laura Garza and Aaron Aguirre-Castillo from the Dallas Independent School District share their approach to building a shared vision for racial equity.

Principal Brandi Chin, School Director at Noel Campus, Denver School of Science and Technology told us recently she’s looking at planning for next school year like planning to open an entirely new school.

That’s how all school, district, and network leaders should be thinking right now.

As we reimagine what needs to be done to give all students the learning experiences they deserve, we must think first and foremost how to make the most of their time.

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