1. *NEW: Reopening Planning

Trying to decide whether to go with Model 1, 2, or 3 for reopening? Have you already decided, but are now trying to decide which students and teachers will be in the building on which days? 

​

We can help you develop an optimal reopening plan by looking at your key constraints: space, staffing, student achievement levels, numbers and distributions of students with disabilities and English Language Learners, or anything else that may affect your ability to provide students in-person learning.

​​

​

2. *NEW: Individual Student Programming (HS Only)

Existing tools provided by the DOE to summarize student progress to graduation do not provide detailed or accurate enough information to support programming decisions. Programmers are stuck manually reviewing each student’s transcript or risking programming errors that could cost a student their chance to graduate on time.

​

• Accurate credit totals: Credits that can’t be used to satisfy any graduation requirement are excluded from subject, content area, and overall totals, so you can see at a glance how far students really are from graduating.

• Course-level detail: We show, not only how many global credits a student has (for example), but which parts of thesequence the student has completed.

• Accurate information on exam requirements: We show how close students are to both the standard Regents diploma, and the advanced diploma (and the safety net local diploma for eligible students).

​

​

3. *NEW: Program Design and Progress Analysis (HS Only)

What drives failure to graduate on time? The answers vary from student to student, and from school to school. Are students not being programmed for Health until 12th grade, then failing to graduate because they’re not taking the class seriously? Is there no cushion in students’ programs to allow for the possibility of needing to take US History a second time? Do students have enough opportunities to re-take Regents exams they need to graduate? These are a few of the programming considerations that affect students’ likelihood to graduate.

​

Our analytical approach can help school leaders identify the specific reasons why students are going off track, and guide them to make the best decisions to increase graduation rates and better serve students.

​

​

4. Progress Monitoring 

Remote learning has created challenges for schools trying to track student progress, see where students are falling behind, and plan for 2020-2021. Fifty-five percent of NYC public school students said they would like an easier way to monitor progress when remote learning begins in the fall. We can help you build and administer a short, beginning of year diagnostic assessment to help identify incoming students’ strengths and weaknesses, and create a starting point for monitoring progress.​

​

​

5. Grading Equity Analysis

How do you know if your school is grading students fairly and equitably? To inform this question, we can provide an analysis that shows how students have been graded compared to what we would expect based on the previous year’s state exam scores. For example, how do the grades of students with IEPs compare to the grades of non-IEP students with the exact same state exam scores? Why? While the answers may be complex, this data can help inform critical conversations among teachers and leadership about grading and equity.

​

​

6. Remote + In-Person Attendance Tracking & Analysis

We can build or customize a simple, easy-to-use system for tracking and analyzing students’ attendance in both remote and in-person learning environments. We can help you launch a new system, or improve your current systems to more easily track, analyze, and prepare attendance data.

​

​

7. Automate and Personalize Family Outreach

We can help you deliver automated, personalized outreach to keep students and families informed and engaged about student learning.

​

​

8. Customized solutions

Are you seeking the answers to other questions about how your Remote Learning is going so far? Spending much too much time wrangling Google Sheets and Google Forms? We can help. Whatever the task – big or small – let us help you. Contact us to schedule a videoconference or phone call.  

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

What we've learned so far:

​

Here's a list of best practices in transitioning to Remote Learning that we've gathered from research and conversations with school leaders.  Stay tuned for more updates!

​

1. Keep equity top of mind. 

​

Think through the impact of each decision on the student with the most need first.  Incorporate plans for students with IEPs.

​

2. Use backwards design.   

​

Ask the big questions first: what outcomes do we want, what do we want students to learn, etc, then design your remote learning systems and processes to meet those outcomes.  (Instead of building a system first, then trying to make it achieve the desired outcomes). The grade 3-8 NY state tests have been cancelled and the June Regents are in question - this is an opportunity to move beyond test prep and ask what we want our students to have learned in preparation for the next grade level. 

​

3. Group families by need. 

​

Create 2-3 groups based on need, and consider how you can deliver support to those families as a group.  

​

4. Minimize the number of platforms used.  

​

Keep it simple.  Stick with 1-2 platforms and accept their limitations, rather than adding new ones that students, parents and teachers need time and mental energy to learn.

​

5. Establish a single source of the truth (SSOT). 

​

Have one source that parents, teachers, and students can feel confident is offering consistent, accurate, reliable and up-to-date information that applies to the whole school.

​

6. Maintain structure.  

​

Make sure teachers keep a structure and schedule for students - students need structure to feel safe, especially in this scary time.

​

7. Center asynchronous learning, but keep some synchronous activity. 

​

Make sure students with greater constraints can access all key learning.  Accept that not all students will be able to get online at set times, especially students who are sharing devices with family members, have limited internet access, or are managing family obligations. But build in synchronous experiences that don't cover critical content so that students can experience a sense of solidarity and community. 

​

8. Don't shy away from discussing Coronavirus.  

​

While it's a scary topic, students are eager for information and want to talk about their fears. Build in time for discussing what is happening and answering questions.

 

9. Be realistic.  

Plan to cover less.  Keep lessons tight and focused and accept that technology and life constraints will keep you from covering as much content as normal.