In this episode of Innovations in Education, hosted by Kevin Hogan:

• New research offers major insights into post-pandemic learning
• In post-COVID schools, let’s redouble efforts to support students
• Meet the 2022 K-12 Hero Awards winners!

Related:
Future strategies for today’s schools
How to ease three district pain points

The other day, my friend’s high school daughter complained, “It’s not fair!” “What’s not fair?” her mother asked. “Everyone is cheating!” her daughter replied. “They started doing it during COVID, and now it’s a habit.” Unfortunately, academic dishonesty is just one example of the many negative consequences of the COVID pandemic.

In hindsight, we have ample evidence that remote learning during COVID increased hardships for PK-12 students, both academically and non-academically. Some students lacked necessary resources. In one study, even after all students were provided with a laptop computer, internet access, and headphones, low-income students’ school attendance and engagement were consistently less frequent than their higher-income peers (An, 2021). Food insecurity also increased during COVID, partly due to the hiatus of school breakfast, lunch, and take-home snack pack programs (Parekh et al., 2021). And worst of all, children at home during COVID were twice as likely to experience physical abuse and three times likely to experience emotional abuse during the pandemic than in prior years (Park & Walsh, 2022).

Without a doubt, remote learning during COVID was distressing for students, with 71 percent of parents in one study reporting that the pandemic had “taken a toll on their child’s mental health” (Abramson, 2022, para. 2).

It was a stressful time for teachers, too. One study found that teachers experienced higher burnout rates, depression, and anxiety as a result of the rapid transition to remote learning and its extended duration, which led to feelings of isolation, lower work commitment, and higher teacher turnover (Gutentag & Asterhan, 2022).

All of these factors contributed to a substantial decline in student learning during COVID. One year into the pandemic, Kwakye and Kibort-Crocker (2021) reported that 23 percent of low-income students received a failing grade during the pandemic compared to 8 percent of average- and high-income students. After two years, federal achievement data revealed significant drops in third-grade students’ overall math and reading scores across the United States (Camera, 2022).

So now, we’re all back at school, but things have changed. In addition to lingering fears of COVID, the national trend toward disrespect for authority has increased student discipline issues, and the rash of school shootings in recent years has rendered school safety a huge concern (Kurtz, 2022; Oshin, 2022).

Moreover, controversial curricular reform efforts in social studies, science, and health have exacerbated the re-opening of schools, with community feelings of distrust, protests at school board meetings, and parents pulling children from public schools in favor of private and home school options (Sparks, 2022).

Related:
4 tips to build a strong classroom culture this year
7 educators share back-to-school action plans

The eSchool News K-12 Hero Awards recognize the dedicated efforts of education professionals across K-12 departments, including IT, curriculum, instruction and administration. 

Sponsored this year by JAR Systems and SAP Concur, the program received an influx of inspiring nominations that highlight the innovation and selflessness of educators in schools and districts across the nation.

Listed here is the second group of the program’s finalists. The first group of finalists was featured on eSchool News last week–find them here!

Jump to: Jim Perry, Jones County Public Schools, Juliann Koehn, Cory Matsumiya, Kim Kaspar, Kirk Langer, Laura Johnson, Mark Hess, Michele Bledsoe, Mira Campbell, Neal Kellogg, Scott Mitchum, Shawn Braxton, Spartanburg School District One, Steven Langford, Tiffany Brinkley, Twin Rivers Unified School District.

Nominee: Jim Perry, Stapleton School
Nominated by: EmpowerU, Inc. 

Jim Perry came to education as a second career and has brought such dedication and fresh perspective to his staff, students, and district at large.

Jim wanted to support student well-being and resilience in the face of the disruption and set-back in social-emotional learning that COVID created. Jim embraced EmpowerU immediately. He took the self-regulation and resilience framework and adopted it at a school-wide level. As classroom teachers led classrooms through turn-key lessons and helped students apply what they learned to their goals and challenges, Jim took it even further by having assemblies to showcase the learnings happening in each classroom.

He believes in EmpowerU so much that he helped to present to the larger Baldwin County Public Schools district on the benefits and major changes that he is seeing in his staff and students. His enthusiasm for creating a safe social emotional learning environment is very admirable and his students are so lucky.

Jim is a vibrant a leader like Jim Perry, and Stapleton is thriving under his leadership. We love Jim Perry!

Nominee: Jones County Public Schools
Nominated by: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)            

Jones County Public Schools: Forward-Thinking K-12 Heroes of the Pandemic

Jones County Public Schools in North Carolina has a unique pandemic story. It all started in September 2018. After Hurricane Florence devastated the community and destroyed one of the district’s schools, Jones County Public Schools set out to rebuild its school infrastructure, which now includes a brand-new, high-tech, solar-powered K-12 campus. To complement its forward-thinking vision, the district sought a blended curriculum solution that offered a full suite of digital resources accessible from a single platform. District leaders formed the Jones Curriculum Council (JCC), a committee of teachers tasked with researching and evaluating top-tier curriculum solutions. HMH’s connected solutions scored highest on the JCC’s rubric. The district formed a partnership with HMH—purchasing HMH Into Math, HMH Into Reading, HMH Into Literature, and Waggle programs, along with professional services, which are all accessed via Ed, HMH’s learning platform.

As Jones County leaders will tell you, this dynamic, one-stop-shop of connected solutions and professional learning services positioned the district well to face the unique challenges presented by COVID-19 and the 2020-2021 school year. HMH’s blended curriculum enabled the district to navigate the shift to remote and hybrid better than most districts.

Every day during the pandemic, Jones County educators provided synchronous instruction to in-person and virtual students daily, a task that would be difficult, if not impossible, without a genuinely digital-first solution. Each class was recorded for parents to review anytime, and in-person students collaborated and engaged with their virtual peers.

It was the innovative thinking of JCPS leadership that set the district up for success. Following that initial decision to focus on digital and with the start of the pandemic and beyond, Jones County principals, teachers, and students all embraced “a new normal.” With HMH’s blended curriculum and data tools, teachers in Jones County were able to streamline instruction and personalize learning for each student, without having to purchase extra materials or sign in on multiple platforms.

HMH and JCPS developed a safe plan to capture the Jones Country experience on video and spoke with some teachers and students using HMH connected solutions during COVID-19. The footage acquired was edited into a series videos demonstrating the power and benefits of HMH’s digital-first, connected solutions in a hybrid learning environment.

Nominee: Juliann Koehn, Epic Charter Schools    
Nominated by: EmpowerU, Inc. 

Epic Charter Schools offers online learning to more than 30,000 students in the state of Oklahoma. For years, the school had been searching for ways to reverse the pattern of disengagement, build motivation to complete schoolwork and get students over that finish line at graduation.

With no school counseling team — and teachers weary from other new programs and systems — EPIC needed a partner it could trust to serve Tier 2 students.

Juliann Koehn, Social and Emotional Learning Specialist at Epic, worked to bring EmpowerU to the district and enrolled over 400 students in the program during the 2021-22 school year.

Over 91 percent of Epic students who completed EmpowerU saw a positive impact on well-being, academic engagement, and outcomes, and Juliann is committed to bringing those same results to as many students as possible.

Juliann is passionate about the need to equip students with the tools to be successful and sees the potential in each of them. She works tirelessly to educate others about the importance of programs like EmpowerU to help students become more confident, self-directed, and reach their goals both in and out of the classroom.

In the first few weeks of the 2022-23 school year Juliann has rolled out EmpowerU to over 550 Epic students and counting!

Nominee: Cory Matsumiya, Kamehameha Schools           
Nominated by: SAP Concur         

Kamehameha Schools, headquartered in Honolulu, HI, is the largest private school network in the nation, with a sole mission to educate native Hawaiian children. 

Cory Matsumiya, Assistant Controller, has been with Kamehameha Schools for 15 years.  Cory was the original “owner” of SAP Concur and the primary champion for getting the solution implemented. 

It’s with great pleasure that SAP Concur nominates Kamehameha Schools and Cory Matsumiya for the eSchool News K-12 Hero Awards. 

Cory, part of a team of 3, which he refers to as the “3 Musketeers,” implemented SAP Concur in 2015 in an effort to drive efficiencies, control spending, and optimize visibility for an organization with 4,000+ employees.  Cory exudes an innovative and forward-thinking mindset when it comes to doing the right thing for the organization.  He embraces opportunities to make his team more efficient by automating and streamlining processes, is always eager to find ways to improve current processes, and is more than willing to share his experiences with others to help them do better.  We are grateful for our partnership with Cory and Kamehameha Schools!

Nominee: Kim Kaspar, MSW, Aurora Public Schools’ AWARE Program                     
Nominated by: Hazel Health       

Hazel Health (Hazel) nominates Kim Kaspar in honor of her dedication to ensuring her students receive care based on what’s best for them, not what’s easiest for adults. Providing access to mental health care has been a priority for Aurora Public Schools’ AWARE Team even before the pandemic. However, as districts nationwide experienced a shortage of qualified health care professionals, the pandemic’s impact on students’ mental health created an unprecedented need to expand access to care quickly. Based on this need, Aurora Public Schools was in the implementation stage when the Director of Mental Health and Counseling unexpectedly had to take a leave of absence.

Understanding the importance of expanding care in the wake of the pandemic, Ms. Kaspar stepped up to move the work forward. Ms. Kasapar not only ensured the partnership was successful but pushed Hazel to innovate its services to align with Colorado state policy. In Colorado, students 12 or older do not need consent from a parent or guardian to access mental health services. Ms. Kaspar understood that students might not be comfortable getting permission to receive the care they critically needed and pushed Hazel to align its services within the district accordingly.

To ensure the partnership’s success, Ms. Kaspar took the Hazel team from school to school across 30 sites to present to the staff responsible for student care. She helped overcome objections and foster collaboration between the schools and the Hazel team. One aspect of the partnership in particular that she highlighted was the ability for Hazel to transition student care to long-term providers as needed. She said, “I hate for kids with mental health challenges to tell their stories to different adults.” She values that Hazel makes the experience seamless for students—whom she puts first at every turn. Now, Hazel sees consistent utilization of its services across the district, primarily due to Ms. Kaspar’s efforts.

Nominee: Kirk Langer, Lincoln Public Schools      
Nominated by: Lightspeed Systems         

Kirk is responsible for keeping the students and faculty of Lincoln Public Schools connected and engaged through technology to ensure that learning isn’t disrupted. Kirk leads a team of 65 experts, and under his guidance they have accomplished feats such as the procurement of 3,680 brand new MacBook Airs for certified staff, and organizing extensive cybersecurity trainings for staff to keep the district and its students safe. His passion and dedication to bettering his district through the use of technology is commendable and makes him a worthy recipient of this award.

Nominee: Laura Johnson, Apex Learning Virtual School   
Nominated by: Edmentum           

Before schools shut down due to the global pandemic, most students had little to no experience with digital learning or online school. Many schools found themselves having to adapt to a virtual setting to survive. As a certified teacher through Edmentum’s Apex Learning Virtual School (ALVS), Laura Johnson is dedicated to ensuring every student thrives in a virtual environment. The pandemic tasked her to meet an influx of students who faced new sets of challenges, while maintaining high standards and helping students cope with new learning environments.

For 14 years, Laura Johnson has taught a variety of subjects, including social studies, psychology, and music and art appreciation–all virtually within ALVS. She started as a part-time teacher while she was still at a brick-and-mortar school, where she drove 38 miles each way to teach. Eventually, Laura became the first full-time teacher with ALVS, and she now connects with students all over the globe.

While ALVS has provided rigorous and engaging online curriculum to students in grades 6-12 for many years, the pandemic made ALVS see a sudden influx of 5,000 new virtual students. As one of the school’s experienced teachers, Laura volunteered her expertise and contributed immensely by stepping in to assist with interviewing, hiring, and training 125 new part-time teachers to meet the demand.

Laura was also heavily involved in the ALVS/Eastern Shore of Maryland Educational Consortium partnership where she and other educators provided instruction to more than 400 students to meet state standards, and ensured lessons complied with management’s outlines. She supported getting this new grant program off the ground, delivering quality digital instruction and modeling new ways of teaching, and connecting with students for the state. This program will continue this year with the same group of motivated educators thanks to the successful contributions of Laura.

Laura’s mantra for being a virtual teacher is “you need to care.” During the pandemic, she faced new challenges, such as students being reluctantly thrust into a digital program out of necessity, and not out of motivation or opportunity. However, Laura went out of her way to make connections with these students. Through phone calls that allowed her to get to know them and discover what motivates them, she took the extra steps like providing individualized feedback on assessments and checking not just for completion, but for understanding. For all assignments, Laura responds with affirmative feedback with “glow or grow” information, meaning what students need to be aware of for future assignments or shares what they did great.

Laura shared that some students who joined her office hours or who reached out to schedule time to speak with her did not really need help academically; instead, they just wanted to talk and have someone listen to them. As a parent, Laura knows the value of a teacher who truly cares about each individual student and that is exactly how she chooses to impact students’ lives and educational journeys—by making those connections, whether students are 38 miles or 1,038 miles away.

Nominee: Mark Hess, Mary Helen Guest Elementary School
Nominated by: Epson

Mark Hess has served in a variety of roles since he was hired in 1993 by Walled Lake Consolidated School District in Walled Lake, Michigan. Prior to COVID-19, Hess was the executive manager of instruction, technology, and data analysis and was one of the key developers of the district’s initiative to revamp its instructional units to focus on the latest research on high-yield teaching strategies, power standards, and embedding technology in each unit. When everyone had to shift to remote and hybrid learning in 2020, Hess’ initiative helped schools and staff feel well-prepared to make the transition because many already had confidence when using technology and openness toward instructional technology. In addition, the district already had computers and document cameras for teachers, who took them home to assist in presenting content during remote teaching.

For the 2020-21 school year, Hess’ district position was dissolved following new district leadership, so he returned to the school building as the principal of Mary Helen Guest Elementary School. As the school leader, Hess learned new ways to support his teachers with the ups and downs of the constantly changing school year. This included finding opportunities to offer effective and efficient professional development and encourage teachers to share best practices with each other. Additionally, investing in the best-in-class technologies has always been a priority for Hess. This includes Epson BrightLink Interactive Displays and Document Cameras for every teaching space. Classrooms throughout the district are outfitted equitably with technology and have an adequate infrastructure teachers need for engaging learning environments.

The 2021-22 school year presented new opportunities for Hess as the elementary school was renovated over the summer and every learning space was updated to active learning environments. Hess ensured teachers were prepared and informed about ways to utilize their new classrooms. Teachers were very appreciative to have more flexibility and are seeing an increase in student engagement and participation. Hess has led staff and teachers to create a safe, motivating, and positive learning environment for students. Hess did not use the pandemic as an excuse to stop innovating and instead, stayed creative to ensure the best learning environment for every student.

Nominee: Michele Bledsoe, Puyallup School District
Nominated by: Hazel Health       

Hazel Health (Hazel) nominates Michele Bledsoe in honor of her deep understanding of the youth health crisis and her ability to build the cross-functional buy-in that ensures her students have equitable access to mental health care. Before the pandemic, the Puyallup School District was experiencing capacity challenges in meeting the needs of its students when it came to providing timely mental health care. The pandemic exacerbated those challenges making the requirement more critical. Because Puyallup is a diverse learning community, finding a partner that could provide culturally competent health care was a top priority.

Ms. Bledsoe, director of Equity & Social Emotional Wellness, K-12 Counselors, MV and Truancy, had the vision to be an early adopter of Hazel. She believed in a world where every student in the Puyallup School District had access to timely, quality health care regardless of their family’s ability to cover the cost of care. And she put in the work to make it a reality. Ms. Bledsoe did the deep research required of a trailblazer to get buy-in from her board and teams across the district. She also had the foresight to understand that leveraging ESSER funds to expand access to student mental healthcare was fundamental to overcoming the impacts of the pandemic.

Thanks to her dedication, every student in the district—more than 22,000—now has access to evidence-based mental health care. Students can receive care in school or at home in minutes to days versus the national average of months. Since Hazel specializes in delivering culturally competent care, the professionals providing care reflect the district’s diversity, which means students and families receive care and support from professionals who understand and value their experiences. Positive word of mouth from families with students who have accessed care is driving the second-highest utilization rate of services out of all our partnerships nationwide. Further, the partnership helped to expand the capacity of overloaded staff dedicated to supporting students’ mental health.

Ms. Bledsoe quickly understood that sustainability is essential and laid the groundwork early for transitioning the work to more sustainable funding sources to ensure students throughout the district can continue to access quality healthcare once ESSER funding runs out. Thanks to Ms. Bledsoe, stakeholders across the Puyallup learning community are positively impacted—but most importantly, students now have access to the care they need to have their best opportunity to thrive.

Nominee: Mira Campbell, FH Miller Jr. PS
Nominated by: Tools for Schools, Inc.     

Mira Campbell has taken on legendary status amongst the Book Creator team. There are very few teachers out there who continually push the capabilities of our tool like Mira does.

Her work is innovative and pushes boundaries–and she’s great at sharing her knowledge with others!

The story behind this nomination comes from a project that Mira ran during the pandemic. They started the project in the classroom, switched seamlessly to remote learning and then finished the project with an in-person celebration that melts the heart!

This was a creative writing project that was differentiated for the various skills, interests, and learning styles of her students, allowing every student to be successful. Mira worked with the class teacher to introduce writing techniques, and then used a writing prompt to generate story ideas. After brainstorming ideas together, they drafted stories in Google Docs before creating fully fleshed multimedia publications in Book Creator.

Mira took advantage of the full suite of tools in Book Creator to allow students to create in the media that worked for them–some kids dictated their books using speech to text; others used drawing and emojis to bring their stories to life. With real-time collaboration in Book Creator, the teachers were able to keep in touch with students and post feedback in their books.

In January 2021, whilst still in lockdown, Mira arranged a class reading over Zoom. They invited the principals to join, and the students got the thrill of sharing their work with a wider audience.

Mira then had students use Flipgrid to record reflections on the book creation process–what they learned, strategies they employed for writing, and a question for Debbie Ridpath Ohi (the author of the writing prompt). These video reflections were embedded at the end of their books. What’s more, Mira reached out to Debbie and she gave her own feedback on the books and answered the questions!

At this point, most people would wrap up the project, but not Mira. Mira used the PDF export feature in Book Creator and worked with a local printing company to print physical copies of their books, which she presented to students in a big reveal once they were back in the classroom! The video she put together of that moment may be the best thing we’ve ever seen Book Creator used for.

Mira is a hero for a number of reasons:

1. She cares about her students and goes out of her way to make projects that work for them on their own individual levels.
2. She works collaboratively with the teachers around her to get the most out of everybody.
3. She generously shares what she has learnt with other teachers.
4. She knows Book Creator inside out and goes above and beyond in the way she uses it in her classroom.
5. She goes the extra mile to give students the best learning experience they could hope for.

Nominee: Neal Kellogg, Oklahoma City Public Schools
Nominated by: TutorMe              

Originally an elementary school music teacher and site lead technology educator, Neal Kellogg is the Director of Educational Technology Services for Oklahoma City Public Schools (OKCPS)—serving 34,000 K–12 students across 33 elementary schools, 12 middle schools, 8 high schools, 4 alternative schools, and 6 charter schools.

Under Neal’s direction, technology at OKCPS is evolving to a more personalized, engaging, and interactive experience, focusing on personal responsibility for self-directed professional learning. A shy student in high school, Neal credits the positive impact his band teacher had on him when he was growing up, which helps guide him today in his role.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Neal prioritized communication first and foremost with students, families, and teachers at OKCPS—the second-largest district in Oklahoma—to ensure learning continued. The pandemic pushed OKCPS to move quick, making it crucial the district kept everyone informed about the direction the district went, along with ongoing changes to better support students.

In March 2020, Neal oversaw the district roll out a one-to-one device program and implement a new learning management system (LMS). While these initiatives can take two years or more to fully scale, the district’s program was up and running by August—just in time for the 2020–2021 school year. During this time, Neal worked with his team to implement solutions to help teachers—including TutorMe, an online tutoring solution–to provide students additional academic support and complement the work teachers were already doing. Neal worked with other leaders throughout the district to help OKCPS adopt, modernize, and move forward in a short period of time.

Throughout the pandemic, Neal’s confident and calm leadership inspired his teammates, while demonstrating natural leadership skills. Neal’s leadership helped guide his team and kept heads above water. Throughout all the change, Neal also fostered a healthy work-life balance throughout the district—recognizing the importance of supporting teachers’ mental health.

Nominee: Scott Mitchum, USD 112 Central Plains             
Nominated by: Bluum    

USD 112 Central Plains Technology Director Scott Mitchum hails from a family of teachers and a tradition of helping people. Throughout childhood, Scott had a passion for learning, reading, and devouring encyclopedias.

Accepting a golf scholarship to attend college, Scott briefly studied law before receiving a master’s degree in library science. After serving as a librarian for 26 years, Scott taught himself computer programming before eventually accepting a position at two junior colleges teaching the subject.

Today, Scott finds himself as the technology director of two districts in Kansas. During the early days of the pandemic, Scott was aware of immediate shortages of N95 masks for emergency care workers and sought out a way to lend a hand. Through teaching his students 3D printing techniques, he realized he could use the printers to manufacture masks, so he and a colleague discovered a mask prototype to model from a doctor YouTube.

After learning of a hospital nearby in Hoisington that had a shortage of masks, Scott began creating masks with 5-6 printers running 24/7, switching out polylactic acid (PLA) in the middle of the night. Each mask took seven hours to print.

He continued to tweak the printers to include weather stripping around the outside to make it air-tight and a HEPA filter from a vacuum cleaner. Scott produced approximately 140 masks and 100 face shields that were used primarily for surgery. Even though the hospital offered to pay him, he politely declined.

Nominee: Shawn Braxton, Cleveland Metropolitan School District             
Nominated by: Bluum    

Shawn Braxton is the Executive Director of Learning Technology and Training Services for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. Shawn has been an integral part of standardizing technology across all 97 schools within the district. Most recently, he created a comprehensive plan to place a Clevertouch interactive flat panel in every classroom that lacked one. Although this project just launched over the summer, 1,081 Clevertouch panels have already been installed in classrooms that currently had only projectors. By the end of the 2022-23 school year, every classroom will have an interactive flat panel. Shawn is constantly investigating the future of classroom technology and how it could improve student learning and classroom instruction.

Shawn also played an enormous role in the creation of the district’s first-ever Tech Fest. Tech Fest was a two-day event in August that allowed students, parents, and the community to visit one of two locations within the district and interact with the district’s new technology. This event was also an opportunity for students to engage with educators outside of the classroom, build excitement around the upcoming school year, and have their devices fixed or replaced.

Shawn is a visionary when it comes education technology and how it can change and shape the minds of students. He is a catalyst for his district and is constantly on the cutting edge for new and inventive ways for students and teachers to utilize technology in the classroom.

Nominee: Spartanburg School District One
Nominated by: Promethean        

Spartanburg School District One spans three cities in rural upstate South Carolina, where nearly half of 5,000 students come from lower-income families. This also means students have limited access to technology and devices at home. Furthermore, less than 22 percent of residents in the district hold a bachelor’s degree or higher.

These combined factors have prompted the administrators of Spartanburg School District One to take action to ensure students are equipped for life beyond high school. To achieve that goal, administrators are tasked with exposing students to computers and devices and providing them with the tools and skills needed to be successful post-graduation. However, while many students have limited resources, the district is also tasked with utilizing a limited amount of school funding, which is derived from taxes on businesses within the district, while much of the local workforce commutes to larger cities outside of the tax area.

This has prompted Spartanburg School District One administrators to get creative and be strategic as to how funding is used in order to enable engagement and facilitate movement within the classroom. Dr. Jimmy Pryor, Assistant Superintendent, Accountability and Technical Services at Spartanburg School District One, determined an interactive panel would enhance learning, facilitate mobility, and increase engagement for students and simultaneously streamline lesson delivery for teachers. To find the right fit, Dr. Pryor launched a pilot program where educators tested a variety of interactive displays. As a result, Promethean’s ActivPanel was not only the preferred choice but an easy choice for educators.

It didn’t take much convincing for Dr. Pryor to secure an ActivPanel for every classroom within Spartanburg One. The superintendent and school board quickly gave the green light to invest in the new interactive panels. Within the first six months of using the ActivPanel, teachers recognized the increase in student and teacher mobility and student engagement. They also recognized the enthusiasm the panels provide for teachers to deliver quality instruction and felt motivated to expand on their professional development to learn more about the ActivPanel’s capabilities.

With four blue ribbon schools, four schools awarded “Palmetto’s Finest” by the South Carolina Association of School Administrators, and three statewide top performing high schools, administrators are looking forward to delivering on the promise of post-graduation success for students, too. Administrators district-wide anticipate seeing positive outcomes and improvement as it relates to state-mandated, end-of-course tests, all of which contribute to students’ growth and development throughout their Spartanburg tenure and beyond.

Nominee: Steven Langford, Beaverton School District
Nominated by: Lightspeed Systems

Steven Langford is the CIO of Beaverton School District in Oregon and the President of CoSN, a widely known and well-respected organization within the K-12 edtech world. Under Steven’s guidance, Beaverton has created a path of innovation and improvement for other districts to follow.

In addition to this, Steven gladly shares his advice and wisdom on how to implement new programs/systems/projects successfully. Beaverton successfully rolled out district-wide multi-factor authorization, which is a crucial component to cybersecurity, and something that is not easily done.

Steven’s continued approach to innovation in the technology department in his district is inspirational and makes him a worthy recipient of this award.     

Nominee: Tiffany Brinkley, EdOptions Academy
Nominated by: Edmentum           

For many educators, making the switch to teaching virtually presented challenges. Connecting with students virtually was new to many educators and required an untapped skill set. At a time when human connection was limited but needed, Tiffany Brinkley improved the overall student experience with virtual learning by making personal connections and accommodating students’ needs. As a result, she positively influenced student results on high-stakes exams, all while mentoring new teachers.

Our nominee, Tiffany Brinkley, has been an educator for 10 years, with 5 of those being in an online setting through Edmentum’s EdOptions Academy. Tiffany has taught various math courses ranging from 6th grade math through AP Calculus.

When a student enrolls in one of Tiffany’s classes, she always first reaches out to make a personal connection because she knows this is the key to student success. Instead of beginning the conversation with academics, she asks about their summer, interests, or hobbies. To continue to keep students involved and engaged, she sends out monthly questionnaires on fun topics. These questions and her interest in their answers allow students to feel more comfortable in a virtual setting.

Although she had taught virtually before, Tiffany noticed an increased need for student engagement during the pandemic as students sought out help and connection. Pre-pandemic, Tiffany knew there were students who needed extra support, but now those who didn’t typically reach out before were requesting time to meet with her. So, she decided she would make it easier for students by allowing them to decide their meeting time with her, rather than adhering to a standard set of office hours. She finds this flexibility beneficial for her students and it allows her to better connect them.

In 2021, she made a huge impact on a project working to better prepare students for high-stakes state exams. In the previous year before Tiffany joined, the program did not have any students pass the math exam. By delivering instruction during live Zoom sessions and providing extra support with a study program she helped to develop, Tiffany was able to raise students’ passing rate from zero to 15 percent overall on the state exam for Algebra 1.

Because of her stellar contributions, Tiffany was awarded National Teacher of the Year from Edmentum in 2022. She was recognized for her performance as an educator and her dedication to being one of three mentors training and onboarding other math teachers who were hired to meet demands during the pandemic. While helping other educators navigate how to be an effective teacher, Tiffany was described as “the glue that holds us all together” because no matter what challenges arise, she quickly and calmly finds a solution.

By building connections with students and her fellow EOA teachers, Tiffany improved students’ experience in a virtual setting, giving them the resources, opportunities, support, and flexibility they needed to adapt and overcome the adversity faced during the pandemic.

Nominee: Twin Rivers Unified School District
Nominated by: EmpowerU, Inc. 

Twin Rivers has been intentionally and strategically focused on increasing educator and student mental health on a comprehensive level.

District leaders like Christine Flock and Travis Burke understand the critical need to support educator well-being as paramount to improving student engagement, motivation, and outcomes. Their thoughtful selection of partnerships that are collaborative drive them to create programs that go beyond “check the box” solutions and result in integrated programs that drive outcomes. They work across departments to fully leverage the power and impact of the EmpowerU solution, understanding how each piece fits together to drive whole child success.

School districts continue to prioritize expanding summer learning and enrichment offerings, adding specialist staff such as mental health personnel and reading specialists, and investing in high-quality instructional materials and curriculum, according to a survey administered by AASA, The School Superintendents Association.

The School District Spending of American Rescue Plan report is part of a multi-series survey focused on how district leaders across the country are utilizing American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and, in particular, address student learning recovery.

This survey also sought information about what issues districts are experiencing in spending ARP funding and how they would change their spending decisions if they had more time to drawdown federal COVID-relief funds.

“Superintendents know best how to maximize the academic impact of the funding. It costs nothing for Congress to give districts additional time to extend the additional resources they have in place—reading specialists, tutoring programs, enrichment offerings and social-emotional supports—for students for an additional two years,” said Daniel A. Domenech, AASA executive director. “We call on Congress to extend this arbitrary deadline and enable students to get the additional time with these professionals and programs they need to recover from the pandemic.”

Districts’ ARP spending priorities have remained consistent from the 2021-2022 school year to the 2022-2023 school year. Improving instructional practices, expanding learning opportunities and learning time, hiring staff and addressing the social-emotional needs of students remain top priorities of public school system leaders, regardless of state, district size or locale.

The eSchool News K-12 Hero Awards recognize the dedicated efforts of education professionals across K-12 departments, including IT, curriculum, instruction and administration. 

Sponsored this year by JAR Systems and SAP Concur, the program received an influx of inspiring nominations that highlight the innovation and selflessness of educators in schools and districts across the nation.

Listed here in the order in which their nominations were received are program finalists. Stay tuned, because the second group of finalists will be featured on eSchool News next week!

Jump to: Christopher Columbus High School, Arlington Independent School District, Becky Alexander, Carmen Alvarez, Chris Moore, District 49, Dr. Elizabeth Faison, Dr. Nick Migliorino, Ed Kemnitzer, Emily Herring, FlexPoint Education Cloud, Florida Virtual School, Cory Hocker, Green Bay Area Public Schools, Hardee County School District, Heather Magill, Hemet Unified School District, Jefferson County Public Schools

Nominee: Alex Seage, Christopher Columbus High School             
Nominated by: Samsung Electronics America      

Alex Seage built a career leading technology and innovation in the cruise industry, which also provided him with a deep understanding of the technology needed to improve the experience for cruise guests. In January 2021, Seage decided it was time to leap into the education field, leveraging the skills he acquired to make a difference at his alma mater, Christopher Columbus High School. With the goal of modernizing the school’s IT infrastructure for the ever-evolving pandemic era, Seage joined CCHS as a Senior Director of Technology and Innovation.

CCHS is a private, Roman Catholic, college-preparatory high school, conducted by the Marist Brothers in the Westchester census-designated place of Miami Dade County, Florida. When onboarding, Seage saw firsthand how teachers were under great stress as they struggled to create crucial engagement and ensure students weren’t feeling left behind in the classroom. At that moment, a top-down approach to create a “Campus of the Future” was devised by adopting smart signage within lecture halls, hallways, athletic facilities, and executive conference rooms to transform the entire campus. Under his leadership, CCHS was one of the first schools to implement Samsung’s Flip 3 whiteboard in 2021. Samsung’s Interactive Whiteboard was ready out-of-the-box and was an easy-to-use product for educators to easily provide personalized experiences. Seamless integration with teachers’ education platforms helped to immerse students in their learning material.

As CCHS introduced this product to the campus, faculty were able to learn how their teachers wanted to incorporate collaborative experiences using technology and content-driven media that could be delivered in a quick and meaningful manner to hold students’ interest. The staff now uses the interactive display to create and present lesson plans and share content with students utilizing their own tablets. Teachers have also expressed positive feedback using the technology, underscoring how it led to more collaborative learning experiences for students. The ability to offer two-way communication and collaboration between students and teachers is no longer a pipe dream – by Seage utilizing Samsung’s products, CCHS was able to provide the technology and infrastructure to make this dream a reality.

The positive results in the classroom have led to other expansion opportunities across the CCHS campus. The school recently built a new center for science and arts outfitted with new, cutting-edge Samsung solutions that provide an ideal space for students to foster STEM skills, such as critical thinking, communication, and creativity. Additionally, Seage has put forward creative ideas to implement Samsung technology beyond the classroom, including a production studio, wayfinding, and even integrating the technology into the school’s sports program.  

Seage has played an instrumental role in transforming an ordinary campus into one that truly embraces the meaning of being “smart.” He has successfully built the architecture for a connected campus that enhances the campus experience, drives operational efficiency, and provides education in a manner that all can access. And for Seage, the best has yet to come.    

Nominee: Arlington Independent School District                                                            
Nominated by: Identity Automation

Arlington Independent School District (AISD) has a population of more than 61,000 students. With a highly-engaged faculty and array of learning opportunities that foster each student’s unique interests and talents, the district’s goal is to have 100 percent of AISD students graduate exceptionally prepared for college, career and citizenship. The district seamlessly combines the strength of a large school district with innovative approaches and focused support to help students articulate and achieve their dreams.

Arlington ISD has always been forward-thinking when it comes to its district technology strategy, and the district’s Assistant Superintendent of Technology, Eric Upchurch, has been the driving force behind much of its innovation. The district’s ability to quickly and efficiently supply devices to students, ensure remote access, and provide educational resources is a model other districts can follow.

When the pandemic started, Upchurch knew this would permanently change how students learn. The challenge was how to quickly adapt to the circumstances and make sure all students in the district had easy, affordable, and quick access to the technologies needed to succeed throughout the school year and in years to come.

Led by Upchurch, the technology team coordinated across district departments to ensure a speedy roll-out of 1:1 devices. Whether it was participating in device-day pickup or hosting and coordinating meet-the-teacher drive-throughs, the entire district staff stepped up to provide for nearly 61,000 students.

Internet hotspots were also set up so the thousands of students who otherwise wouldn’t have internet could maintain classroom access and ensure the continuing equity in education.

“It’s really been incredible,” said Upchurch. “The staff has worked really hard to get through this. The campus technology people, the assistant principals, school staff, it’s been a big task. They’ve done a great job.”

Additionally, Upchurch is constantly looking for innovative new technologies that can help the district. His team likes to beta test new technologies to explore the benefits for all of their end users, including security technologies that help keep the district safe.

Arlington ISD has also made a big push in its Technology Enrichment program. The program gives students technology skills that can lead them into the future. This includes access to the latest technology applications that can have real world applications. The district also holds several events inviting staff to learn about technology tools and strategies for the classroom.

Arlington Independent School District is an edtech integration leader both districtwide and in the classroom, and other districts can look to AISD for inspiration. Ultimately, from Upchurch and the technology team to leadership districtwide, AISD knows how important technology is in today’s learning environment and wants every student to have the same opportunity to be successful.

Nominee: Link TextBecky Alexander, Morris Elementary
Nominated by: Istation 

Becky Alexander is the principal at Morris Elementary School in Morris, Oklahoma. She has inspired change at the school by leading its faculty and staff to embrace technology and enrich their strategy toward 21st century learning. Alexander seeks new opportunities to use technology within classroom lessons regularly. She implements programs like Istation to give her teachers an advantage in providing data driven instruction and strong, effective interventions.

Alexander inspires an innovative approach to learning by embedding interventions led by Istation’s assessment data into the school’s daily instruction. These interventions ensure that students are being equipped with the best possible skills practice to achieve academic growth. As a result, Alexander has seen significant growth in her students.

Inspired by Alexander’s success, educators at Morris Elementary also use Istation’s reports and printable resources to promote academic growth in reading and math. With reliable, actionable data, educators at Morris Elementary are able to provide targeted instruction. Additionally, student motivation is high, as they are able to track their monthly growth and celebrate successes. As a result of these successes, Alexander presented at The Cooperative Council for Oklahoma School Administrators Conference on the effectiveness of this intervention, inspiring educators state-wide to follow her lead.

Alexander continues her commitment to improving the educational community by being an active member of Istation’s Red Cape Community, which allows her to collaborate with educators nationwide on best practices, and provide feedback directly with Istation on the classroom needs of educators.

Nominee: Link TextCarmen Alvarez, Harlingen Consolidated Independent School District  
Nominated by: Age of Learning  

Ms. Alvarez is the Early Learning Director for Harlingen Consolidated Independent School District (HCISD), a few miles from the U.S./Mexico border. The district serves an economically-disadvantaged community with about 80 percent of the students eligible to participate in the free and reduced-price meal program. In fall 2020, 61 percent of children in prekindergarten were classified as academically “at risk” and she has witnessed the impact a lack of readiness for kindergarten and beyond has on students. Therefore, Ms. Alvarez and her colleagues looked for ways to solve that challenge.

In the fall of 2019, HCISD launched a universal full-day pre-K program for 4-year-old children at no cost to families. Affordability is the number one deterrent to enrolling in pre-K, so they dedicated the resources to make it accessible to everyone in the community. Through this program, HCISD began to instill a strong foundation in literacy and math in these young learners.

Shortly after the program started, COVID-19 forced the district to rethink how it could academically support the pre-K students. While remote learning was difficult for all, the youngest learners faced particularly acute challenges when in-school learning was no longer possible. The priority was to ensure that district closures would not negatively impact pre-K students’ academic growth and development.

Under Ms. Alverez’s leadership, pre-K classes began using an adaptive, mastery-based math program, My Math Academy, to strengthen young learners’ foundational math knowledge, and inspire their love of learning. Furthermore, due to remote learning, Alvarez turned to the technology solution to equip educators with insights and tools to personalize and accelerate learning at-home and in the classroom.

HCISD teachers quickly saw positive changes in how students were building math skills. The pre-K students using My Math Academy during the 2020-2021 school year nearly tripled their skill levels, while kindergarteners participating in the program increased their skill levels by 50 percent. And perhaps most impactful is that due to learner variability, each student was at a different starting point in learning, yet every student mastered all pre-K skills and continued well into kindergarten. HCISD even had children entering kindergarten the following year learning math at a second-grade level!

Based on the overwhelmingly positive results, HCISD expanded the use of My Math Academy and began a pilot of My Reading Academy, an adaptive, standards-aligned reading solution. The district is already seeing improved reading skills among students, and they have become more confident, engaged readers. 

District officials expected the extraordinary challenges from the pandemic would drastically increase the number of students falling behind in their learning. However, more than 850 children enrolled in HCISD’s universal pre-K program, and HCISD students are now performing better on math and reading compared to cohorts in previous years, and their math results are above the national average. Ms. Alvarez and her colleagues were at the forefront of developing unique educational experiences for their youngest learners and adopting evidence-based practices–by implementing My Math Academy and My Reading Academy–to ensure technology was positively impacting teacher engagement and driving student outcomes.

Nominee: Link TextChris Moore, Salem-Keizer Public Schools                                                     
Nominated by: EmpowerU, Inc. 

Chris Moore is a heart-centered leader who works tirelessly to support the needs of all staff and students. He is intentionally and strategically focused on expanding access to effective social-emotional and mental health support holistically throughout the district–a huge undertaking in a district of 40,000 students.

Chris is extremely thoughtful in his selection of partnerships and is always thinking strategically about how the programs and supports he implements will fit into the greater picture of driving whole child success. He is collaborative with his partners and his school sites, making the right connections at the right time, resulting in integrated program implementation to leverage the greatest impact and drive big outcomes.

Chris helps his school sites, staff, and students tap into their highest potential every day by meeting them where they are with belief in them and unconditional positive regards–connecting them with resources like EmpowerU and working with them to identify where and how EmpowerU programs can best support their unique needs and challenges.

Nominee: District 49      
Nominated by: LearnPlatform    

The number of digital tools used by districts rapidly accelerated during the pandemic as schools transitioned to remote learning, causing challenges for both teachers and administrators. Leaders at District 49 (D49), one of Colorado’s fastest-growing districts, knew they needed to work collaboratively to ensure that the education technology tools used across their system were delivering value for students and teachers and that they were doing so safely.

The district serves approximately 21,000 students across four distinct zones spanning 133 square miles of urban and rural areas in Colorado. D49 is committed to providing students high-quality technology opportunities and giving teachers the tools they need to help all students achieve desired outcomes. Colorado vendors and school districts are required by the state to facilitate safe online learning experiences.

To better understand edtech use across the district’s system, the district’s tech team set up a district Inventory Dashboard, provided free from LearnPlatform. Within days, they realized that students and teachers were using more than 2,000 edtech tools systemwide. They knew they needed to establish clear processes for managing this amount of edtech use effectively.

In particular, they wanted to be able to encourage consistent practices across school buildings, ensure compliance with Colorado’s student data privacy requirements, reduce frustration and confusion among stakeholders (including parents and staff), and begin to evaluate the impact of edtech on student outcomes. At the same time, they wanted to maintain local decision-making autonomy among their four zones.

While several district-wide teams, including Learning Services, Purchasing, and Data and Performance, worked together to identify and select LearnPlatform to help them achieve their goals, Melissa Riggs, D49 Education Technology Specialist within the Learning Services team, ultimately led the LearnPlatform implementation.

She and her team have worked closely with the LearnPlatform team to:

• Create a district library of their top edtech tools
• Keep stakeholders (teachers, staff, and parents/guardians) informed of the approval and privacy statuses for those tools
• Establish a clearly defined, efficient process for requesting and reviewing new edtech product requests to ensure curricular alignment, technical compatibility, and data privacy compliance
• Evaluate product usage, cost, and student achievement to better understand how well key edtech products are working for all D49 students
• Reduce the financial and human costs associated with managing and vetting edtech tools
• Make it easier for teachers to find and select edtech products to use in their classrooms

D49’s thoughtful rollout of LearnPlatform, led by Melissa, has made D49’s use of edtech more manageable, thoughtful, and consistent; ensured compliance with state student data privacy regulations; and optimized safety. Simultaneously through her leadership, she’s been successful in reducing the workload on teachers and staff and has improved district value from edtech expenditures, all without interfering with local decision making.

Nominee: Dr. Elizabeth Faison, Prince George’s County Public Schools     
Nominated by: AllHere  

We are nominating Dr. Elizabeth Faison, Associate Superintendent of Student Services at Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS), for leading a transparent, honest, and thoughtful interrogation of what stands in the way of authentic partnerships between families and schools. PGCPS’ focus on transformational practices has led to the district’s quest for innovative approaches to removing barriers to student success.

Dr. Elizabeth Faison has held leadership positions for over 16 years at PGCPS, one of the nation’s largest school districts with 208 schools and more than 136,500 students in Maryland. As Associate Superintendent of Student Services, Elizabeth ensures PGCPS’s diverse student population receives holistic support that includes school health, mental health, psychological services, homeless, home and hospital teaching, home schooling, restorative approaches, international admissions, bullying prevention, and attendance.

As the gap between home and school widened during the pandemic, Elizabeth led the funding of programs that ensure every family in her district receives the support they need by establishing new touchpoints that reach students and families wherever they are. This includes the adoption of AllHere, a 24/7 texting-based chatbot that provides personalized support so that every family can get questions answered within seconds or be escalated to a support staff member within the district. When it was time to reopen for in-person learning, the district used AllHere to provide timely, empathetic nudges and offers of support to help families address any challenges they might have faced returning to school. This chatbot, affectionately named by students as J.A.R.V.I.S (Just A Rather Very Intelligent System), allowed PGCPS to also provide real time answers to parents’ inquiries as well as provide students with a way to alert the district to personal crises.

In recent years, Elizabeth has spearheaded a district-wide initiative to drive awareness around attendance, one of the top drivers of student success. Chronic absenteeism, defined as missing more than 10 percent of days in a school year for any reason, has risen to historic levels during the pandemic. Rather than fall back on outdated, often punitive attendance intervention strategies, Elizabeth has taken important steps forward to reimagine attendance strategies that acknowledge the unique circumstances of each child and family.

Traditionally, school absences are assumed to be a result of disinterested families when the real causes more often are language barriers, parents working multiple jobs, and poor internet access, among a host of other obstacles. Over the last decade, family engagement leaders like Elizabeth have championed a shift in how our education system treats chronic absenteeism, from a punitive to an empathetic approach that treats families as crucial components to their child’s success.

Elizabeth expertly and compassionately convened the district’s attendance task force, bringing together families, students, educators, and policymakers in support of a high-quality system of supports around attendance and overall student achievement. Elizabeth’s leadership in PGCPS shows the way toward a more liberatory, solidarity-driven, strengths-driven, and equity-focused engagement practice that supports student services excellence for all children.”                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Nominee: Dr. Nick Migliorino, Norman Public Schools
Nominated by: Rave Mobile Safety          

In the wake of the tragedy in Uvalde, TX earlier this year, school administrators across the nation began assessing ways to protect students. Elected officials also started doubling down on safety measures, including the Governor of Oklahoma, who issued a statewide mandate this summer requiring more than 1,800 public K-12 and charter schools in the state to implement Rave Panic Button by September 1. Oklahoma is not new to Rave Panic Button – the state is coming up on its third year of working with Rave to protect students and staff.

Dr. Nick Migliorino, superintendent of Norman Public Schools, has been the catalyst for school safety technology in Oklahoma for years and continues to keep the safety of students and staff at the top of his priorities today.

In 1999, he was awarded the Governor’s Humanitarian Award for his service to students during the May 3, 1999 tornado that damaged Westmoore High School. Since then, he has had a long and successful career, taking on more challenging roles along the way, ultimately becoming the superintendent of Norman Public Schools in 2017. Before taking on his current position, Migliorino served as the school’s Assistant Superintendent for Administrative Services and Chief Technology Officer, which entailed overseeing all technical aspects of the district. In this capacity, Migliorino worked with the district’s technical services staff, site teachers, leaders, and other external stakeholders to expand the district’s use of technological resources. As part of this work, he also oversaw bond projects and managed the district’s maintenance, transportation, child nutrition health, and technology divisions.

A firm believer in the fact that technology can make a difference in the ways that schools connect and protect students, Migliorino co-founded School Connect, a company that provided a web-based platform for schools to create their own mobile-messaging applications. The company was sold to Jostens, Inc. in 2012 and the platform continues to serve districts across the nation as School Way.

Dr. Migliorino worked tirelessly to ensure that Norman Public Schools was among one of the first Oklahoma school districts to use the Rave Panic Button application, a school safety app that, with the push of a button, sends important information to 9-1-1 centers, on-site personnel, and first responders in the event of an emergency. Norman Public Schools implemented Rave Panic Button before Governor Kevin Stitt declared the executive order and served as a resource to many other districts who had questions about the benefits of Rave Panic Button. Today, as of this writing, 92.4 percent of Oklahoma schools have opted in to use the Rave Panic Button app, and nearly 88 percent show as live users which means school personnel have “geo-fenced” their campus, named their buildings, and added some staff into the system.

At the time that Rave became a school safety solution in Oklahoma, Dr. Migliorino stated, “The safety and security of our students and staff is our top priority and I know the same is true in every school district across the state. This is one more critical tool we can use to be prepared for whatever situations may arise and to keep our students and staff safe.”

Migliorino’s values and vision have helped the Oklahoma school system to be the safety leader that it is today.

Nominee: Ed Kemnitzer, East Williston Union Free School District
Nominated by: Bluum    

Since the recent pandemic and subsequent federal spending regarding technology tools in the classroom can be overwhelming to many schools and their leaders, many school administrators have clamored for an education technology partner to help navigate those choppy waters. With the need for guidance on what and how to purchase technology to truly help improve learning outcomes at an all-time high, the company Bluum launched Strategic Advisory Planning Services for its education partners this past year.

It is a three-phase process in which the company’s technology and education experts help school districts assess where there is a need for edtech and how they should implement it into their schools at little or no cost. But in order to launch services such as this, trusted partners and education technology experts at the schools are needed to provide the feedback necessary to make the program truly valuable for educators.

That is where East Williston Union Free School District Director of Technology, Innovation and Information Services Ed Kemnitzer from New York came in. Ed was one of the early adopters of the service provided by Bluum and helped pilot the program for eight months. Ed selflessly volunteered his time and energy to assist the Bluum Education Services Team with countless insights in developing these services for schools.

Although Ed said that the experience was beneficial to learning more about what his district needed as well, his knowledge in strategic planning, budgets, working with the school board, federal funding, and other acumen were invaluable to the Bluum team as they designed their programs. Ed understands that districts scratch and claw for every technology dollar in their budget and the counsel he provided Bluum will allow the company to assist countless others in those efforts.               

Nominee: Emily Herring, Fairfield City Schools
Nominated by: EmpowerU, Inc. 

Emily Herring is a champion of students!

Emily works tirelessly to support the needs of all students–particularly students who are struggling in the traditional school setting and who have been temporality transitioned to an Alternative Learning Site.

Emily has taken it upon herself to generate grant money to connect students at the ALC with EmpowerU to feel empowered to transition back to their traditional school settings with more resilience and coping skills.

Students from Emily’s district who take EmpowerU share feeling increased self-value and confidence.

Emily helps students tap into their highest potential every day by meeting them where they are at with belief in them and connecting them with resources like EmpowerU to support them as a a whole person.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Nominee: FlexPoint Education Cloud
Nominated by: Mary Stevens, Florida Virtual School        

The vision of Florida Virtual School (FLVS), a fully accredited online K-12 public school district, has always been to transform education worldwide. To that end, FLVS launched FlexPoint Education Cloud, enabling them to partner with schools and districts around the nation and worldwide to help them quickly and effectively transition teachers and students to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

In the 2020-21 school year, the FlexPoint team helped more than 160 new schools and districts around the nation launch their first online learning programs during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Plus, to help educators who were new to online learning during, FlexPoint helped train more than 14,000 education professionals nationwide, equaling more than 500 hours of professional development.

In Florida, FLVS saw success through state testing results and surveys. The 2021 state testing results showed that FLVS students scored 21 percent higher in English and 11 percent higher in math than the state average. Additionally, FLVS supported Florida schools and districts by training more than 10,000 teachers statewide and provided ongoing support. 

To help even more students, families, and educators around the nation who were new to online learning FLVS launched the Online Learning Community (OLC).  OLC gave educators the resources they needed and offered an online community where they could ask questions, connect with others, and feel confident as they educated students in a virtual environment. 

Additionally, in response to COVID’s substantial impact on mental health, FLVS added nearly 50 student services professionals to support students and families, providing them with resources, webinars, and trainings to help them through a time of great change and stress. 

During the pandemic, FLVS went above and beyond to support students, parents, and educators in Florida and across the nation–putting students at the center of every decision they made.

Nominee: Florida Virtual School             
Nominated by: SAP Concur         

It’s with great pleasure that SAP Concur nominates Florida Virtual School (FLVS) and Kelly Goodman, Expense Management Manager, for the eSchool News K-12 Hero Award.  We believe that Florida Virtual is a great choice for the award as they have embraced technology to become one of the world’s leaders in online education.

FLVS has been leading the way in K-12 online education since 1997. They provide a robust, award-winning curriculum to public, private, charter, and homeschool families and school districts nationwide. They are accredited by Cognia and offer supportive online learning to students both in Florida and around the world.

FLVS’s 5 core values–Excellence, Innovation, Community, Balance, and Communication–energize and guide its team members in their daily pursuits to achieve their vision. They lead online education worldwide with innovative digital solutions that individualize learning for each student, and they equip students for success by developing and delivering highly effective digital learning through an intuitive online platform. 

Nominee: Cory Hocker, Golden Eagle Charter School
Nominated by: Kajeet    

We are nominating Cory for his commitment to ensuring connectivity for students in need during the ongoing fire seasons in California. Cory ensures their school is prepared to serve displaced students in need of connectivity during wildfires.

Most recently, while experiencing the McKinney Fire, he was moving equipment from the red zone while managing connectivity and access for students. Wearing the many hats of an IT Director is challenging enough, and Cory goes above and beyond each year to assist students during fire season and evacuations, which are unpredictable and can be devastating for students when they are relocated.                                                                                                                        

Nominee: Green Bay Area Public Schools                                         
Nominated by: JAR Systems, LLC                             

JAR Systems has chosen to nominate Green Bay Area Public Schools for the K-12 Hero Awards due to its unrivaled commitment to student success. Green Bay recently invested in 20,000 Chromebooks to move the district to a 1:1 student-to-device ratio to advance students’ productivity and learning in classrooms.

Due to the mass increase of devices, the district began to experience some difficulties with keeping the devices charged and ready for learning. To combat this issue, the district purchased Adapt4 Charging Stations for its secondary schools to alleviate the challenges of uncharged devices in the classrooms. The yellow power banks included in the Adapt4 Charging Stations allowed students to charge their devices at the desk without the district needing to modify infrastructure or create fire/trip hazards with power cords. In turn, this increased productivity and reduced disruptions to learning in the secondary school classrooms.

In the district’s elementary schools, the main priority involved keeping students’ devices charged while maximizing space in the classrooms. To achieve this, Green Bay took the initiative to purchase Essential USB-C Charging Stations that are designed to fit various device sizes and types, which allowed teachers to maximize space in the classroom. The Essential Charging Station can also be wall-mounted, saving even more classroom space compared to that of a traditional cart and allowing for an ideal learning environment.

Green Bay Area Public Schools not only took steps towards a 1:1 student-to-device ratio during unprecedented times, but it also recognized potential disruptions to learning and took the initiative to alleviate these challenges. Green Bay’s initiatives display its commitment to student success by providing an idealistic environment for learning. During an unprecedented time of uncertainty, Green Bay Area Public Schools went above and beyond to educate students when demands on schools and districts were thought impossible. JAR Systems would like to nominate Green Bay Area Schools for the K-12 Hero Awards to recognize its dedication to its students’ prosperity and learning.    

Nominee: Hardee County School District              
Nominated by: JAR Systems, LLC              

JAR Systems is nominating Hardee School District (FL) for its exceptional response to rapid change in its students’ and teachers’ requirements for digital learning. The district serves a diverse population in a rural county with many titled government programs and a large ESOL program.

The technology team, led by Director of Technology and Information Systems Todd Markel, has implemented a technology plan that emphasizes equitable learning opportunities and equips students with the resources needed to thrive in a global society.

Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, they quickly recognized that the wiring of AC adapters into their charging stations was holding them back in several ways. The wiring and rewiring were costing the district time and resources and the AC adapters were better off used for other purposes. In response, they made a significant investment in upgrading their charging infrastructure. Instead of buying all new stations, they were able to leverage the ones they already had and upgrade them with Quick-Sense USB-C PD Charging Hubs. This effectively eliminated cable management tasks and created a more user-friendly experience for teachers and students in the classroom.

The district’s longstanding partnership with JAR Systems helped it toward a path of scalable growth and technological advancement that bolstered its ability to meet the needs of its increasingly digital curriculum. 

Nominee: Heather Magill, Palm Beach County School District                     
Nominated by: Edmentum           

When it comes to educators, pinpointing one single superhero power is difficult due to how much they undertake and execute daily. Educators put their energies toward making the world a little bit better, whether it be through a be a global reach or affecting a single student. The purpose always remains—simply support students in finding their way. This is exactly the purpose Heather Magill embodies.

Ms. Magill challenges her students to be their best self and presents opportunities that might never be considered. She provides a world full of possibilities.

Ms. Magill recognizes that not every child comes to the table with equal or expansive experiences and opportunities. To address the disparity, she established the foundation needed to create a viable STEM program with holistic values for her school. It now offers STEM elective classes and houses robotics and coding courses that integrate science, technology, engineering, arts, and math into one learning experience, while reinforcing real-world application. With the Advanced STEM students, she focuses on design engineering projects centered around NASA’s Growing Beyond Earth (GBE) trials, where she guides students to collect data on possible plants that could be used on the International Space Station, as well as the Stiles Nicholson STEM Inventor 3D print challenges. Using various expert speakers, programs, and virtual field trips, she demonstrates to students the unique opportunities that extend outside of their community.

Ms. Magill uses the process of instruction to get to know her students, build community, and present possibilities. She guides her students to personal heights in their question-answer-question cycle of discovery. She teaches them how to be limitless in their thinking and to consider the unconsidered. She does this while maintaining a high level of proficiency and mastery in the classroom. Digital resources like Edmentum’s Study Island are as much a part of the process as conferences with NASA and collaboration with PBS.

Ms. Magill uses knowledge of her students to find opportunities and outside grants to support the learning at the edges. By partnering with the community to support, expose, and create opportunity, Ms. Magill finds unique learning chances for her students.

These adventures and opportunities work in concert with teaching of standards and the curriculum of Palm Beach County SD. She uses that data derived from Edmentum’s Study Island to monitor understanding and learning. She teaches her students to be digital citizens as well as to use technology resources to monitor comprehension, perform critical analysis of content, and build self confidence that quickly translates to academic confidence.

Hear more about Heather Magill’s Why, her 2020 Dwyer Award, or her work with PBS and advocating for her student to participate in the documentary “Hidden Wild.” You can also read about her work with the Environmental Resource Management creating new science curriculum. Or engage in some of the Virtual Field Trip she has been developing with Palm Beach County Department of Environmental Resources. The Department began working with Ms. Heather to do virtual field trips for Palm Beach County students in April 2020.

Nominee: Hemet Unified School District
Nominated by: Lexia Learning    

Hemet district leaders knew they had a literacy issue when their district data showed that only 16 percent of its 22,000 students in TK-12 were reading at or above grade level. And while every school site was a bit different, it was clear that they were dealing with major access and equity issues.

It was at this point that the 26-school district created a new director of literacy and intervention position, taking the stance that reading intervention was needed across most grades.

Working together, the district began to dig in and dive deeper into the root causes of the problem. Ready for a change, they started to broaden their understanding of the science of reading and did a book study on Shifting the Balance by Jan Burkins and Kari Yates.

Research led the district to learn more about and select Lexia’s Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) professional development suite. It piqued their interest because of its longevity in the marketplace, it was developed by literacy experts Dr. Louisa Moats, Dr. Carol Tolman, and Dr. Lucy Hart Paulson, and it provided them with a program that gave teachers the flexibility to learn on their own time in their own space and from the comfort of their own home. It also brought them together to work collaboratively across district roles.

To ensure a successful overhaul of their professional development platform, district leaders took these steps:

• Developed a plan of action. Beginning January 1, 2022, the district began offering the professional development curriculum to those teachers who requested it. It laid out a plan for the first full year of use and put together a scope and sequence of professional development that would kick off for the 2022-23 school year, with the first unit starting in March 2022.
• Use cohorts. District leaders established two different cohorts, including a group of 500 “first adopters” out of 1,3000 educators from grades TK-12 that started in March 2022 and a second cohort that started in August 2022.
• Make it worth their while. Teachers are paid hourly for the time spent completing the professional development units and attending the workshops. The district also offers the platform to its administrators, all of whom are participating in the program (and, also being compensated for that participation).
• Get everyone onboard. District leaders also brought in the district’s executive cabinet, special education program specialists, and other stakeholders into the system. It wanted everyone to understand that they are all teachers of literacy—whether they are teaching kindergarten, science class or auto shop.

Embracing a Paradigm Shift

In the end, there is a great deal of talk about equity among students, but where is the equity for teachers? And how are districts providing equitable access to the science of reading and really helping to prepare them and not leaving it to chance?

Hemet USD is a shining example of working collaboratively to drive a paradigm shift in teaching and learning for the sake of its most valuable assets – teachers and students.

Nominee: Jefferson County Public Schools
Nominated by: FEV Tutor            

Tutoring has received a lot of attention as a key strategy for helping to stem unfinished learning for K-12 students due to COVID disruptions and to close longstanding achievement gaps that have grown even wider during the pandemic. Even after heroic efforts by educators to continue teaching remotely, in-person, or via hybrid learning models, many learners have fallen behind. The impacted students are, not surprisingly, the ones who were underserved before the pandemic: low-income students, students without access to technology, special education students, and English Language Learners.

One urban district, Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) in Louisville, Kentucky, was determined to turn the tide for its 96,000 students and launched a partnership with FEV Tutor, the leading provider of online, high-dosage tutoring and an ESSA Level 2 Intervention and Evidence-Based Program that received the Product Design Certificate through Digital Promise.

Beginning in December 2020, the district connected its students with intentional tutoring–that being ongoing, curriculum and instruction-based, standards-aligned academic support when and where they needed it. The district was able to rapidly deploy FEV Tutor by implementing swift integrations like Clever for rostering, Single Sign On (SSO), and sharing NWEA MAP Growth data for data-driven instruction.

By reshaping its academic support for students using high impact tutoring and incorporating the Design Principles for Effective Tutoring from the renowned Annenberg Institute, including high-frequency and dosage with three or more session per week, tutoring offered during the school day, consistent tutors, and data-driven for personalized instruction, the district was convinced it was on the right track.

To confirm that its efforts were delivering positive results, JCPS activated its NWEA MAP Growth data connection with the tutoring platform and its data analytics team conducted a Winter-to-Spring AY21-22 academic growth analysis comparing RIT Score Growth across various attendance bands of tutoring participation.

From this intensive yet collaborative effort, amazing results have been realized:

• To date, more than 60,000 hours of live, one-to-one instruction have been delivered to 7,000 students in 116 JCPS schools. The online tutoring sessions have been available to students in grades 3-12 and focus on the core subjects of math, English, science, and social studies.
• FEV Tutor participants demonstrated accelerated rates of growth relative to non-participants in both math and reading. Students who participated in higher dosages of FEV Tutor showed additional gains. Students who participated in recommended dosages of tutoring demonstrated 78 percent accelerated growth relative to non-participants in math and 74 percent accelerated growth relative to non-participating in reading.
• In all, the district demonstrated accelerated, double-digit rates of growth (32 percent) relative to national norms in both math and reading on the NWEA MAP Growth Assessments.

It goes without saying that the real heroes of this story are the students who are making up for the ground they lost over the past 24+ months. But this ‘good news’ story would not be possible without the heroic efforts of JCPS district administrators and teachers who continue to work tirelessly to implement a successful, high-impact tutoring effort designed for learning acceleration.    

The COVID-19 pandemic affected every aspect of our lives for more than two years, but perhaps the hardest hit population were children who suddenly found themselves unable to go to school. This was disruptive not only from an educational standpoint, but socially, as well. That’s why school districts have done everything in their power so that children can experience a normal 2022–2023 school year. But that can only happen if superintendents make safety a top priority to prevent coronavirus outbreaks that could derail their carefully planned back-to-school plans. And it all starts with air quality. 

This isn’t just a local issue. Over the coming months, the Biden administration will be honoring and highlighting school districts who are excelling in their efforts to improve indoor air quality. It’s a great opportunity for leaders to be recognized for their amazing work, and to instill confidence in a public that is still skeptical that the worst days of the pandemic are behind us. 

According to a recent statement from the White House, in addition to vaccines, boosters, and COVID tests, one of the pillars of keeping schools open is, “helping schools plan and implement indoor air quality improvements.” Schools will have access to federal funds to optimize ventilation through inspection, repairs, upgrades, and replacements in their HVAC systems, as well as installing new systems that facilitate better ventilation.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are providing guidance to help schools develop best practices; and the Department of Energy (DOE) has launched the Efficient and Healthy Schools campaign to help schools implement new technologies and approaches to improve ventilation. 

The DOE effort includes a number of initiatives, but one that school administrators may want to pay special attention to is the recognition of “champion schools and districts who are leading the way on indoor air quality.” The administration will issue criteria for this award in the next few weeks, so savvy administrators will want to keep a close eye on the DOE website for details.

Related:
How schools can improve infrastructure and air quality as masks come off
Schools are getting creative as they strive to improve indoor air quality

eSchool Media is pleased to announce the three winners of the eSchool News  K-12 Hero Awards: Dr. Ann Hughes, Director of Student Intervention for Sanger ISD in Texas; Kim Leblanc, Chief Technology Officer for Calcasieu Parish School Board in Louisiana; and Daniel Olivas, Network Analyst at Austin Independent School District in Texas.

Winners were chosen for their commitment to education during and in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, their creativity and innovation in helping all students continue learning while ensuring students felt safe, empowered, and engaged.

The K-12 Hero Awards Program, sponsored this year by JAR Systems and SAP Concur, recognizes the dedicated efforts of education professionals across K-12 departments, including IT, curriculum, instruction and administration. 

Nominations were judged by a panel of education experts, including Laura Ascione, eSchool News editorial director, Kevin Hogan, eSchool News editor-at-large, and Eileen Belastock, CETL, Belastock Consulting.

Here’s a look at each winner: 

Dr. Ann Hughes, Director of Student Intervention, Sanger ISD, nominated by Ripple Effects

Ann’s students struggle with myriad challenges, including issues such as depression, hyperactivity disorders, and anger. Troubled students frequently come to Linda Tutt from other districts in the state as a last resort. In short, Ann’s program is the last hope to get these kids on the right track.

Ann has limited resources, both from a funding and personnel perspective. However, she meets those challenges holistically and creatively. She stops students each day to engage in meaningful conversations about their lives. She taps into programs like Ripple Effects for Teens, which has modules that address a wide range of issues including mental health, personal trauma, and academic challenges. Ann has designated individual rooms throughout campus dedicated to giving students space to regroup. There’s a Movement Room to work off excess energy and a Chill Out Room for relaxation. Music, yoga, and dance are other key elements she incorporates to reach her students.

To fill the gaps in funding and personnel resources, Ann has spearheaded community partnerships with local churches and charities, which provide counseling support not available at school. These collaborations have resulted in students honing their agriculture skills at community gardens and learning how to run a business via a nonprofit grocery store.

Kim Leblanc, Chief Technology Officer, Calcasieu Parish School Board, nominated by Bluum

Conventional wisdom would say that economically-disadvantaged schools across the country would need to think twice before making a major investment in technology. However, not all districts in that predicament have a technology director like Kim Leblanc. Calcasieu Parish School Board serves 29,500 students across 60 schools. It is a 100 percent CEP district, which means that every student is eligible for free lunch based on the economic poverty data submitted to the federal government.

The past two years have been immensely difficult for our nation’s students and teachers. In the wake of the isolation and trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health and behavioral challenges are on the rise as students continue to process unprecedented amounts of stress, anxiety, and grief. The decline in child and adolescent mental health has been so great that the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association have declared it a national emergency.

These mental health issues have translated into increased disengagement, conflict, and bullying — and as a result, disciplinary action — in school classrooms and hallways across the country. 

As a Dean of Culture at a public school in Queens, New York, until recently, I saw these challenges first-hand. I also know that traditional discipline methods fail to address the root cause of behavioral issues. Many forms of disciplinary action are doing more harm than good. This is especially true when research shows that Black students are disciplined far more than White students for the same offenses, perpetuating and sustaining cycles of inequity in our schools.

Rather than continue to create a culture of punishment, I worked with my school to enact a unique blend of mindfulness strategies and social-emotional learning–informed by Breathe For Change, a 200-hour Wellness, SEL and Yoga Teacher Training for educators–to create a safe and inviting space for kids. 

As we educators–exhausted from two years of our own stress, fear, and uncertainty–begin a new school year, it can be tempting to default to punitive discipline measures. But it’s critical that we start the year on a positive note. Here are four strategies that can help create a positive classroom culture as we begin the school year: 

Create a Calming Environment
It’s important to set up a welcoming space that invites feelings of calm and safety for students. This can include adjusting the lighting, setting out aromatic scents, and playing tranquil music without lyrics. When a student is struggling, teachers can bring them to this space to deescalate the situation and provide them with time to process what they are feeling. Before bombarding them with questions about what happened, offer students the opportunity to journal, guiding them through the process with thoughtful prompts. The student may also just want to sit quietly for a moment, and that’s okay too. When discussing what happened with the student, be sure to validate their perspective with compassion and understanding–even if you personally disagree. 

Related:

One district’s push to help students feel like they belong
How to transform your school culture

Funding is often schools’ biggest obstacle when it comes to enhancing the learning environment beyond the basics.

The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund is providing a significant influx of resources for schools across the nation. However, an interesting problem revealed itself as schools find themselves struggling to decide how to spend the largely unexpected funds. In fact, according analysis of the federal ESSER data by the National Conference of State Legislatures, only 19.1 percent of the program’s funding has been used as of Feb. 28, 2022.

The relief package, which provided nearly $190.5 billion to the ESSER Fund through three separate stimulus bills, is incredibly helpful and impactful in addressing the impact that COVID-19 has on schools across the U.S. For many schools, which are historically underfunded and lacked resources, this money gives them the opportunity to make facility updates that have been needed for years.

And as the pandemic continues to burden schools for more than two years into the initial outbreak, many schools are choosing to allocate resources towards cleaning, disinfection, and other safety measures that will prevent the spread of disease and ensure there is a plan in place should a case occur at their school. The hope is that these measures will reduce the frequency of at-home learning, which is difficult for teachers and students alike.

Truth is in the Numbers

Extensive research from organizations including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revealed how a healthy school environment affects attendance, concentration, and overall education outcomes. Indoor air quality, the use of safe chemicals for cleaning and disinfection, and mold and mildew management are just a few facilities maintenance categories that drastically impact students.

The CDC also revealed asthma to be one of the leading causes of school absenteeism, resulting in nearly 14 million missed school days annually. Yet, proper facilities maintenance can reduce the number of irritants and allergens in the air that exacerbate asthma symptoms and trigger attacks.

Regular facilities maintenance is critical to preventing the spread of viruses like COVID-19 and ensuring safe and healthy environments on the whole.

Creating Cleaner, Safer Schools Using ESSER Funds

From thorough cleaning to indoor air quality improvements, there are many ways schools can use their ESSER funding to create a safer learning environment for students and staff. But to ensure that schools are taking the best first step forward, and one that will be attainable for the long-haul, school operations should zero in on five key areas of focus regarding regular cleaning and disinfection, deep cleaning, periodic disinfection, long-lasting surface protection and indoor air quality.

By strategically budgeting for each of these categories, schools can minimize disruptions by ensuring all necessary measures are taken to prevent the spread of illness and restore a safe environment quickly if an outbreak does occur. Specifically:

1. Regular Cleaning and Disinfection

How effective is your school’s current cleaning routine? Do you have regular disinfection practices in place to remove the germs that spread illness? Ensuring a routine is in place is important, but equally critical is the need to use tools and chemicals that are both safe and effective, especially in learning environments. The EPA provides a list of disinfectants, List N, which are proven to kill the virus that causes COVID-19.

Regular cleaning and disinfection keep students and staff safe from germs, dirt, and dust that cause adverse health effects. It includes removing dust, dirt, and germs from high-touch surfaces and high-traffic areas.

2. Deep Cleaning

A deep cleaning should be completed periodically to address any areas that are difficult to clean while school is in session. Some of these services require wait periods in which the surfaces can’t be walked upon or would otherwise disrupt students and staff, which is why they should be completed over breaks. A deep cleaning usually includes carpet cleaning and extraction, strip and floor wax, high dusting, and tile scrubbing, among several other services.

Related:

What’s keeping districts from spending COVID relief funding?
Key steps to keep indoor air clean in classrooms

This year, classrooms are opening with a combination of optimism and uncertainty. On one hand, this is the first truly “normal” back-to-school opening since the fall of 2019. But on the other, teacher burnout, educator shortages, and mass teacher resignations have plagued districts and states across the nation. Pandemic-related learning loss and student mental health remain among educators’ top concerns.

But, ready or not, back-to-school season is here. Seven educators shed light on their own back-to-school experiences, from early childhood education to STEAM and robotics and teacher recruitment.

Here’s what a return to classrooms looks like for these educators:

Hiring and Retaining Teachers

At Greenville ISD, we have approximately 500 teachers and have about six more positions to fill before the students arrive August 17th. In a small district like ours, that many vacancies means that we’re looking at student-teacher ratios of above the expected 22:1 ratio.

To fill that gap, we have adopted three strategies. First, we have been recruiting people who have bachelor’s degrees and enrolling them into an alternative program to earn their teaching credentials. Second, we have been taking advantage of a program that allows districts of innovation such as ours to hire CTE teachers and then get them certified. Third, we are looking at bringing back retired teachers to work part time—as little as a half day each week—just to ensure we have a teacher for every classroom.

To keep that gap from growing throughout the year, we are offering retention incentives. Teachers will receive a $1,000 bonus for starting with us in September, another $500 if they’re still here at Christmas, and a final $500 award if they are still here at spring break.

As part of our IGNITE TSL grant project, our teachers participate in regular intentional walkthroughs, “coaching for success” sessions, and professional learning communities. By the time we’re into the second six weeks of the school year, all of our teachers will be trained on capturing video of themselves in the classroom to upload into ADVANCEfeedback for self-reflection and the increased confidence that comes with it.

To ensure that our teachers feel safe on campus, we have added front door cameras to our campuses, and our board has authorized police officers from our school district’s police department to be present on each campus and added an alarm for any propped open doors.

Many new and innovative practices emerged as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe, shuttering physical classrooms and pushing students and teachers online. It’s critical to document these stories, which range from efforts to close the homework gap and expand virtual learning to increased opportunities for DEIA. These stories are exactly what the eSchool News K-12 Hero Awards Program recognizes.

Sponsored by JAR Systems and SAP Concur, The eSchool News K-12 Hero Awards Program lets vendors nominate as many individuals or organizations as they’d like. The program recognizes the dedicated efforts of education professionals across K-12 departments, including IT, curriculum, instruction and administration. Nominations are open through Sept. 15.

eSN Editor-at-Large Kevin Hogan sat down with Amy Sterckx of K-12 Hero Awards Program nominee Green Bay Area Public School District, along with Axel Zimmermann with sponsor JAR Systems, to chat about post-pandemic education and innovation.

The district put more supports in place to help teachers and students learn virtually, and educators who hadn’t yet gotten around to learning tools like Google Classroom suddenly realized why having that knowledge was critically important. Taking advantage of available edtech tools is something that will stick around post-pandemic, said Sterckx, the district’s executive director of Technology & Information.

“”We were very close to a one to one solution for our students. Our secondary students were used to taking their devices home with them but it was our elementary students that we had to make sure had their device and their charging cord at home,” she explained. “When it comes to the wireless access, we did have a solution in place where students could check out a hot spot, if needed to get access to the internet, so although there was…we’ll call it a struggle, right to get all of those things that were in our buildings out to our students’ homes, once all of that was in place, we were in pretty good shape.”

“[The district] had multiple instances where they’ve been ahead of the curve, and by that I mean paid attention to what the problems will be months from now. I think a lot of school districts are still facing that exact reality and have nothing in place to really support the charging and the one-to-one, and they were one of the ones that had these discussions with us very early on,” Zimmermann said.

Post-pandemic, learning has new potential.

“I think what came out of the pandemic was a thought for how teachers teach content, for how students learn that content. Some of our schools opened up their eyes a little bit to the fact that our students can be responsible enough at any age to take their devices and charging cords home with them–but then what does that mean for us on the back end?” said Sterckx.

“Now we have our our thoughts open to [the idea that] learning can really take place outside of the four walls of our classrooms–that can take place 24/7 if we wanted it to.”

In early 2020, 7.3 million students received special education services as required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That’s 14% of K–12 students in public schools in the United States who depend on additional—and often very specialized—services to support their ability to learn and live their lives fully.

But once the pandemic set in and schools closed their doors, the elaborately precarious systems that have been constructed to meet the needs of these students collapsed.

In October 2020, a little more than two- thirds of K-12 principals estimated that their students with disabilities would perform somewhat or much lower than they had before the pandemic. A year later, a November 2021 survey by the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates—an advocacy group for students in special education and their families—found that 86% of parents reported that their child experienced learning loss, skill regression or slower-than-expected progress in school.

The predictability of our current situation is tragic. But to blame this entirely on the pandemic is a mistake. Even before the pandemic hit, there were signs that serious trouble was brewing for students with disabilities. COVID only exacerbated a looming problem.

As districts emerge from the pandemic, how can school leaders ensure they are rebuilding and reimagining an educational experience that ensures special education students have access to equitable outcomes? A whole-child approach to special education will help accelerate the learning of this unique population.

A Whole-Child Approach for Every Child

Too often, students in special education are marginalized and lack access to the supports they need to develop academically, let alone as full human beings.

Our goal should be to ensure students leave school literate and passionate, with access to a full life and knowledge of their true selves. When a student comes to us, we should work to understand that whole child, beginning with where they’re coming from, what they need, and what they hope to accomplish. An IEP is generally a helpful document if you want to understand a student’s learning needs. But we need to get to a place where we look beyond the IEP; to help that child articulate who they are and what they aspire to be.

Building Community Around Each Student

At Ulster, we have designed our services around the belief that the student must be at the center of their educational experience. We accomplish this with the help of a staff trained to understand that they are all individual members of a community around each student. First we ask what the student is bringing to our school and think about what wraparound services that individual child will need. Then we ask: Who are the adults who will be interacting with them daily?

There may be nearly a dozen adults affecting one student’s life every day when they are in the school building, including their teacher, a teaching assistant and/or an aid, a physical therapist, a speech counselor, or social worker, to mention a few others. If that student is experiencing a crisis, we may call in our positive intervention team (or PIT crew), an administrator, or even someone from the community outside our school or their family, because our instructional model allows for unique, or “nontraditional” systems of support.

As the nation works to collectively get students back on track after pandemic-era learning disruptions, new research provides promising evidence that learning acceleration can help all students catch up and move forward in math.

Powered by two years of pandemic-era math-learning data, researchers found when a student is consistently accelerated, they complete twice the amount of grade-level lessons and struggle less in their math learning.

“We decided to conduct this research as a way to deepen our support for teachers who are contending with more than two years of disruptions and are forced to make intervention decisions for each student, each time they struggle,” said Shalinee Sharma, Zearn’s CEO and co-founder. “This research gives us hope that with the right learning strategies students can catch-up and move forward with their math learning.”

Key findings in the report, Catching Up and Moving Forward: Accelerating Math Learning for Every Student, include:

• a student that experienced consistent learning acceleration completed twice as many grade-level lessons over the course of the year compared to a student who was frequently remediated.
• a student struggled 17 percent less when they experienced learning acceleration versus when they were remediated.
• a student enrolled in a majority Black, Latino or low-income school was more likely to be remediated when compared with their peers in a majority white or high-income school.
• a student enrolled in a majority Black, Latino or low-income school struggled 19 percent less when they experienced learning acceleration versus when they were remediated.

Educators have always deserved praise and recognition–that has never been more evident than during the pandemic, when they prioritized student safety among heroic efforts to keep learning going virtually, in hybrid environments, and finally, for full in-person learning. These efforts are exactly what the eSchool News K-12 Hero Awards Program recognizes.

Sponsored by JAR Systems and SAP Concur, vendors can nominate as many individuals or organizations as they’d like. The program recognizes the dedicated efforts of education professionals across K-12 departments, including IT, curriculum, instruction and administration.

eSN Editor-at-Large Kevin Hogan sat down with Kelly Goodman of K-12 Hero Awards Program nominee FLVS, along with Jim McClurkin from sponsor SAP Concur, to chat about post-pandemic education and innovation.

“Luckily, we were set up, when the pandemic hit, to teach virtually,” said Kelly Goodman of FLVS. “It was a struggle because we grew rapidly–we took on a lot of students and teachers in that time and also provided training to teachers across the state, brick and mortar teachers who had never taught online turned to us for that training.”

For us as a technology company, we’re always looking for innovative public organizations,” said SAP Concur’s Jim McClurkin. “Kelly and the team at FLVS have been really at the forefront of driving everything technologically as far as efficiencies and solutions. When they can drive those efficiencies, they’re able to spend more of their money teaching. When you look at that ability to move to spending more dollars on education versus back office, it’s a tremendous story for a virtual school.”

Nominations will be judged by a panel of education experts including Laura Ascione, eSchool News editorial director, Kevin Hogan, eSchool News editor-at-large, and Eileen Belastock, CETL, Belastock Consulting. Three winners will be announced on eSchoolNews.com in early October.

Make your nominations here: https://eschoolmedia.com/k-12-hero-awards-nomination/.

During the pandemic era of “emergency teaching,” school systems across my state and around the country made deep investments in edtech resources.  However, as we move into what some call the post-pandemic era, education stakeholders are searching for strategies to ensure that edtech investments continue to pay dividends.

In New Hampshire, library media specialists are playing a key role in driving edtech ROI. The state Department of Education has made excellent investments in edtech resources, and together with iLearn New Hampshire, has rolled out the Canvas LMS by Instructure, the Kaltura platform for media hosting, Zoom video conferencing, and Discovery Education’s digital K-12 platform to schools statewide.

Led by the NH Library Media Specialist Association, the state’s K-12 library professionals have engaged in dialogue around how they can ensure their school system can maximize the state’s edtech investment in their school system. Each participant approached this conversation assuming everyone else in the group had it all figured out or worked in a district that did. However, what we quickly discovered was that we were all grappling with the same issues. So, we worked to identify some common approaches to maximizing edtech ROI in our own district or school setting.

Here are the four most popular recommendations that came out of those discussions.

1. Create building-based digital tool coordinators

Databases, lists, websites, newsletters, and the like are all excellent ways to share information about digital tools and drive usage. Consider also having someone serve as the central point person for edtech resources your school. Establishing and using this role can be a great help in getting educators to the right person for targeted support, getting the word out, coordinating training, and so much more.

Library media specialists are excellent candidates for this in their leadership role, because they support all the educators and students in a school. Added benefit can result when library media specialists meet as a district team periodically. Digital learning specialists/technology integrators and coordinators are also excellent candidates. Whoever takes this coordinator role will serve their school better if they are members of school leadership teams and have the flexibility needed to support educators while they are teaching.

2. Incentivize use

Educators frequently seek administrator guidance for what they expect to see in the classroom or in use by students. Library media specialists can work with principals and curriculum leaders to foster digital tool adoption by making sure they know what different tools can do, highlighting best practices, sharing fun examples, and advocating for time for educators to play with and learn new tools. Creating fun challenges that leverage engaging digital content and interactive learning activities that can be shared, copied, and edited is an excellent way to foster use that is rewarding, rather than establishing mandates that simply seek compliance.

There’s no question that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted learning in ways educators and policymakers are still working to understand. But while all students felt the impact, certain historically underserved student groups–including English language learners (ELLs)–were disproportionately affected.

During virtual learning, ELLs didn’t have access to many of the in-school resources they typically use and need to learn best. Many student groups suffered from limited or no access to reliable high-speed internet, appropriate technology devices to use for virtual and hybrid learning, and unpredictable family situations that arose as a result of the pandemic.

While educators focus on addressing pandemic-related learning loss and closing existing learning gaps that grew wider during the pandemic, focusing on ELLs is critical.

Here, Russ Davis, CEO and founder of SchoolStatus, offers some recommendations for supporting ELLs:

1. Creating and maintaining consistent and effective parent-teacher communication. Parent-teacher relationships have always been a vital part of student success, but the importance of establishing and maintaining meaningful two-way communication with students’ support systems at home was emphasized by the pandemic. When schools moved to remote instruction, communication between parents and educators soared. Now, schools have an opportunity to build on this uptick in parent engagement and establish long-term processes that increase meaningful, two-way communication with students’ families. 

NWEA, a nonprofit, research and educational services organization serving K-12 students, has released new research highlighting the latest data on achievement during the pandemic.

Key findings from this third school year impacted by COVID-19 suggest early signs of rebounding offering some hope. However, results also underscore that recovery is still years away and there is a need for sustained urgency in addressing interrupted learning.

The study is the latest in a series of research from NWEA focused on tracking the impact of the pandemic on learning. It used data from over 8.3 million students who took the MAP Growth assessment in reading and math during the COVID-impacted years (spanning 2018-19 to 2021-22) and compared these data to an equivalent sized sample of students who tested before the pandemic (spanning 2015-16 to 2018-19). Key takeaways from this latest data bring both hope and concern.

Early signs of hope:

• Initial signs of academic rebounding were evident in 2021-22 with academic gains (fall to spring) that paralleled pre-pandemic trends, especially in math and among younger students.
  
• Academic growth rebounded to parallel pre-pandemic trends across school-poverty levels; however, students in low-poverty schools have less ground to make-up and thus will likely recover faster.

Continued concern:

• Despite initial signs of rebounding, student achievement is still lower than where we’d expect it to be if the pandemic did not happen. Furthermore, if improvements continue at the rate we saw this year, the timeline for a full recovery is years away and will likely extend past the availability of federal recovery funds.
  
• Achievement was lower for all student groups in spring 2022 (compared to pre-pandemic levels); with historically marginalized students and students in high-poverty schools remaining disproportionately impacted.

As the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic and prepares for its first post-pandemic school year, the results of a new Khan Academy survey of teachers offers hope for a brighter future and, at the same time, reaffirms education’s deep commitment to staying laser-focused on recovery.

The findings show: 

• Nine out of 10 teachers say they’ve been able to identify learning gaps that need to be addressed. 
• 84% of teachers believe mastery learning can help address learning loss from the pandemic.

We wholeheartedly agree. Mastery learning ensures each student has the opportunity and incentive to master a concept before they stop working on it. It’s the philosophical core of Khan Academy, and decades of research shows that mastery learning works. 

The nationally representative survey of teachers shows that the majority of teachers are using mastery learning or would like to. For example:

• 53% of teachers use mastery learning in their classrooms. 
• An additional 35% would like to use mastery learning.

While this news is encouraging, the survey also shows the profound impact of the pandemic: 

• More than 80% of teachers say that when introduced to new concepts, their students need more help than they would have needed before the pandemic.
• Only 59% of teachers say their students mastered the content they needed to last school year.

Mental health and behavioral support were also prominent threads. After a tumultuous two years, teachers identify student mental health needs and a lack of behavioral support as major barriers in the classroom.

Mastery learning can fill in the learning gaps 

We believe mastery learning can accelerate pandemic recovery. Sal Khan, our founder, is a longtime advocate for mastery. Unlike traditional learning, students in mastery-learning classrooms are not pushed ahead in lockstep, which can cause the accumulation of knowledge gaps. (Sal calls these “Swiss cheese gaps.”) 

Last year, in the wake of pandemic school closures, several large school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, turned to elements of mastery learning to address lost learning time. Six superintendents published a high-profile op-ed advocating for the widespread adoption of competency-based learning, which shares many of the same tenets. 

“It’s terrific to see so much enthusiasm for mastery learning,” Sal says. “Mastery can play a critical role in recovery. It allows teachers to personalize learning so that each student can progress through their grade level while also addressing the areas where they may need extra help.” 

Mastery learning allows students to progress at a pace that’s right for them under the watchful eye of expert teachers who make decisions about instruction. 

When I came to Union Hill School about seven years ago, we were not performing at the level we wanted to in terms of state assessments. With some hard work and a sense of urgency, we made a lot of progress in those first few years, but then the pandemic struck.

I told my teachers at the beginning, “We’re back at square one,” and today we can still feel the lost ground due to the last couple years. With a renewed sense of urgency, however, we’ve managed to keep our students on track and growing amid the disruptions and setbacks.

Here’s how we create a sense of productive urgency without burning our teachers out.

1. Jump in with your teachers.

During the pandemic, just like other educators around the country, our teachers were struggling to deliver high-quality instruction. A lot of our educators were not great on computers, including me. I had to become very involved to show teachers and students I was learning right along with them. It was a new mode of delivery that we suddenly had to adopt with no training and without adequate technology, so those struggles were no fault of their own, but they were a challenge for the whole community.

Throughout the early period of shutdowns, my administrative team and I were helping parents make sure they had what their children needed to learn and were able to get online. In some cases, we were also making sure their children had enough to eat. I even taught a few classes, but because I was making myself available to everyone, even just students who needed to talk, it was difficult, because there were always people going in and out of the room.

When we were able to return to in-person schooling, my instructional coaches, assistant principal, and I spent time visiting classrooms. The point was not to target teachers or to be in any way punitive, but to see how students were doing with regard to social-emotional learning (SEL), math, and literacy. When I told my teachers that the hard work was just getting started, they knew I was going to be right there with them, ready to jump in and offer support in any way I could.

2. When everything is in crisis, focus on progress.

When we finally had kids in front of us again, everything felt like it needed urgent attention. We were particularly worried about SEL, because the students had been largely cut off from other people–not just in school, but in their lives.

The COVID-19 pandemic created an educational environment that had never been seen before. Many students –– and instructors –– were abruptly forced to transition from traditional classroom learning to adopt a new remote format. It accelerated the emergence of a new dynamic learning environment, where students learn in innovative ways far different from how education systems were originally designed. With advancements in technology and the rise of remote learning, classrooms are being remodeled and redefined to fit the evolving needs of modern digital learners.

But if there’s one thing that educators have learned over the last two years, it’s that a one-size-fits-all approach to instruction doesn’t work when you want to empower everyone to succeed in the classroom. Many educators were forced to rethink how to keep students engaged, and pandemic-era learning has only further highlighted the importance of differentiated instruction.

The forced disruption was also the catalyst for students and teachers to quickly acquire digital skills that are ripe to be amplified, taking them from consuming skills to creating skills. As teachers integrate technology into their lesson plans, they’re discovering various classroom tools effective in reaching and enriching the minds of all types of students—from visual and auditory to kinesthetic learners.

Five Principles of Learning

Before exploring how technology can alleviate pressure from teachers to deliver the right teaching and learning environment that accommodates various learning styles, it’s important to home in on Merrill’s Principles of Instruction. David Merrill studied various instructional design theories and models to identify a number of principles common to each. In his research, Merrill established five instructional principles that can be applied when designing a program or practice to achieve effective and efficient instruction across the various learning styles. In short, Merrill’s principles highlight that learning is promoted when:

• Learners are engaged in solving real-world problems;
• Existing knowledge is activated as a foundation for new knowledge;
• New knowledge is demonstrated to the learner;
• New knowledge is applied by the learner;
• New knowledge is integrated into the learner’s world.

These five principles outline the power of hands-on learning in each form, where each individual student makes real meaning of the process. It’s never been more important for educators to incorporate these principles into classroom practice and curriculum design, which employs STEM-thinking over siloed content understanding, to prepare students for an increasingly digital future.

Visual Learners

Visual learners are at their best when they first see what they’re expected to know. These students are partial to seeing and observing vivid displays and can be engaged through the use of images, presentations and videos. Also known as “spatial” learners, these students might draw, make lists or take notes in order to interact and process information. Thinking back to Merrill’s Principles of Instruction, visual learners will absorb information more effectively when they see a prime example, typically through demonstration. For example, a visual demonstration of the task that outlines each step, and explores associated behaviors and skills.

Teachers can use technology to produce these visual aids to help students understand lessons. For instance, interactive displays allow teachers to apply the demonstration principle by showcasing educational videos, online tutorials, or even rich infographics that showcase main ideas. Closed captioning with videos can also enhance student engagement in the classroom. Using visual and auditory learning aids in tandem can help increase student’s retention of new information, with studies suggesting that captions can help improve students’ comprehension of topics and consequently, test scores.