These are unprecedented times, and COVID-19 has changed the way we live, perhaps for the long while. Given the state’s good progress in controlling the coronavirus, the mandate from the Connecticut State Department of Education is to safely reopen school buildings in the fall (for the 2020-2021 school year). That said, there is so much we do not know about COVID-19, and it seems the only thing that is certain these days is uncertainty.
If we need to go back to full-time remote learning, we hope it is high-quality and equitable. However, as local educational agencies prepare to safely bring students back to the physical classrooms, there leaves little time for developing other plans. So, the Connecticut College and Career Readiness Alliance (CCCRA) Steering Committee engaged the Center for Public Research and Leadership at Columbia University to help relieve some of the pressure for educators during this time by developing a “shelf-ready” model for distance learning.
This model is not designed to be the model… rather a model, a tool for local educational agencies to use and make their own to fit local context. This is a “Plan B” if a second COVID-19 wave hits the state. To this end, you will find links (Google docs and Word docs) to a guiding document and model, and in the coming weeks we will post a systems improvement document to benchmark the model. These documents hope to assure continuity of learning and serves districts’ and communities’ longer term vision for education in Connecticut.
