Building A Repository of COVID-19 Practices for Educators

The Challenge:

Responding to the COVID-19 crisis in the spring of 2020 placed an enormous burden on our already inundated school systems. Educators made great sacrifices to meet the needs of students during school shutdowns. While SKIP hoped schools would re-open in the fall, we also recognized the likelihood of resurgence of COVID-19 was high unless a vaccine or effective treatments were developed. We needed to be prepared in the event that remote learning would continue past the summer.

The Approach:

In light of this reality, SKIP and the Consortium Partnership Network partnered with the COVID-19 Regional Response Team to create a repository of crisis-response practices and innovations from school leaders to reference if and when COVID-19 precautions were to be taken up again. The work was informed by an advisory committee made of leaders and staff of district schools, heads of education non-profit organizations, and a university dean.

Content of the site was crowd-sourced from STL educators and national practices. However, informed by both data showing low engagement on the site and the advisory committee, SKIP shifted to creating a bi-weekly newsletter that would share best practices in addressing COVID-19 related issues with practitioners. The topic of each newsletter was generated directly from questions submitted by practitioners.

The Result:

A total of 127 people signed up to receive the newsletter, and the first newsletter addressing health and safety in schools during COVID-19 had over 200 views. While the repository of crisis response practices filled a need at the beginning of the pandemic, we continued to monitor data on use and engagement and saw that as the pandemic continued, engagement decreased. A plethora of other resources were saturating the education landscape, and we saw that the website and newsletter were no longer needed. With the support of the advisory committee, SKIP ceased maintaining the site in September 2020.