What a tough year 2020 has been.

I am so sorry for those who lost lives, loved ones and jobs because of COVID-19. Lately many have lost homes and lives due to the fires on the West Coast. Racism has been claiming lives and livelihoods for hundreds of years, including in 2020. People are taking their frustration to the streets.

At the height of COVID-19 school closings, I interviewed thirty-two educator/leaders from public, independent, international and Catholic schools while they steered their schools through emergency remote learning. They described having March 2020 move from spring break time to quickly-planned professional development, triage teaching, and social-emotional health programs on the fly.

These educators described the issues they faced around food emergency for students, social-emotional health, communication, relationships, leadership, communication, cybersecurity and privacy, and how to implement online learning quickly. 

All reported teachers stepped up to online learning, a methodology only some had used. 

Experts contributed to the book including:

Michelle Back shared stories of her life as a parent supporting home learning for two young children
Daniel Cruz and Megan Storey Hallam described a survey they did of nearly 1200 teachers
Mike Daugherty wrote about communication during COVID-19 and other crises
Susan Davis and Christine Lewellen provided insight on cybersecurity and privacy issues schools faced
Ethan Delavan authored a chapter on social-emotional health and learning
Lindy Hockenbary wrote about online learning
Scott McLeod authored the leadership chapter, and shared research from his Coronavirus Chronicles podcasts and a course he taught on leading through crises
Adrian Segar shared approaches and tips on Zoom

Other chapters were written by me.

Like No Other School Year: 2020, COVID-19 and the Growth of Online Learning is written now and off to be graphically formatted. It will be published in October, 2020. 

Please let me know if you’d like to know more – pamelagaudet@productvaluesolutions.com