With the online school year ending and preparations for reopening and recovery now underway, local communities are seeking the State’s leadership and guidance on how to address new academic challenges in the coming school year while delivering quality, continuous, academic instruction. ERN CT recommends that Connecticut promptly establish requirements so that local districts can benchmark their responses against a statewide standard.
Beyond the logistical changes necessary to address ongoing social distancing requirements, we believe it is imperative that the state develop a strategy to address academic losses and exacerbated inequities. In this memo, we review plans from three states, all of which are ahead-of-the-curve in their provision of state-level guidance for the coming school year.
At a high-level, what all three states have in common is that each issued a comprehensive narrative outlining a statewide vision for how learning should be addressed in these unprecedented and anxious times. These states are emphasizing meaningful remote learning across all local education agencies, use of diagnostic screeners to ensure that schools reopen on the right track, and prioritization of all students’ needs. They are leading with understanding and compassion, leading with evidence-based policy decisions, and leading with the needs of students front-and-center.
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