This knowledge brief is part of a continuing series designed to inform California education leaders about new research findings on key state policy topics. To better understand the reopening planning process and other issues related to education during the pandemic, WestEd conducted telephone interviews with County Office of Education (COE) leaders from five different counties about how school closures due to COVID-19 impacted their work with districts and schools. The five COE leaders who were interviewed for this brief represent different corners of the state: Tehama, Tulare, Orange, Napa, and Placer counties. Across these counties, common themes emerged throughout the interviews around how COVID-19 has impacted COE work with schools and districts. Most notably, the school closures have changed how COEs and local educational agencies (LEAs) collaborate and communicate with each other, with their students and their families, and with service providers. To place these findings from California in a national context, the authors of this brief also analyzed data from RAND's 2020 American Educator Panels, the American School Leader Panel (ASLP) and the American Teacher Panel (ATP) surveys. Although responses from California teachers cannot yet be isolated in these data, the ASLP and ATP results are among the first large-scale survey data releases to include responses to COVID-related questions, providing a glimpse into how school leaders and teachers in the United States are viewing the issues that WestEd researchers discussed with COE leaders.