Throughout the pandemic, the Getting Smart team (which Tom Vander Ark leads as CEO) worked with public school districts in Kansas, Missouri, and Texas, as well as charter schools in six additional states to support hybrid, virtual, and return-to-school strategies and plans. During the year and a half that education systems spent in crisis operations, the team observed some common themes unfold which Vander Ark shares in this article. Specifically, he discusses five pandemic-induced changes, five shifts already underway, and five implications for the 2021-2022 school year and beyond.