Middle-management leaders are in a crucible. In addition to managing their extensive regular duties and leading groups toward common goals, they must navigate conflicting expectations and competing demands from their superiors and subordinates. The challenges in middle-management leadership are exacerbated in fast-paced, high stakes, large-scale…

While K-12 online education and cyber charter schools have existed for decades, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 compelled every professor and teacher globally to participate in this mode of instruction. Four years after the pandemic, many brick-and-mortar K-12 schools have retained cyber or online classes within the curriculum to offer students more…

After schools closed in March of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students, families and teachers had to shift learning from in-class to online. But the switch to remote learning was hasty and disorganized in many school districts. Families struggled with the technology and coordinating schedules at home, while teachers tried to shift the…

Digital learning, the use of computers and the internet to study courses taught in the classroom, is viewed by many educators as a breakthrough to helping those at-risk students stay in school and earn their diplomas. The flexibility afforded by digital learning, with students working on their own time at their own pace, is a way for students to…

In March 2022 a random sample of one third of Stride K12 families (37,856) were emailed a survey asking parents a series of questions about their families' experiences in their children's current Stride K12-powered online schools and their experiences in their children's former schools. 1,949 parents completed the survey, and of that total, 1,613…

Practically overnight, the spread of COVID-19 caused a sudden shutdown of classroom-based instruction--the centuries-old emblem of formal education. Fortunately, the capabilities of the technological era--in which broadband connectivity, mobile communication, and video conferencing are increasingly common--meant that for the first time in world…

U.S. school districts have taken widely varied approaches to reopening public schools for the 2020-2021 school year. The divergence stems from the highly localized approach to both schooling and addressing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and differences in COVID-19 transmission rates among communities. To develop a national…