Educators and school administrators have met the COVID-19 pandemic with tremendous resilience. That resilience, however, has come with challenges, including burnout (exhaustion from high demands and insufficient bandwidth) and demoralization (dissatisfaction due to moral and ethical challenges). Educators must often address their own hardships,…

Since March of 2020, educational communities have largely been in survival mode with little attention, time, or resources allocated to the ongoing work of school safety and violence prevention. Planning and implementing initiatives for a return to school cannot just focus on a return to "normal" because of significant increases in other…

The "Early Childhood Workforce Index" provides a state-by-state look at policies and conditions affecting the early care and education workforce. This biennial report has tracked state progress since 2016. This third, 2020 edition of the Index continues to track state policies in essential areas like workforce qualifications, work…

It is estimated that, on average, students will have suffered a 30 to 40 percent learning loss due to the disruption in face-to-face learning caused by COVID-19. This assessment is alarming for any student but is even more troubling when one considers the persistent performance trends for students of color, students with disabilities, and students…

To be more responsive to students' needs, many local education agencies (LEAs) are creating extended and summer learning opportunities to facilitate learning acceleration. Many LEAs elected to leverage federal funds to create opportunities that increase the time students spend engaged in safe, inclusive, and supportive learning environments,…

Urban school districts will face a number of new and unprecedented challenges in the 2020-2021 school year. In addition to safely reopening schools, planning for the likelihood of future rolling school closures, redesigning instructional delivery models, and effectively addressing unfinished learning and learning losses among students, schools…

COVID-19 presents novel and unprecedented challenges to our society. The pandemic is placing our economic system, our system of government and every sector and area of human life under great stress, and forcing us to raise to the challenge in new ways. Education is no exception. Educating students, ensuring they make progress, and safeguarding…

AASA, The School Superintendents Association, is committed to supporting superintendents and other school district leaders throughout the country during this challenging and unprecedented time. The following report presents a synthesis of the Guidelines for Reopening Schools recommended by superintendents throughout the United States as part of an…