“Tighten Your Seatbelt”: Research and Resources for Managing COVID-19 Disruptions

By Kristen C. Wilcox

Like a tornado, COVID-19 has shown itself to be a somewhat unpredictable and dangerous force of nature. And as one storm chaser in the thriller “Twister” recommended while a tornado approached and debris starting flying through the air—  it’s best to “tighten your seatbelt”.

This guidance serves us now as upstate and downstate NY schools and districts are facing the need to abruptly pivot to remote instruction due to rising infection rates and consequential staff shortfalls.

While global pandemic impacts on schools like what we are experiencing at this time have been relatively rare, other disruptive events like Hurricane Katrina give us insight into potential impacts of such formidable events on students, families, and the educational workforce.

A recent article entitled “Projecting the Potential Impact of COVID-19 School Closures on Academic Achievement”shares a few key findings from investigations of prior disruptive events. These findings are offered with limitations as they are based upon a number of projection models that could over or underestimate impacts.

• Key finding #1: Learning gains are likely to significantly decline from prior years, and these declines will be different depending upon the amount of remote instruction students have received, the content area, and the student’s grade level.
• Key finding #2: Student access to support for their learning in the home will likely result in “a wider range of academic skills that may require teachers to further differentiate instruction”.
• Key finding #3: Models suggest that “students who lose the most while out of school would gain the most the following year” (2020-21).
• Key finding #4: If assuming that students attending high-SES schools (i.e. higher wealth) are more likely to receive remote instruction and support in the home than students in low-SES schools (i.e. lower wealth)… “significantly larger achievement gaps [between these schools] in math and slightly larger gaps in reading compared with a typical fall” are expected.

Research and Resources

With these forecasts in mind, we offer a few new research reports and resources:

From NYKids Advisory Board member, New York State School Boards Association, see a discussion and resources on adaptive planning.

See the Annenberg project’s resources including do’s and don’ts for remote instruction.

See Education Trust’s newly released COVID-19 Education Equity Guides.

See the Children’s Museum at Home for virtual programming to encourage unique at-home learning experiences.

See Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Capital Region for a list of virtual education tools.

And check out NYKids prior blogs on this topic and COVID-19 response resources on our website.

As always, we invite you to reach out for your research needs and improvement planning support via NYKids continuous improvement direct support services by contacting us at nykids@albany.edu.