MAY 27 THREAD
1/ Calls with @chiefsforchange members increasingly turning to school reopening logistics. I want to provide some perspective on the complexity of these plans + talk about a slow moving train wreck related to funding.

2/ “It’s like we’re engaged in a construction project at every single school at the same time” was how one Chief characterized the state of play. Considering temp staff to disinfect rooms, temp staff to rearrange furniture in 100s of buildings.

3/ HVACs installed in many different eras. What happens if you have to install filters in them 10X as frequently? What’s supply chain? Who installs? If ventilations systems break in middle of day? Does everyone go home? Do districts pay to keep a maintenance team on call?

4/ State guidance on health & safety has big planning implications. Teacher-student ratio of 15:1 for in-classroom vs 9:1 implies radically different facilities usage plans. In lieu of guidance some districts modeling many scenarios.

5/ Chief & team putting all different possible approaches in 3 buckets:

1. Willing to consider & potentially transformational for learning
2. Willing to consider, limited positive impact
3. Unwilling to consider

It’s helping individual project teams be more efficient

6/ Most @chiefsforchange members are out in the field with family & teacher surveys. We will learn much. But let’s say 20% teachers opt for virtual role for health & other reasons; & families split in thirds for virtual, hybrid, in-person: entire logistics plan must map to that.

7/ Then there’s transportation. Imagine working with these parameters: every other seat. Organized in cohorts of 11. Disinfect bus between all runs. But that wasn’t even the part that made my head spin. It was this...

8/ “What happens when a child ON A BUS is identified as sick? Do you call another bus to pick up that child? Who drives THAT bus?” Who ever figures out safe transportation first will be doing everyone else a world of good.

9/ State or district rules around masks have real supply chain implications. International trends lean towards closing whole schools for ~14 days with one new case. Currently states vary, including tightening restrictions without closing school.

10/ What happens if in response to health restrictions you need to move from a 15:1 to a 10:1 ratio? A: you need a district-wide plan for that now, including how you’d flex facilities and staff.

11/ Which brings me to that train wreck I mentioned: many states still tie funding to head counts & seat time. We may all know that these words don’t mean what they used to but funding laws can be brutally literal in their language & bureaucracies literal in interpretation.

12/ How many districts are staring a massive budget cut in the face because they won’t be able to count heads on some random day in September or guarantee butts in actual seats? A waiver of some sort from seat time regs seems an obvious policy necessity.

13/ But as one Chief put it tonight “We need to challenge notion of seat time in general, not just waving it for now but removing from policy & replacing with policies on student engagement & content mastery.” That conversation in SEAs & legislatures may soon be upon us.