Chiefs for Change and the National Governors Association (NGA) today released two webinars that provide an overview of how state education agencies and governors’ offices in two states — Colorado and Ohio — are using federal emergency aid to meet students’ needs during the Covid-19 pandemic. The webinars covered a wide range of topics including learning acceleration, career and technical education (CTE), supports for students’ wellbeing, and staffing shortages.
Both webinars were moderated by Chiefs for Change CEO Mike Magee and NGA K-12 Program Director Seth Gerson. Panelists for the Colorado webinar were Katy Anthes, the state’s commissioner of education, and Alana Plaus, a former education policy advisor to Governor Jared Polis. Panelists for the Ohio webinar were Paolo DeMaria, the former state superintendent of public instruction, who now leads the National Association of State Boards of Education, and Devin Babcock, assistant policy director to Governor Mike DeWine. Anthes and DeMaria are both members of Chiefs for Change, and Polis and DeWine are members of NGA. Below we have summarized some of the key points from our members.
Learning Acceleration
One of the primary topics of discussion in the webinars was how the two states are working to accelerate learning, as many students in the United States have fallen behind amid ongoing Covid-related disruptions. In Ohio, leaders have highlighted the importance of individualized approaches to education and differentiated instruction in order to create what DeMaria described as an “exceptional and excellent learning environment for every student.” Instructional methods include project-based learning and models that are built around competency and mastery.
The state has also specifically emphasized literacy as a core priority. “The science of reading is becoming much more common,” DeMaria said. “In schools, Ohio had leveraged some federal funds and some state investments to really push and augment the quality of literacy learning happening across the state, and the infusion of additional federal resources at this point in time really give us an opportunity to do that even more robustly, so that we emerge, on the other side, not simply having addressed that ‘unfinished learning,’ as [some] call it but also positioning ourselves for many, many more students to receive better education in reading and literacy that allows them to achieve greater success and to have a brighter future.”
Anthes noted that, in Colorado, state assessments administered last year were important because they provide a snapshot of student performance. “I’m really glad that we did [a] state assessment because it was the only consistent measure across all of our districts during the COVID crisis that measured the Colorado academic standards,” she explained. In our 21st-Century world, Anthes also stressed how important it is for all students to have access to devices and the internet: “One of the big lessons that I’ve learned is broadband and laptops are an essential school supply now. We really can’t have, we shouldn’t have, a school system without those basic necessities. That’s like your №2 pencil that we used to bring to school with us as our essential school supply.”
CTE
A second major topic of discussion was how the two states are working to provide reliable and affordable postsecondary pathways for all students at a time when college enrollment and graduation rates have dropped. Anthes said districts in Colorado that offered CTE and opportunities for students to earn college credit while still in high school were able to “pivot a little bit faster in the pandemic.” She said this is because those districts already had structures in place to support flexible schedules, with students spending part of their time at a workforce location and part of their time at school.
The Colorado Department of Education will use $15 million of its emergency aid to help establish innovation centers, like those that exist in the state’s metro areas, in rural communities. These standalone college and career preparedness facilities offer programs that students can participate in part time while continuing to take classes at their home high school. Programs are aligned to in-demand jobs in growing fields such as advanced manufacturing; business services; health and wellness; building trades; information technology; and transportation. “Maybe we can’t all build an innovation center for each of our districts. But maybe we can either build a joint one, or we can each take a different workforce pathway, and then we can support our kids going between and among our districts, so they could get access to [the various] pathways,” Anthes said.
Leaders in Ohio are also focused on promoting high-quality CTE. DeMaria said that since the start of Covid, new partnerships have formed between school districts and the business community as part of a coordinated effort to introduce students to career options and the education and training needed to obtain positions in their preferred field. “I always think the most engaged students I see, many times, are those who are enrolled in career-technical education, and that hands-on learning is really so powerful,” DeMaria explained. He added that CTE “really drives home” the concepts that children are learning in math, language, social studies, and history. Ohio designed its career pathway models around in-demand occupations within the state to help meet specific labor market demands and support local, regional, and statewide economic development goals.
Support for Student Wellbeing
The trauma and stress of the pandemic has taken a toll on students’ mental health, and the increased isolation has impacted their social and emotional development. Educators and other experts have noted the need to support students’ overall wellbeing so that kids can learn and thrive — in the classroom, and beyond. This priority is reflected in the Ohio Department of Education’s strategic plan, which is centered around a holistic approach. “We have adopted new social-emotional learning standards,” DeMaria said. “We adopted a whole-child framework that really … laid the groundwork, as I said, for [addressing] what we saw during the pandemic as the exceptional need that students had.”
Ohio schools are also using federal funding to support efforts related to student wellbeing. “Some of those partnerships around school-based health care or even deploying mental health [professionals] in schools [are] really being leveraged through Medicaid funding,” DeMaria said. “And I think a lot of times people don’t understand exactly how that can happen, but that’s a big … pot of resources out there, especially given that many students in our rural districts and urban districts … are enrolled in the Medicaid program, and many … private-pay insurance policies also address mental health needs. How do we leverage those funding streams to make sure our students are getting the services and supports that they need to create the optimum conditions for their learning experience? [There are] a lot of exciting developments in that area.”
Other themes from the webinars included the importance of clear communication and community engagement as well as concerns about staffing shortages. “Our biggest challenge is making sure that we have enough high-quality teachers; enough substitutes; enough paraprofessionals; enough bus drivers; enough food services people to support our schools,” Anthes said. “That’s something policymakers should focus on this year. That is, how do we support the field right now, and then, how do we expand the pipeline going in? And you know that is critically important, and I think scholarship programs, loan forgiveness programs, I mean even salary adjustments. … We realize how critical educators are to our economy and to keeping our state running — and it did make me wish I could give every educator in the state and every staff member really — bus drivers, everyone — a raise over these last few years. I didn’t have the power to do that, but I really wanted to.”
To view the full webinar about efforts in Colorado, click here — and to view the full webinar about efforts in Ohio, click here.
