System Responses to Crisis: Organizational Perspectives. Technical Report

In March 2020, the coronavirus shuttered schools across the United States and the world. In the first year of the pandemic, school systems faced difficult decisions about how to deliver instruction while maintaining the safety and wellbeing of students, families, faculty, and staff. As the months passed, the consequences from this public health crisis became even more apparent, as it disproportionately affected historically marginalized communities and further exacerbated existing educational inequities. Therefore, it is essential to understand how schools and systems respond to crises so we can design and implement changes in policy and practice that will better prepare us for the future. In this research, the authors sought to accomplish this goal by asking the following questions: (1) How did school systems respond to challenges in this early phase of the pandemic?; and (2) And did these responses differ by school sector (charter, private, or traditional public school) and by context? [For "A Year That Forced Change: Examining How Schools and School Systems Adapted to the Challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Calls for Racial Justice in 2020. Policy Brief," see ED629490.]