Safely Reopening Education and Campus Life

A convening of and for Educators and Students

On July 30th 2020, educators and students convened to discuss their perspectives and plans for confronting the challenges and complexities of Safely Reopening Education and Campus Life. Participants represented an array of schools in size, geography and type. They came from higher-ed and K-12, from public and private schools, from urban and rural institutions, from large and small schools across the country.

The decision to focus on education was straightforward: everything starts with education. We all want treatments and vaccines — the scientists, doctors, lab technicians all can do their part because of their education. Everyone who is contributing in their own way to the broad response to this pandemic, has been empowered through their respective educations. Education is fundamental. Safely reopening our schools is critical. Protecting the health and well-being of our students, educators, and all the people who enable schools to operate is paramount. These are mutually inclusive requirements.

This event was intended to examine the inequities in education that this pandemic has so strongly cast into relief and to enable educators to create environments for empowering everybody in the next generation to solve tomorrow’s challenges — from climate change to the inequality that permeates too much of society. The sciences, critical thinking and the arts prepare the mind for making connections across disparate information leading to breakthrough outcomes. Speakers spanned across the full spectrum of the academic community, including executive leadership, faculty, researchers and students. And since many speakers were also parents, the parent perspective was woven throughout the discussion as well.

The keynote delivered by Charlton McIlwain, Vice Provost for Faculty Engagement and Development at NYU, set the tone regarding the interconnection between the risks, inequality, and available resources for considering the right approach for any institution. Following the keynote was a Roundtable discussion covering a range of Senior Education Leadership Perspectives discussing their approaches to the trade-offs being managed and implemented. Speakers included: Félix V. Matos Rodríguez (CUNY), Julie Anderson, (Cheshire Academy), Michael Roth (Wesleyan), moderated by Laura Walker (Bennington College).

In addition to a key point made during the keynote regarding how safety forces choices between different communities, seven overarching themes emerged:

Trust — solving our collective problems requires trust in our institutions, today we’re operating in the absence of trust. We need to focus on and rebuild trust in each other.

Equality — each institution, community, and system has unique collections of resources which drive unequal educational outcomes.

Empathy — we are all in this together, yet our health systems drive despair outcomes to those who need the most help and assistance.

Flexibility — given how much we still do not know about the virus, school administrators, faculty, parents, and students all must be adaptable to shifting policy, class schedules, and in the what and how curriculum is delivered.

Optimism — this bleak period of human history is showing signs of a silver lining:t may have sparked a long overdue awareness of systemic inequalities rampant in society and education in particular.

Education — learning encompasses so much more than what happens in the classroom. We need to re-envision our systems from Pre-K through Adult Life Long Learning to encompass the pace of change and expanding collection of knowledge and skills required for the years to come.

Slow down — the pace of our already uptempo lives is accelerating as we spend an increasing amount of time online working from home, going to school and even socializing as we isolate ourselves for our own health. We are however beginning to develop a new appreciation for how critically important human connection is to our collective mental health and social wellbeing. Several speakers commented during the event on the need for us to step back to create space for non-connected offline activities. It’s time we slowed down.

The sessions covered the gamut of topics from the realities of how to do “Test, Trace, Isolate” to the experiences inside and out of the classroom, inequality within the infrastructure and emerging technologies. And as Mona Sloane critically observed, “it was heard throughout the day that students should be part of the planning process as they are resident experts in their own learning experiences”. The sessions included were:

• Panel #1: Virus Spread Mitigation Barry Svigals (Stanford d.school), Kamilah Jackson, M.D., M.P.H., D.F.A.A.C.A.P ( PerformCare NJ), ‍Thomas McGinn, MD (Northwell Health), Andre Fenton (NYU), Kameka Dempsey (KD Leadership Strategies) [Moderator]
• Panel #2: COVID-19 Classroom Experiences Maura Conley (Pratt), ‍Kevin Gotkin (NYU Steinhardt), ‍Chris Gilliard (Macomb Community College) Nelson James (NYU Tandon student), Mona Sloane, (NYU) [Moderator]
• Panel #3: New Infrastructures and Inequality Jeremy Caplan (CUNY Graduate School of Journalism), Betsy Schneck (Ella Baker School), Lee Rubenstein (EdX), Madi Jacox (Hangar) [Moderator]
• Panel #4: Student Life Outside the Classroom Kafele Khalfani (Earl Warren College), Justin Hershman (NYU Student), Jordan Hershman (gap year Yale), ‍Scyatta Wallace (St. John’s University), ‍Sarah Shapiro (Covid Nine Teen Project), Kameka Dempsey (KD Leadership Strategies) [Moderator]
• Panel #5: Emerging technologies being expedited into production Dan Kohn (Linux Foundation Public Health), ‍Julia Stoyanovich (NYU Tandon), Tain Barzso (Zoom), Andy Moss (NYU) [Moderator]
• Demonstrations of some of the emerging technology solutions available to educators for Contact Tracing/Exposure Notification, Health Monitoring and new learning approaches.

To solve the problem of safely reopening our education system, three interconnected realities were repeated throughout the event.

1. One size does not fit all — each institution has its own unique set of risks to mitigate and different allocations of resources with which to address them;
2. Inequity is everywhere — schools simply do not have the same finances, skills, or experiences. We need to help ensure more equal outcomes to provide opportunities for our students so everyone is enabled to contribute to solving future problems;
3. Technology can be an important enabler. It can also create unintended problems. Bringing tech people together with the people who are working directly with the issues and problems is paramount. Too often the tech community approaches problem solving from the point of view of having all the answers. It’s been proven time and time again that they can best help by listening to and building what the experts need.

The conference provided an overview of the complexities of the challenge in front us, offered a framework for those responsible for making these difficult decisions and highlighted some emerging tools and technologies that are available for consideration. Attendees should have walked away more enlightened with a better understanding of how to approach decision making, some practical advice and shared knowledge of how others are moving forward towards Safely Reopening Education and Campus Life.

The event was hosted by the COVID-19 Technology Task Force; a national collection of volunteers who came together in March to help create a forum for state/local governments, healthcare professionals, and the business and education sectors to collaborate and share ideas with the tech community. Their goal is to foster increased cooperation and communications towards mitigating the impact of COVID-19. This event was the latest in a series of events. Previous events focused on data security & privacy, contact tracing & exposure notification, and a recently concluded 10 day global hackathon to support social and mental health tech innovations.