Designed by Paul T. O’Neill –
In consultation with many schools, Paul T. O’Neill has developed a rubric for programs to use in planning for the summer and coming school year despite the chaos and uncertainty of the COVID-19 crisis.
COVID-19 Planning Tool for Schools/Districts (Excel Spreadsheet)
The COVID-19 School/District Planning Tool is an Excel sheet with several parts. It provides a tab for each of three time-frames – Current School Year, Summer 2020, and the 2020-2021 School Year. There is also a top sheet that automatically populates with actions entered into each of the other tabs and serves as summary of actions planned across the timelines.
Each of the time-frame tabs prompts you to grapple with 5 broad categories of concerns:
- Operational
- Instructional
- Financial
- Governance
- Outreach & Support
Within each category are more detailed considerations that break down specific areas and sub-areas that should be addressed in planning. For example, the Instructional category includes a Special Education subcategory that includes the following challenges to address in the school’s planning process:
- Services provided now vs. deferred as compensatory services (for reopening)
- Equity issues regarding access to equipment and services during distance learning
- Teletherapy
- Remote evaluations
- Remote due process hearings
- Assessing deficits due to closures
- Assessing compensatory services needed; Calculating and assigning costs; creating a plan for delivery
- Special education staffing
- Additional challenge
- Additional challenge
The final two are placeholders – schools should treat this rubric as a template to be customized and adapted as needed.
The rubric also calls on users to assign a priority level, owner and due date for each challenge, and asks them to identify important considerations that must be factored in for each challenge. Most importantly, it requires the user to identify action steps for every challenge (these will automatically also appear on the top sheet showing all time-frames).
For more information
If you have questions about planning for the impact of COVID19 on your school or district’s summer programs and operations, and the upcoming 2020-2021 school year, please reach out to Paul T. O’Neill or Matthew R. Plain.
About Barton Gilman
Barton Gilman provides the full scope of legal services to education clients – including traditional and non-traditional public schools, charter schools, charter management organizations, private schools, education advocacy organizations and other education-related organizations – throughout Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York. For more information, please click here.
