1. BIG IMPACTS NEEDED STRONG
LEADERSHIP
Whitepaper by Edward G. Rogoff, Ph.D.

2. Dr. Edward G. Rogoff
Professor and former Dean of the Long Island University.
He received a B.A., M.B.A., and Ph.D. From Columbia Univer-
sity where he wrote his thesis under the supervision of
Nobel Prize winning economist William Vickrey.

3. Table of Contents
Introduction
Big District, Big Resources
Takes The Wheel
Teaching Carpentry Online
Hey Google
From SeeSaw to Google
Big Obstacles Forced Compromises
Adapting Student Services
Teacher Call the Tune
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
Conclusion 12

4. About the Whitepaper
There has simply never been anything like it. The combination of a pandemic with the relatively
recent application of technology to education allowed virtually every school in the county to
close on as little as a few days’ notice and school administrators to assume new roles as leaders
and managers of the world’s largest online learning systems.
To better understand precisely how this shift took place, we have interviewed Superintendents
from a variety of school districts and have summarized important aspects of their stories.
Since the March 2020 closing of virtually every school in the U.S. in response to the COVID-19
pandemic, the analogy to D-Day has been repeated many times. After all, both were events of
enormous scale carried out in the shadow of risk to life, and were regarded as world changing.
There is no minimizing the importance of D-Day: it represented a shift in the tide of World War
II that led to a redrawing of the world map. But comparing these two events bypasses a few
important characteristics of the educational system’s move to online education in March.
The D-Day invasion was the largest seaborne invasion in history, but it was the culmination of
two years of planning, was preceded by weeks of an air-war in strategic areas, and was managed
by leadership that was highly experienced at logistics and battle planning.
01
Education’s response to COVID-19 was accomplished with as little as two-days notice, often with
little planning, by people who had never done anything like it before.
Examining how this change from in-person classroom teaching to online home-based education
is a lesson in how people rise to the occasion, even while under great pressure, and with little
supplemental support when the focus on the singular mission becomes all-consuming.
Lumos Learning 2020
One of the purposes of this paper is to share
their valuable perspectives with the Lumos
Learning community.
Lumos Learning is a provider of learning tools to
students in K through 12 that serve students,
teachers, parents, and administrators.
Lumos has over 367,600 students and over 26,100
schools using its tools.

5. Without a doubt, this transition will be the focus of studies for years to come. Nonetheless, the
purpose of this article is to explore what conclusions we can reach even in this early stage.
Over the last few weeks,
superintendents from seven districts of varying sizes, resource availability, and demographics,
shared what they learned, how they managed the transition, what they believe went well, and
what they think should be changed the next time in the unfortunate event that history repeats
itself.
What emerges is an indelible picture of leadership that rose to the occasion, improvised as
needed, and motivated their teachers, students, parents, and administrators to join the battle.
Early hindsight shows that educational goals were sometimes compromised and students in
resource-rich districts with parents who could become active partners in online learning fared
the best. Some students were clearly left behind.
The move to online education started, of course, with technology. In some of the districts, we
examined all of the students already had computers or tablets and were using electronic learn-
ing platforms and digital tools for learning and communication.
There was also great variability in how different districts handled training teachers to use online
teaching tools. Some had teachers who were already well-trained and highly experienced in
online education. Others organized training on the fly.
02
For some schools, the biggest challenge after being quickly closed, was getting the
devices from the students’ lockers to their homes. For other schools, the shutdown
was the inception of their journey into digital education.
Lumos Learning 2020

6. Big District, Big Resources
Dr. Diana Greene, the Superintendent of the massive Duval County School District that covers
Jacksonville, Florida, manages a system that is well-served by Internet providers and 4-G wire-
less. When the move to online was mandated,
Dr. Greene immediately purchased hot spots for students who could, nonetheless, not
connect. The administration also dismantled the schools’ computer carts and dispatched
about 40,000 computers to their students. Within two weeks, every student was connecte
For this district, the move to online happened over spring break, so the transition occurred
when no classes were being held. Dr. Greene already had strong district-wide technology and
teachers well versed in online teaching tools.
In addition, Dr. Greene extended spring break by another week to allow two weeks to manage
the transition. The district had employed Microsoft Teams for the past three years and 1,400 of
their teachers were experts in its use.
In addition, teachers had been trained in iReady, Achieve 300, and Discovery Ed learning tools.
However, some parents didn’t want their children going online, so the school printed out read-
ings and assignments and delivered them to their homes. After the transition was complete, Dr.
Greene knew that her students could continue to be fully engaged.
03
Dr. Diana Greene
Superintendent
Duval County School District, FL
Lumos Learning 2020
d.

7. Peter Nasir, the Superintendent of the small Wellsville-Middletown district in rural Missouri, was
on the other end of the spectrum. He had greater needs and fewer resources to fill them. The
district has 400 students from 350 households, many without Internet connectivity.
Given this inability to move every student to online learning, Dr. Nasir made the decision to
return to using paper. When the district’s bus driver came down with COVID-19 and had to be
hospitalized, Nasir and his teachers consolidated the district’s six bus routes into two, each of
which took eight hours to complete.
Dr. Nasir sometimes drove the bus himself to deliver packets of learning materials to
every household, return them to the school so teachers could grade them, and then
return them to the students. The teachers met at the school weekly to grade assign
ments, create the next week’s materials, make copies, and prepare them for delivery.
Wellsville-Middletown is at the beginning of the digital transition. Dr. Nasir hopes that with a
$90,000 federal grant he has received, the district might build their own Wi-Fi hotspot to signifi-
cantly increase Internet coverage in his community.
But he is also realistic about the ability of online tools to achieve major goals, adding, “If policy
makers think that online tools are the magic bullet to improve quality and reduce budgets, we
know that some students don’t learn as well online as in person, and online teaching takes as
least as much teacher time as in-person teaching.
When we return to in-person classes, running schools and buses while maintaining social
distance and frequently disinfecting is going to be a huge logistical and budget challenge.”
Takes the Wheel
04
Dr. Peter Nasir
Superintendent
Wellsville-Middletown School District, MO
Lumos Learning 2020

8. Dr. James Pedersen is the District Superintendent for Essex County Schools of Technology in
New Jersey, which includes three tech high schools that teach subjects such as carpentry, robot-
ics, and cosmetology. Dr. Pedersen had enough warning about upcoming COVID-19 closures to
instruct students to take their computers, books and other materials home. Even cosmetology
students had enough time to move their make-up mannequins home so they could practice
techniques and complete assignments without asking a family member to volunteer as a
model.
While certain subjects in vocational areas don’t transition well to online, the district was
generally well-prepared for online education. All the students had a computers or tablets,
all the classes were using a digital tool such as Google Classroom, Khan Academy, or
Edmodo. The district’s textbooks were digital.
Dr. Pedersen took a helpful online course, Rapid Transition to Online Learning, that laid out the
steps the district needed to follow to convert from in-person to online. With the help of his IT
Department, Dr. Pedersen created a virtual school to try out the logistics of transitioning com-
pletely to online and give teachers the opportunity to experience and practice the skills they
would soon need. Since all of the Essex County Schools of Technology are high schools, their
students were technologically sophisticated.
On Friday, March 13, Dr. Pedersen canceled classes and held a full day of training for teachers
that included creating online schedules. By Monday, their online program was set and opera-
tional. The district required teachers to run some synchronous classes at least twice-a-week.
While Dr. Pedersen feels that this generally worked well, he concedes that some students with
poorer Internet access at home and others with special needs could not fully participate. Even
for students for good Internet service, it became clear that some subjects, such as drafting,
required more computer power than student devices were equipped with. For Dr. Pedersen
and his district, the adoption of technology they made prior to the COVID-19 pandemic turned
out to the perfect preparation for the shutdown and move to online learning.
Teaching Carpentry Online
Dr. James Pedersen
Superintendent
Essex County Schools of Technology, NJ
05Lumos Learning 2020

9. Dr. Mark Benigni is the Superintendent of the Meriden Connecticut Public School District, which
is a Google Reference District.
“Our teachers had received significant training and had experience with tools such as Google
Classroom, Google Slides, Google Docs, and Google Sheets.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic caused the move to online, our teachers were actually using this
suite of online tools every day. With the complete move to online, teachers became more
focused and learned new Google tools like Google Meet and Google Jamboard. ”
But the district had to address issues with access and connectivity. Some families didn’t have
computers; others didn’t have Internet connections; some were living in difficult circumstances,
such as homeless shelters.
Meeting the needs of those in these diverse situations became a major focus of Dr. Benigni and
his teachers. The teachers used Google Meet to try to maintain personal connections at least
three times per week.
Dr. Benigni and his team used reports from Google, ClassLink, and other vendors to see
how much time students were spending on schoolwork. “Generally, engaged students
remained engaged students,”
Dr. Benigni said. While this approach generally worked well for his district, Dr. Benigni recog-
nized improvements they will need if they switch to online happens again.
“We need to work harder at parent two-way communication. We realized the importance of
having a single sign-on platform. We know we need to get better at supporting our most fragile
and special needs students.”
Hey Google
Dr. Mark Benigni
Superintendent
Meriden Public Schools, CT
06Lumos Learning 2020

10. From SeeSaw to Google
Dr. Jeffrey Hardley
Assistant Superintendent
Avonworth School District, PA
There is no doubt that districts with more available technology serving more affluent popula-
tions in areas with excellent Internet connectivity fared better with the transition.
Dr. Jeff Hadley, the Assistant Superintendent of Avonworth School District north of Pittsburgh,
recognizes that his community falls into this category.
Prior to COVID-19, every student had a tablet or Chromebook provided by the District. Younger
grades used SeeSaw to manage online learning and communication.
Older grades used Google Classroom, Flipgrid (a Microsoft Product), and nearPod to facilitate
communication between students and teachers and to keep track of assignments.
Dr. Hadley made the decision not to have synchronous classes, but teachers were able to
stream presentations for student viewing at any time.
“We aimed at significant student/teacher contact either using Google Meet or the phone,”
Dr. Hadley said. Like most district superintendents, Dr. Hadley didn’t want grading
policies during the COVID-19 shutdown to hurt students.
While some districts chose to make all classes pass/fail, Dr. Hadley decided that teachers should
anchor their grades to what the student had earned before the shutdown and only change the
grades up for the balance of the online term.
“On the whole,” he said, “we feel the entire transition was a success.”
07Lumos Learning 2020

11. The other end of the spectrum from Avonwroth is the Aberdeen, Mississippi, School District
with 1,100 students in a rural, lower socio-economic area, with poor Internet service.
The District Superintendent, Jeffrey Clay, found out about the imminent school closings during
spring break while he was out-of-town on vacation. This was only the first of many obstacles he
would encounter in the coming weeks.
The schools did not have enough notice to enable those students with computers to take them
home, so the administration had to arrange for access to school grounds to fetch them from
lockers. A survey sent out to students and families to inventory Internet access went to all 1,100
students, but only 200 responded.
In grades K through 8, the school created packets of printed materials that were to be
delivered by the school bus company to each home. But the bus company demanded a
significant increase in their pricing which the district could not afford.
So parents either had to pick up and drop off packets weekly or teachers had to deliver them
individually. Every teacher was assigned ten students to supervise in a virtual homeroom, but
many students couldn’t be reached.
Teachers organized “drive-by parades” to say hello to their students and graduation took place
in the parking lot with students and their families remaining in their cars.
In the end, Dr. Clay reports, a significant percentage of students received a less than optimal
education for the remainder of the term.
Big Obstacles Forced Compromises
Dr. Jeffrey Clay
Superintendent
Aberdeen School District , MS
08Lumos Learning 2020

12. Dr. Shelly Dason works for two District Supervisors providing leadership and supervision in
student services.
Teachers and staff agreed that special education students represented significant challenges
following school closures. As Director of Student Services at the Pleasant and Ridgedale School
Districts in central Ohio,
Dr. Dason worked to maintain daily contact between students and their teachers, but felt
this was especially important for special ed students and their reading and math teachers
Dr. Dason said, “it was essential to recruit parents to aid in keeping their children up-to-date on
their individualized educational plan (I.E.P.), and to have an intervention specialist contact or
post something on Google Classroom every day for the student.”
“While this effort largely produced results,” Dr. Dason admits,
“Some parents were just overwhelmed, and we asked them to focus on making sure their child
got online every day.
Without a doubt, many teachers and parents could not maintain this level of focus on special
needs students during the COVID-19 shutdown.”
Adapting Student Services
Dr. Shelly Dason
Director of Student Services
Ridgedale School Districts, OH
09Lumos Learning 2020
.

13. Christian Zambrano is the Assistant Principal at the Cross Hill Academy, one of 39 schools that
comprise the Yonkers, New York, Public School System. The system has a strong teachers union
and a contract that grants teachers significant control over curriculum and teaching modalities.
The contract was negotiated in an environment that did not anticipate a complete move to online
teaching. Moreover, 80% of the district’s students come from economically disadvantaged
homes.
“Teachers struggled to learn new ways of delivering instruction, administrators charged with the
responsibility of retooling their staff, worked tirelessly to become proficient on various virtual
platforms, and align them to digital resources already in place.”
Mr. Zambrano reported, “our first mission was to ensure that all students were connected
towards that end, we distributed over 120 laptops to students at my school who
lacked access to technology.
Then came the support families needed to advance their digital fluency. We faced these chal-
lenges simultaneously to establish our virtual environment. Ultimately, more than 80% of our
students were engaged in virtual instruction.”
In preparation for a possible school shutdown in the future, Mr. Zambrano said, “our district
understands the need for bargaining units to work collectively and leverage the experience of
providing instruction (in all its strengths and weaknesses) throughout this pandemic in order to
better prepare for the 2020-2021 school year. I am confident in our superintendent's ability to
move forward with the work of providing every child, especially those most at risk, the opportuni-
ty to be successful and add their unique value to the fabric of our community.”
Like many school systems throughout the country that operate in a unionized environment, that
preparation for a possible future shutdown will begin at the bargaining table.
Teachers Call the Tune
Dr. Christian Zambrano
Assistant Principal
Cross Hill Academy
10Lumos Learning 2020

14. In the unfortunate event that a pandemic or different calamity closes schools in the future,
some elements of preparation will be difficult. We are in a period of rapid change in technology,
digital learning tools and curriculum.
Creating a storehouse of computers that students or teachers could use at home, will be use-
less in just a few years. Teacher training in learning platforms such as Canvas, or digital tools
such as Zoom will be of little use unless the tools are constantly updated, and teachers are con-
stantly trained in the latest versions.
Teaching is a profession with significant turnover, making the orientation of new teachers
essential. The schools we researched which had the tools and were using them prior to the
COVID-19 shutdown changed readily to home-based online learning. Schools starting the pro-
cess from scratch never caught up and left many students underserved
D-Day had a plan. The transition to online education brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic did
not have an overall plan.
Yet schools in which students had good Internet connections at home and late-model comput-
ers, teachers and staff had experience with digital platforms and learning tools, and parents
possessed good computer skills and the time and motivation to help in the education process,
made the transition swiftly and effectively.
Without these tools, other schools were forced to make compromises and shortchanged
students. However, all the school districts we researched were able to accomplish their mission
with varying degrees of success.
What About Next Time?
11Lumos Learning 2020

15. Dr. Benigni from Meriden, Connecticut summed up the experience when he said, “Engaged
students remained engaged students and going forward, no one will challenge the need to
incorporate more technology in education.”
Under the pressure of war against a virus, the educational system revealed some previously
unknown strengths. It showed that it can rise to the occasion, adjust to fill the need of students,
and greatly expand the use of technology and online tools.
Many thought, without a doubt, this period will come to be the first chapter in a story of continu-
ing change in our educational system.
At Lumos, we offer engaging learning programs to improve student achievement on
state assessments. The Lumos StepUp program offers realistic assessment rehearsal
along with path-breaking AI-powered remedial practice. Our learning resources and
the collaborative platform were developed by expert teachers, caring parents, and
innovative engineers.
With Lumos Learning solutions, students are equipped with the tools to support
self-paced, year-round learning anytime, anywhere. Our track record speaks for
itself. The program is used by over 367,600 students 53,200 teachers and in more
than 26,100 schools.
We pride in our ability to create custom solutions specifically designed to meet the
needs of individual school districts. Using our standards aligned study programs,
educators can help students succeed on high-stakes assessments and significantly
improve school rankings.
About Lumos Learning
12Lumos Learning 2020
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