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School-Based Medicaid 101: Enhancing Medicaid Reimbursements for Schools

 

 

School-based Medicaid claiming programs enable districts to seek reimbursement through three distinct avenues: Fee-for-Service Billing (otherwise known as Direct Service Billing), School-Based Administrative Claiming, and Cost Reconciliation. Understanding the definitions of each program and how they are related are the first steps to understanding how the cost reconciliation process can impact your district’s revenue.

What is Fee-for-Service Medicaid billing?

Fee-for-Service (FFS) billing is the process of claiming for individual therapy or health sessions with students in a school setting. Sessions are bundled into claims and can be submitted throughout the year.

Reimbursable service types vary by state, but can include:

  • Physician and nursing services
  • Physical therapy
  • Occupational therapy
  • Speech therapy
  • Audiological services
  • Personal care services
  • Transportation services
  • Vision services
  • Hearing services
  • Mental health services
  • Durable Medicaid equipment
  • Case management
Questions about Medicaid for Special Education? See our FAQs

While payment schedules do vary from state to state, most districts can expect FFS payments within a month of claim submission. Payment totals are based on the procedure code identified by the provider in each session and are tied to a state-defined rate for that code.

Rates vary significantly. For example, individual speech therapy in Florida pays at $3.74 per 15 minutes. In Virginia, the rate is $31.91 per session. In both cases, the rate does not reflect the cost of service provision to the district.

What is School-Based Administrative Claiming?

School-Based Administrative Claiming (SBAC) is a quarterly process that allows districts to recoup funds based on the Medicaid administrative outreach and support activities conducted at the district. Claims are based on a quarterly time study that codes different types of professional activities from PTO to direct therapy time to educational services.

Districts begin the process by identifying the pool of personnel that conducts Medicaid outreach and support services. This pool is sampled using a Random Moment Time Study to determine the percentage of time spent on outreach and support services. The total percentage is then bundled into a quarterly claim along with personnel and other district expenditures. Districts receive a quarterly payment that reflects the portion of costs that were Medicaid related. However, according to CMS guidelines established in 2003, direct therapy costs are not included in the SBAC payment.1

What is Cost Reconciliation?

Cost Reconciliation (also known as Cost Settlement) is an annual process that allows districts to receive additional funding for direct therapy when the actual cost of service delivery exceeds that which was received in interim fee-for-service payments throughout the year. Not every state offers a cost reconciliation option, but in some states, Cost Reconciliation is required to ensure Medicaid reimbursement is consistent with the actual costs incurred in providing services.

The Cost Reconciliation submission-to-payment timeline is lengthy for two reasons: the report must be submitted after both the Fee-for-Service billing period and administrative claiming is completed for any fiscal year, and the report is audited prior to payment. Districts typically receive revenue 18 months to two years after services are delivered. Claiming requirements are similar to those used in SBAC claiming and some data pulls from the Random Moment Time Study process itself:

    1. The Random Moment Time Study process defines the overall percentage of time spent delivering direct therapy.
    2. The district is required to report:
      1. Total annual costs for personnel
      2. Total annual costs for district expenditures related to direct therapy for Medicaid-eligible students
    3. The total costs are then multiplied by the Medicaid Eligibility Rate within the IEP student population to determine the costs associated to direct therapy for Medicaid-eligible students.

Do I need to participate in Fee-for-Service claiming or Administrative Claiming to receive Cost Reconciliation funds?

In short, yes. Most states require some level of Fee-for-Service billing per quarter and service type for that personnel to be included in the cost report. In some cases, FFS billing must be maximized, or the districts overall revenue will be reduced in the cost report.2

In addition, because the cost report is based on percentages of direct therapy determined from the quarterly RMTS process, the RMTS is mandatory. While the district does not need to submit an SBAC claim from the RMTS process, these administrative costs for outreach and support services can be claimed through the SBAC program.

How can I maximize my Medicaid cost report for school-based services?

The best way to maximize your cost report is to review which costs your district is including as well as the sources of funding for those costs. In many instances, cost reporting maximization requires adjustments to your overall budgeting process.

Personnel costs

Providers that are funded through federal programs such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) cannot be included on a cost report. As you look to maximize your cost report, you should ensure that providers who conduct direct therapy are funded through local sources.

Expenditures

Districts can claim multiple types of expenditures for reimbursement, including large capital expenditures such as motorized wheelchairs or lifts. Costs to outfit buses with specialized medical equipment can also be claimed. In addition, the amortized cost of capital expenditures can be claimed annually.

Expenditures include not only the large capital expenses but also items like bandages or disinfectant. The below list captures the allowable costs in Texas for Medical supplies that can be claimed if they are used in support of Direct Medical Services:

Vendor fees for FFS claiming

The fees that vendors charge for supporting districts with documentation and FFS Medicaid claiming services can also be included in cost reports, depending on the state. In Virginia, for example, as long as the vendor fee is based on fixed pricing, this charge can be added to the cost report and reimbursed.

Medicaid Eligibility Rate

In some states, more than one type of Medicaid is allowed both for Fee-for-Service billing and Cost Reconciliation recoupment. When determining the Medicaid Eligibility Rate, you should analyze which types of Medicaid are acceptable for school-based claiming in your state. In some states, students who quality for State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) meet the requirements to be claimed by schools.

What information should I have to back up my cost report?

Cost reports are not paid until they undergo an audit. You should have on hand:

  • Transportation trip documentation
  • IEP December 1 count
  • Medicaid eligibility ratio
  • Random Moment Time student pool personnel per quarter
  • Random Moment Time Study results
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“My state does not have a Cost Reconciliation program”

You should petition your state Medicaid agency to develop a program! This is a long and tedious process for a state to undertake and would require the state agency submit a state plan amendment to the federal government for review, but it benefits school districts by bringing in more federal dollars to help provide health services to students. If Cost Reconciliation is not an option in your state, even if you maximize your Fee-for-Service claiming, state procedure code rates are not guaranteed to fully reimburse your costs.

Concluding thoughts

Cost Reconciliation is the best methodology to ensure that IDEA services are fully funded at the federal level by allowing districts to recoup exactly what they spent on the services they provided. However, the responsibility falls entirely on the district to claim every cost. We hope this guide will help your district examine your cost report with new eyes to ensure your Medicaid funding is maximized.

Bring much needed funds back into your district by simplifying health services documentation and Medicaid claiming procedures. Learn how Frontline can help

1 https://ahca.myflorida.com/medicaid/childhealthservices/schools/pdfs/School_District_Administrative_Claiming_Guide_2013.pdf

2 https://www.dmas.virginia.gov/files/links/156/Cost%20Report%20Instruction%20Guide.pdf

A Collaborative Game Plan for Student Equity

Q: What happens when teachers work to ensure their students’ success but that success remains elusive?

A: Frustration. I hear frustration from teachers when they feel they are not meeting the needs of their students. Teachers care deeply. They work diligently to meet their students’ needs. At the root of their concern, they may not have had the professional development to gain the skills to equitably meet the diverse needs in their classes. Their frustration is palpable, accompanied by descriptions of students not participating in instructional activities. They want to help but may be uncertain how to equitably meet the needs of their students.

This concern is often especially vivid when working with English Learners. English Learners (ELs) bring the fullness of second languages and cultural diversity into classrooms. They provide different perspectives on our world, yet frustration is often the emotion I see in teachers as they wonder how and when they can meet the needs of their EL students. The combination of celebrating different cultures and perspectives while providing equitable access to instruction and academic language can lead to awesome rewards for both teachers and students.

Studies confirm the concerns that teachers have with providing equitable instruction for ELs. Ross (2014) found that teachers felt less confident teaching ELs than non-ELs, and years of teaching experience did not change teachers’ lack of self-efficacy.1 Reeves (2006) found that nearly 70% of teachers “reported they did ‘not have enough time to deal with the needs of ESL students’” (p. 136).2 In that same study, over 80% of teachers disagreed with the statement that they had adequate training to work with EL students. O’Brien (2011) revealed that teachers indicated they were unable to meet the needs of ELs in lessons, assignments, and projects.3

The good news is that professional development, in face-to-face or remote environments, can increase teachers’ self-efficacy and skills in reaching and teaching ELs and save the teachers time.

Educational leaders can reduce the frustration for teachers and provide them with collaborative professional development opportunities that will enable them to meet the needs of students. Professional development involving collaboration builds not only the sense of self-efficacy for teachers with English Learners but also their abilities to implement more equitable practices (Hazzard, 2019). 4

As leaders formulate a game plan for equity, there are several critical steps.

1.   Find out the needs

Ask and listen to students, families, and staff about needs they see related to equity. Include teachers in discussions to clarify needs. Teachers have great insights into what students and parents perceive their needs to be. Along this journey, leaders have the opportunity to build stronger relationships with teachers and families. By listening, leaders learn the needs of their constituents and can formulate the game plan for meeting their needs and exceeding their expectations.

This spring when we all suddenly found ourselves working and teaching from home, I listened as teachers shared that ELs needed more support with their assignments. Teachers shared that students felt frustrated as they strived to meet instructional challenges. Teachers worked tirelessly from home but often did not have the opportunity to directly see the struggle of ELs after a synchronous class or group meeting, and the students didn’t always reach out to the teacher to ask for help.

Teachers and parents were united in their commitment to the success of our students. More academic language support was necessary for some students to be academically successful.

2.   Set the goals for equity

Based on the needs discovered while listening to students, families, and staff, set the goals for equity. What are you trying to accomplish in the name of equity? Consider how your data aligns with those needs. Data can be numerical or qualitative. What you hear from parents, students, and staff is an important part of your data. What support can be offered that will meet student, family, and staff needs, and what will impact the data that you have?

Pre-made and readily available scaffolds for students became more critical during remote learning. Those scaffolds needed to provide support for any student who needed access to academic language including ELs. If teachers needed support in creating those scaffolds because of time and learning how to make them, then a solution must be forged.

3.   Offer professional learning for the short and long term (impact now and later)

Professional development during remote learning is not just for remote learning. Professional development needs to impact practices for the short and long term. The practices need to work whether we are face-to-face or remote to meet students’ needs in any situation.

Teachers implemented many engaging remote activities, and the work was intense and time-consuming. How could we incorporate something that saved teachers time during remote learning in our professional development? We needed to help teachers, students, and parents during this time frame and ensure the impact would be lasting.

4.   Create the opportunity and purpose for teamwork

Collaboration offers the opportunity for everyone to combine their expertise and build relationships. Leaders focus the team on the goal. Time is important, so ensure the purpose is clear for the work of the team.

Create teams that offer the opportunity for cross-sharing complementary expertise to reach the goal. If teams of teachers and specialists will be working together, consider the expertise lens that each team member will contribute. For example, reading specialists offer great insights into English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum and students’ literacy needs. EL specialists contribute valuable insights regarding academic language and ensuring access to grade-level content. Special Education teachers can promote ideas for differentiation. Content teachers maintain focus on grade-level content and standards. When leaders focus expertise on one purpose guided by the needs and goals set before them, then real change for equity can happen. Diversity in team members’ skill sets can help meet the needs of diverse learners.

Ensure that where your team meets, especially if it’s remote, is conducive to teamwork. Zoom breakout rooms work better for collaboration than large groups in Zoom. When we are face to face, breaking larger teams into smaller collaborative groups or partners encourages strong collaboration from all. Remember, the members of groups and partners should offer heterogeneous insights into solving the problem.

5.   Create the path for communication

When a team has great ideas for a great purpose, then those ideas need to be shared. Consider what opportunities already exist for communication and sharing. Can they be leveraged efficiently and purposefully?

During remote learning, my district implemented weekly Remote Planning Workshops (RPWs) akin to cross-school Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) for grade levels. RPWs were created to provide teachers from the same grade levels throughout the district with the opportunity to cross-share ideas for upcoming content. Two reading specialists would lead each grade-level RPW in a Zoom with breakout rooms. These RPWs were the perfect opportunity for professional development about academic language supports because the supports could be linked to the content discussed during RPWs. EL teachers and I shared academic language scaffold examples and the “why” behind them with grade-level teachers.

One key to the communication pathway for the RPWs was learning the content to be discussed prior to meeting as a team. Reading specialist meetings followed by EL specialist meetings were key in this process. Each week to prepare, I learned what ELA instructional topics the reading specialists would be talking about the following week in RPWs and then relayed that information to the EL specialist team, so they could develop examples of academic language supports to share in each RPW. Collaboration with reading specialists and EL specialists provided opportunities for necessary communication to meet our goal.

6.   As leaders, model the way5

Leaders must model the importance of the steps they are asking their team to take for equity. Set the example for your team, so they take strong steps for equity with you.

I wanted my EL specialist team to know that I valued equity — and the work that goes toward it. After meeting with the reading specialists, I made scaffold templates and models to share with the EL specialist team. Then I met with the EL specialists who designed similar models for different grade levels. For example, we made writing frames and graphic organizers for argument and opinion as one type of scaffold. I shared examples in grade-level RPWs with the EL specialists. I modeled the importance of enhancing equity. One EL specialist or I shared a grade-level model in each RPW.

This game plan resulted in wins for our constituents.

The grade-level teachers left the RPW with great ideas for ELA, an academic language scaffold they could implement with students soon after, an understanding of why the academic language scaffold was helpful for ELs and other students who needed it, and a template to make a similar scaffold in the future. Teachers were thankful for those examples that they could use right away for instruction. Parents could see their students participate in activities using those scaffolds during remote learning. Using those scaffolds reduces student frustration and enhances learning.

In this process, the EL specialists gained a stronger foothold with grade-level teachers and reading specialists. Their collaboration extended beyond the RPWs, and the learning extended beyond our spring remote learning. Leadership was distributed.

Equity definitely isn’t a game, but we can make a game plan for it.

Equity, especially during remote learning and especially for English Learners, is a challenge and an opportunity. Make a strong game plan for equity. Plan for team members with diverse expertise to collaborate and develop professional learning that will impact equity for the short and long term. Model for your team just how important equity is to you, and they will reflect its importance in the work they lead.

1 Ross, K. E. L. (2014). Professional development for practicing mathematics teachers: A critical connection to English language learner students in mainstream USA classrooms. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 17(1), 85–100.

2 Reeves, J. R. (2006). Secondary teacher attitudes toward including English-Language Learners in mainstream classrooms. The Journal of Educational Research, 99(3), 131–142.

3 O’Brien, J. (2011). The system is broken and it’s failing these kids: High school social studies teachers’ attitudes towards training for ELLs. Journal of Social Studies Research, 35(1), 22–38.

4 Hazzard, J. (2019). Professional development for the equitable assessment of English learners. (Publication No. 13881232) [Doctoral dissertation, Wilmington University]. ProQuest.

5 Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2012). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations. Jossey-Bass.

How to Leverage Your IEP Service Tracking System for Better Progress Monitoring

Why does progress monitoring matter?

School districts need to monitor student progress to assess student outcomes, submit mandated state and federal reports, and in many states, claim Medicaid reimbursements. But progress monitoring can also be used to help identify and support requests for additional staffing needs or pinpoint professional development gaps.

Getting the most benefit from the progress data you collect and report on depends on how you leverage your service tracking system or other systems you have in place to manage it.

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Use systematic progress monitoring to improve student outcomes

Accurate and detailed progress monitoring is critical to student success. You need accurate data to:

  • Guide instruction
  • Make decisions about student growth
  • Communicate progress on IEP goals
  • Determine effectiveness of providers and programs

Creating standardized procedures for progress monitoring and using consistent tools for progress data collection are much more efficient than allowing all service providers to use their own preferred methods or disparate systems.

Every provider should follow the same steps for each student:

1. Clearly define the concern.

Be sure to use specific language. The target behavior should be alterable, meaning the student’s performance can be changed. Be very specific: Identify when and how long the behavior occurs. Give examples: Is it observable? Can you see it or hear it? How would you measure it?

2. Determine how progress will be measured.

Teachers and service providers have to measure a wide range of student responses. Data might include the duration or length of time a student stays on task or the frequency a specific behavior is observed. To describe the action accurately, use common rubrics or rating scales.

It’s also important to include data on how much assistance was provided to the student by counting and reporting the number of cues given.

3. Decide where you want to start and where you want to end up — the baseline and the goal. Use charts to collect data and track progress.

Establish a baseline, usually the average of at least three data points or comparison with typical performance standards. Then determine precisely what goal a student must meet to determine success. Using a SMART model helps identify a specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely goal.

Examples:

    • The student will demonstrate correct production of the /l/ phoneme in all positions of words at the sentence level with 75% accuracy independently by 9/30/2020.
    • By March 2020 when properly positioned, given light touch physical cues and verbal cues, the student will use a switch (jellybean, etc.) to engage in preferred cause/effect operations to initiate and/or continue activities modeled to her (ex. Switch toys, computer interface switch with computer access), on 4/5 opportunities over 3 consecutive sessions.

Produce true data-driven IEP progress reports

Use a simple chart to track progress. It should include a baseline data point and the goal data point. Connect the baseline point to the goal data point to create an aim line representing the student’s estimated or expected growth rate.

Collect and review data regularly — determine the schedule by identifying the IEP progress reporting periods and annual review dates. Use the data to make decisions on frequency and duration of services.

Are the provider’s strategies working, or do they need to be adjusted? Does the student’s goal need to change prior to the next annual review?

Would providers benefit from professional development in specific areas of concern?

Does the data present a need for additional staff to support student success?

Fiscal and regulatory impact

In many states, a quality progress monitoring system also demonstrates fiscal responsibility as it is necessary for both compliance and Medicaid reimbursement. Systematically implementing progress monitoring can make a significant difference in the revenue a district can collect through Medicaid reimbursements to support ongoing student services.

Medicaid impact

“Documentation of each individual or group session must include the following information…. Student’s progress toward established goals.” — Medicaid Certified School Match Coverage and Limitations Handbook, Florida

“LEAs must maintain documentation of the student’s response and progress resulting from the claimed service. This documentation must be updated no less than quarterly.”  — Handbook for LEAs, Illinois 

“The Progress Summary is a written note outlining the child’s progress that must be completed by the provider every three months from the start date of treatment or when medically necessary. The purpose of the Progress Summary is to record the longitudinal nature of the child’s treatment, describe the child’s attendance at therapy sessions, document progress toward treatment goals and objectives, and establish the need for continued participation in treatment.” — LEA Provider Manual, South Carolina

  • Services must improve a condition, not just maintain it. To be reimbursable, regular progress monitoring data is required to show that services impact student achievement.

Revenue impact

  • Sometimes providers have their own way of collecting data to document student progress. If they also use the data for IDEA documentation, state reporting, and Medicaid reimbursement, entering it separately for each function leads to unnecessary duplication of effort and takes time away from students. If providers document services for Medicaid claims in one place and progress monitoring data for IEPs is collected elsewhere, they’re doing the work twice! Wouldn’t it be better if they spent their time servicing students instead of doing more paperwork?
  • What if you could collect all the data in one place and use it for compliance reporting, Medicaid reimbursement, and progress monitoring for IEPs?  Imagine how that would reduce the workload, increase documentation, and drive up Medicaid revenue.

IDEA impact

“The Progress Summary is a written note outlining the child’s progress that must be completed by the provider every three months from the start date of treatment or when medically necessary. The purpose of the Progress Summary is to record the longitudinal nature of the child’s treatment, describe the child’s attendance at therapy sessions, document progress toward treatment goals and objectives, and establish the need for continued participation in treatment.” – LEA Provider Manual, South Carolina

  • Progress on IEP goals must be reported at least as often as parents are informed of their non-disabled student’s progress. Is that data easily accessible in your service tracking system?

Are you using the right service tracking system?

Does your service tracking system work for you, or are you working for it? You might be spending more time and effort than you need to. With standardized procedures and a quality tracking system, every provider in your district enters progress monitoring data at the end of each session directly into your service tracking system.

This has several benefits:

  1. Improved visibility: Reports are automated and every provider’s documentation is captured in the same way. All users can see the reports along the way and make adjustments in services without waiting until the annual review of the IEP.
  2. Parent engagement: A quality tracking system can even improve parent engagement. Any time a parent requests an update on their child’s services, you’ll have the data at your fingertips and a consistent quality of reporting across providers.
  3. Audit protection: Your IEP service tracking system may also affect your audit results. Ideally, it should give you peace of mind, not keep you up at night worrying that negative findings could affect funding.

But don’t overlook the most important benefit: STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT.

Your system should be built not only around compliance with state reporting and IDEA requirements but also best practices that result in improving student achievement. Evaluating your current IEP management system can help you determine whether it is fully supporting your school, staff, and students.

Reports should be able to answer the following questions:

  • Which intervention strategies impact student progress the most?
  • Which therapy types might need extra support?
  • Are the goals short or long term?
  • Are the goals the right length?
  • Are students meeting goals in the right time frame?
  • Are the goals attainable?
  • Do goals need to be adjusted to make them more attainable or more challenging?
  • Do you have enough data to determine ESY eligibility?

With the right system, you will have all the data you need to make the best decisions for your students and your district.

Simplify the documentation, management and tracking of student services and strengthen compliance with Frontline’s Medicaid & Service Management software.

How to Make Online Professional Learning Successful

Implementing professional learning programs to meet the needs of all teachers and staff has always been challenging. Over the past few months, a monumental shift has thrust many schools and districts into what feels like a tailspin:

“We have to put together online personalized content using new resources and tools — as quickly as possible!”

Online learning is not a new concept. In 2007, I began working with school districts across the nation to provide blended professional development activities aligned with their strategic plans. These programs included face-to-face workshops along with supplemental online courses. After each face-to-face workshop, we encouraged teachers to use the online platform to independently extend their learning. These courses were created by industry experts who not only understood the best practices of instructional design but also had a passion for educational research. How could these educators not jump at the opportunity?

When we met with the district leadership to review the outcomes of learning, I remember the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I presented the rate of completion for the online courses. It was mind-boggling to see that the completion rate was under 10%.

In the years since then, as I have continued to collaborate with districts to implement blended learning programs, it became clear that successful online programs have several common characteristics. Below are several steps you can take to help ensure that your program flourishes.

Have a growth mindset.

As you implement your new online learning program, it will be a trial-and-error experience. Nothing is perfect right out of the gate. You will learn, grow, and get better with every new online offering. This consistent mindset will push your organization toward greatness.

Address the change factor head on!

As you introduce the concept of online learning programs, take a moment to answer the following questions:

  • Why is online learning needed in our organization? Why will it be important to our employees?
  • What preconceived notions do our employees have about online learning programs?
  • When we have tried to implement online learning in the past, where have we succeeded — or not — and what have we learned?
  • What are my fears about implementing online learning programs?

From the very first moment you introduce online learning programs, teachers will form their initial impressions. Addressing the needs, values, and challenges head on will help educators to develop a sense of buy-in and lessen the anxiety about change and the fear of the unknown.

Build an online learning program team.

You may have personnel to dedicate toward this initiative, or you may be running a one-person show. But do everything you can to seek out creative and talented employees in your organization who are passionate about providing online learning options. Invite them to be a part of the process and to take ownership in making it a success. By utilizing the resources you already have (Technology Department, Teacher Leaders, etc.), you will not only accomplish more together but also provide an opportunity for others to have experience in a leadership role.

Evaluate the software tools you use.

More often than not, tools and resources are purchased to accomplish a single purpose or perform just one task. Eventually, your organization will have multiple systems and solutions, which can lead to difficulty for your educators trying to use each one effectively. At an organizational level, this often means adding duplicate data entry processes across multiple solutions in order to analyze what’s working and what isn’t. That leads to wasted time, wasted energy, and frustration.

As you weigh your technology needs to support online learning options, consider these questions:

  • How will we meet the individual learning needs of all our educators and staff?
  • Are there ready-to-use resources that we can combine with customized district resources to help us lessen the burden and time in creating online courses?
  • How will we track all professional learning formats (synchronous and asynchronous) and processes (in-district and out-of-district)?
  • How can we analyze our full professional development program effectiveness?

While the thought of creating and implementing an online learning program can be overwhelming, you have a unique opportunity to redesign a professional learning program that encompasses technology, creativity, personalization, and innovation. If you fast forward a few years, I am confident that you will look back in appreciation at what you have accomplished!

Talk Data to Me: Good News for K-12 Recruiting and Hiring

Previously on Talk Data to Me, we used data from the Frontline Research & Learning Institute to explore how COVID-19 has impacted K-12 hiring. In short, though January and February of this year looked almost identical to the same months in 2019 and 2018, the data quickly and markedly departed from the previous years immediately following the president’s March 13 National Emergency declaration.

Far fewer applicants applied for jobs, fewer jobs were posted, and far fewer districts chose to post even a single job. It appeared that some facets of the K-12 hiring market came to a screeching halt. Almost every hiring metric we track dramatically diverted from the patterns we expected based on those from previous school years.

School districts and job seekers have had more time to grapple with how best to navigate the job market during a pandemic. Many changes have occurred over the past three months, so we rolled up our sleeves and dug deeper for more insights. What we found is some good news for job posters and job seekers.

In March, the raw number of applicants fell by nearly 50% compared with the weeks before. Though it has ticked up since then, the overall number of applicants still tracks slightly lower than it did in previous years. However, as the chart below shows, in most weeks since the shutdown began, there have been more applicants per job posting this year than in previous years.

Good news for job seekers: the number of jobs being posted, the number of districts posting jobs, and the number of jobs being filled have all rebounded. The shutdown brought on a ~30-40% decrease in these totals as districts instituted hiring freezes, cancelled job fairs, and postponed job postings all together. But some districts seem to have reversed these policies, and in the past few weeks, these totals have approached their expected levels.

In a survey Frontline Education conducted in April, 46% of employers (out of 240 responses) said they have seen delays or had to push back their hiring efforts. The recovery shown here indicates that districts that have chosen to resume recruiting and hiring have done so with success as jobs continue to be filled faster than ever before with more applicants per posting than expected. Though there are still a lot of unknowns for the upcoming school year, our data indicates that districts are posting plenty of jobs, plenty of applicants are applying, and plenty of districts are finding success in their recruiting and hiring.

Real-Life Success: Online Job Fairs

Natasha Wright, Director of Human Resources at Berkley County School District in South Carolina, was faced with a difficult task after school closures spread across the country. She still had schools to staff, even with canceled interviews and job fairs, and potential hiring freezes. Natasha decided to try something new — she utilized tools within Frontline Recruiting & Hiring — such as online events, proactive campaigns to qualified job seekers, online applications, integrations to support online interviews, and remote onboarding — to create a virtual online job fair.

Not knowing what to expect, she started by posting for one specific position: a math teacher. A fantastic potential candidate from another state joined the job fair, and she was able to validate his credentials easily and get the principal involved. They were able to move him through the process quickly and confirm the hire. The candidate — one who Berkley County would likely not have found otherwise — relocated to their district in South Carolina, as not only a middle school math teacher but also a coach.

Natasha shared that the virtual job fair process was very easy, and she wants to pursue this option more. She said she loves new ideas like this, especially when they are cost-effective and maximize the systems that they currently use.

The ability to proactively send campaigns to qualified job seekers also helped Berkley County SD find a Special Education teacher from out of state who was interested in their opening — another potential candidate who they likely would not have found without the Proactive Recruiting tools in Frontline Recruiting & Hiring.

What Can You Do to Enhance Your Hiring Efforts?

  1. Have confidence! Seeing hiring data steadily returning to expected levels over the past few weeks has made us feel more confident in the current state of K-12 hiring, and you should, too!
  2. Don’t just recruit — focus on retention as well. Teacher turnover can be very costly, which is one reason why retaining your current staff is so important. With nearly half of all new teachers leaving the profession in their first five years and a diminishing supply of teachers entering the profession, education leaders are forced to focus not only on recruitment but also on retention.
  3. Strengthen your recruiting. Broaden your recruiting horizons and check out these tips for teacher recruitment.
Looking for help managing your district virtually. Check out these tools designed to support the entire employee life cycle — even when you’re operating remotely.

[Interview] What Should Schools Do Right Now to Care for Students’ Mental Health Needs?

Note: The interview responses below have been edited for clarity and brevity.

2020 has been a hard year: schools and workplaces have sent people home, unemployment is skyrocketing, loved ones have died.

As schools closed, students found themselves navigating a new way of learning from home. For some, it was okay. For others, difficult home situations, hunger, lack of access to technology, and social isolation made learning impossible or close to it. Then, when protests and online conversation erupted in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, many students (and adults) wrestled to process a pressure cooker of emotions.

This year’s events landed on top of already rising rates of anxiety and depression for students, and the compounding effects on the mental health of students (and staff) have yet to be fully seen. Because of the pandemic, students who relied on school services for mental health care may find access to those resources much harder to obtain.

In May and June, we spoke with people in a variety of education roles about the readiness of schools to care for students’ mental health. One question we asked:

What should schools be doing right now to care for students’ mental health needs?

Dr. Dorothea Gordon, Executive Director of Special Education, Grand Prairie ISD, Texas:

Are we identifying students? Are we assessing those needs when they walk into our buildings, and also when they are on Zoom lessons? Are we being skillfully aware of those interactions? That’s something we can do right now.

We also want to continue to provide for their basic needs. When I say “basic needs,” definitely continue with the federal feeding program. We need to continue with that to ensure we’re addressing those basic needs.

Another thing that we need to do is continue to engage the community, because now that we do not see them for six hours at a time or more during this pandemic situation, we need to make sure that our community members understand or are aware of the symptoms that they might be showing in order to get the scholars and families the resources that they need.

Mark Hansen, Superintendent, School District of Elmbrook, Wisconsin:

Most schools, including ours, know the kids who probably suffered the most isolation, had structures that weren’t as supportive as we would like them to be. Checking in with those kids now, doing virtual home visits. In our district our students kept their Chromebooks over the summer so we have a mechanism to get to kids, escalating the connectedness to our kids who might be more susceptible to risk than others.

Suzanne Sibole, School Counselor and founder of Youth Risk Prevention Specialists:

Reaching out. Some schools are reaching out virtually, reaching out by phone if you have students you are particularly concerned about, maybe a family member has been affected by COVID or that student has contracted it, or it’s just that that student struggles.

It’s hard to do. It’s summer, teachers are off contract. I know there are many teachers that are super committed, counselors and administrators that are very, very committed to their kids, but some might not be available and might not be able to do that. So I think one thing is reaching out as much as possible. Checking your email. I’m off contract for the summer from my school job. However, I try to check it every three or four days. I had one email that just said, “Ms. Sibole, I need help.” And that was it. I contacted the student right away because I thought, “I don’t know what she’s asking for exactly.” I feel like we need to keep monitoring our email if we can, if we have access to it over the summer.

I know many schools are gearing up for this, for mental health concerns. So educating, sending out information to school staff: “These are some things we can expect. We can expect fear, we can expect anxiety. We can expect depression, grief, because of being isolated or losing family members, so these are some of the things to watch for, and this is what you do when you see them.” And I think it’s important that that take place before school starts if at all possible, or at the very beginning of school, because people need a chance to study that and understand and ask questions so they know how to respond to students.

Paul O’Neill, Supervisor of Instruction, Mill Pond Elementary School, New Jersey:

We’re certainly not clinicians. We’re certainly not providing deep psychological services and things of that nature. But students are coming to us with emotional trauma, or in deep psychological situations where we need to make sure that we have access to people that can help us screen better, and people that can guide us to make sure that we’re giving the proper level and the proper amount of services at that given time.

April Strong, District Instructional Coach, Martin County School District, Florida:

I’m fortunate to have been trained as a youth mental health first aid trainer through the National Behavioral Council. There’s also mental health first aid for adults. Mental health first aid has been around for a while, and that training has been really helpful to our district. We’re only in year two of it and we’re trying to train everyone.

It’s going well, but we could definitely improve by making a larger team so we can educate more throughout the school year. What I hear through these trainings from educators and support staff is they want more strategies. The training allows you to learn how to give first aid, much like CPR, what steps could you follow? You’re not a medical professional, but you would know how to help until help arrives. But the deeper question that educators ask often is “What specific strategy?” As an instructional coach, that weighs on me because I’m used to giving them strategies in my role.

I think we can do better at partnering to learn what are those strategies. Every case is so different, but I wonder if there’s some sort of playbook or checklist or something that gives the empowerment over to the adult who would be with the student: more strategies in the moment.

Dennis Griffin, Jr., Principal, Brown Deer Elementary School, Wisconsin:

How do we proactively talk about what’s happening to let kids know “we’re here to support you,” to help them navigate between right and wrong, and making sure that they’re getting the right message about why things are happening or why we need a change. That’s the complicated piece.

How do we proactively start to educate our families as well? Someone I know said, “You know, I need help explaining this to my daughter. I need help explaining this to my son. Where do I get the resources to talk about this? Who can help me talk about this? Because I don’t have the experience.”

We’ve started to really use Zoom a great deal. What if school educators started to talk more about racism, talk more about differences and acceptance, and talk about how we can be the change in a world on Zoom platforms? And we bring families, and we bring the kids together and say, “What questions do you have?” The more challenging conversations you have with someone, the more and more you start to trust them, and you will go back and engage in further dialogue, especially if there’s an action plan and you can feel yourself growing in the process. That’s one way that a safe space is really created.

Dr. Missy Brooks, Director of Instruction and Special Education, Mountain Brook Schools, Alabama:

We’ve got to think even down to our scheduling of students and what that looks like. We’ve been in the same model of school forever — do we need to relook at what school looks like? Are we as a school entity and the way we work putting pressure on students so that they’re underperforming?  Are we contributing to the anxiety? And if we are, how do we fix that with some structures that we have in place like scheduling and even bringing speakers in to talk about things openly? Do we have advisory programs so that every student is plugged in to one particular person, so that at least they can say, “Yes, there’s one person in the building who cares about me”?

I think we need to look at structures like that, and we can do that immediately. That’s not something that requires more money. It just requires creativity.

Ted Nietzke, Executive Director, CESA 6, Wisconsin:

The direct strategy is to minimize the threats. Acting out in violence, the increase in depression, children acting out, what’s happening is, there has been a breakdown in the chain for minimizing the threat for that child, and that’s what has to happen.

Right now with kids at home, online learning, and all the equity issues that are created as a result of that, there are a lot of little threats there. If I am engaged as a third grader and I live in an urban setting, but I don’t have access to the internet, or I don’t have the materials, when I come back to school, the threat becomes the gap that’s been created between me and my colleagues, where they have more information than me, which makes me feel small, and that’s going to get me to act differently.

For me the root issue is minimizing those threats to kids. And that’s creating a warm and engaging and safe environment, going back to the key idea of empathy, trying to work with and understand that. When we go back this fall across the nation, the gap has grown significantly. As a result of that gap, the threat has grown for those kids to feel inept, and we’ve got to figure out a way to bridge that fast.

Jim Wright, RTI/CCSS Trainer & Consultant, School Psychologist, and School Administrator:

I would start by wondering, what are going to be the mental health implications of a COVID shutdown? We certainly are going to have students who fall behind academically, and that will create feelings of anxiety, frustration, disconnection in school. And those are obviously mental health manifestations. So I would start by connecting with teachers across my school to get a sense of who are those really disengaged students. Those students would go onto my watch list as the fall semester begins, to really check in with them and get a sense of their mental health adjustment.

We also have to realize, of course, that the whole COVID crisis will bring its own mental health repercussions. There are some students who will have lost family members to this virus. I think we need to be checking in there as well. We need to be thinking about grief counseling.

I want schools to start to think about the possible mental health repercussions of COVID and ask themselves, “Okay, how can we check in with our student population now to get a sense of who should really be on our radar?” And then we have to prepare because of that vast uncertainty. Is there a way in the fall, if schools decide to continue to do remote learning, to check in with students, with parents if need be, to facilitate referrals to outside agencies to really help students to cope with any emerging crisis situations?

But we’d want to start now by simply surveying who might be at risk and how we might want to think about responding, either remotely or onsite.

The above responses are just one small part of a larger interview about student mental health. Read the full article here

Talk Data to Me: Why Substitute Engagement Matters More Than Ever This Year

Students may still be out for the summer in many parts of the US, but administrators and school officials are hard at work, planning for the start of a school year for which few feel ready. Though the list of COVID-related apprehensions is long, a potentially unprecedented number of teacher absences is near the top.

How is your substitute pool looking? Long before March 2020, many districts have grappled with a shortage of substitute teachers. To make matters worse, as schools — like those in Kentucky — increase the number of days available to teachers for COVID-19 emergencies, you may worry about spreading your substitute pool too thin.

You may already be short on time, energy, and resources. But investing a little bit now on maximizing your district’s substitute engagement can go a long way.

Previously on Talk Data to Me, we discussed trends in substitute teacher engagement and its connection to absence fill rate using data from the Frontline Research & Learning Institute. Here, we’ll revisit that topic with updated data. But first, a review of what you already know.

Employee-to-substitute ratio and fill rates

Substitute engagement strongly correlates with absence fill rate. The more engaged a district’s substitutes are, the fewer unfilled jobs there will be. But how do you gauge engagement? That requires letting your data talk and listening carefully to what it says about these two metrics.

A district’s employee-to-substitute ratio has a negative relationship with fill rate. The higher the ratio of employees to substitutes, the lower the fill rate tends to be — so it’s more difficult to fill absences for districts with much larger numbers of employees than substitutes. Makes sense, right?

Data from the 2018-2019 school year, shown in the chart below, illustrates this connection.

The percentage of non-working substitutes also has a negative relationship with fill rate. Data from over 5,000 districts nationwide over three consecutive years revealed decreasing fill rates, increasing percentages of non-working substitutes, and decreasing numbers of days that substitutes worked each year.

Finally, the most recent data from the 2019-2020 school year once again confirms the connection between non-working substitute percentage and fill rate.

Here is where the connection between fill rate and non-working substitute percentage becomes strikingly clear. As the chart above shows, in districts with an average monthly non-working substitute percentage of 76%, only about half of all teacher absences were filled. Yet in districts where the average monthly non-working substitute percentage was just 10% lower, nearly all absences were filled. This shows that even a slight increase in substitute engagement can have a big impact on fill rate.

How do you boost substitute engagement?

The connection between an engaged substitute teacher pool and a high fill rate is clear. Keeping up your fill rate requires engaging your substitute teachers and getting them to accept at least one job per month. The question is, how do you foster, maintain, and increase substitute teacher engagement to make sure these jobs get filled?

There are several action steps to take:

  • Know the data. The metrics discussed above, and many others, are available through the Frontline Research & Learning Institute’s National Employee Absence & Substitute Data Report. In addition, if you use Frontline Absence & Time, you can access interactive, in-product tools to track your district’s data and compare it to national, state, and like-district benchmarks.
  • Use the resources. Check out these resources from Frontline Education on why substitutes work in your district (or not) and changing perceptions of substitute teaching.
  • Make sure you have the right tools. Making it easy for substitutes to find and accept jobs is vital. That means catering to communication preferences. Data from a recent survey of substitutes tells us that when it comes to receiving absence notifications, substitutes prefer to receive notifications through a mobile app rather than text message, phone call, or internet browser by a ratio of 4:1. Better yet, a seamless mobile experience makes it quicker and easier for teachers to enter absences and alert substitutes about jobs — and data shows that the sooner an absence is recorded in the system, the more likely it is to be filled by a substitute.

Whatever the coming year may hold for your schools, preparing now with data, resources, and tools will help as you work to engage substitutes and fill any vacancies that arise.

Introducing the new and improved Frontline Mobile App, that includes substitute functionality!
Reach substitutes more quickly — in the way they prefer — with this three-in-one app that allows teachers to schedule absences, substitutes to fill jobs, and administrators to manage absenteeism and substitute placement and stay on top of absence trends. All in the palms of their hands!
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Retention-First Recruitment

How Breaking Down Silos Between Instructional Growth and Human Resources Support Recruiting and Retention

Frontline’s Mitchell Welch, former principal and teacher, and Cydney Miller, former school HR leader, discuss how to retain teachers in your district, starting on day one of recruiting.

 

Mitchell Welch
Solutions Consultant, Frontline Education

  • 13 years as a teacher (science, math) and administrator in public schools
  • Worked toward school turnarounds as an elementary, middle, and high school AP and principal
  • National consultant developing and building training departments and programs focused on leadership, mentoring, classroom management, and parent involvement

Cydney Miller, MBA, SPHR
Sr. HCM Solutions Consultant, Frontline Education

  • 18 years of HR and Staffing experience
  • 9 years in HR leadership for a 4500+ FTE district
  • National, state, and regional thought leadership presenter on topics ranging from strategic staffing, next generation retention, and recruitment and employee engagement.

With more than half of teachers leaving the profession in their first five years and a diminishing supply of teachers entering the profession, education leaders across the country are now focused on retaining the teachers they recruit.

Historically, the concepts of human resources (handling recruiting) and instructional growth (handling educator development) have been managed under separate goals and strategies in a district — often in siloes from one another. But when HR and Instructional Growth work together to increase retention by investing in teachers as soon as they’re recruited, highly qualified teachers stay — and grow! The difference in a building’s culture is tangibly different, and recruiting gets easier over time. All of that, of course, makes a huge difference to your students.

Here are four traits of an effective Retention-First Recruitment model.

Center Recruiting and Retention Around A Culture of Support

The Instructional Growth Perspective

When creating a learning environment for our teachers, we need to create a space in which it is safe for them to learn. As they are learning they have to take risks, make decisions, and have the freedom to make mistakes. Something that I learned in the very beginning was that “True learning does not happen unless you learn how to fail first.”

Think about all the things you must fail at first before you get good at them: dating, cooking, dieting, parenting, and most of all, learning.

It is our responsibility, from the day we recruit teachers, to guide them through meaningful relationships, meaningful interactions, meaningful learning experiences, and hold them to accountability measures in order to become instructionally mature. Teachers need to have learning embedded in their surroundings to retain and apply it in their everyday experiences. We have to provide a learning environment for our adults that mirrors the learning expectations that we expect for our students.

The Human Resources Perspective

Strategic Human Resource leaders must have a long-term commitment to the entire growth journey of an employee, and professional learning is at the heart of this journey.

The Human Resources role in professional learning does not have a definitive end or beginning, but rather a full scope view of the entire human journey. There is no better way to support a person’s growth than to showcase a commitment to all parts of that journey: the good and the bad. It is our responsibility, from the day we recruit teachers, to facilitate meaningful relationships, provide effective learning opportunities, and support their ability to fairly and equitably grow as professionals.


Center Recruiting and Retention Around Employee Goals

The Instructional Growth Perspective

For teachers to reach an impact — or mastery — state, we have to create a culture of improvement and learning based on our mistakes, and most of all a culture of retention, putting them at the center, preventing their loss in the early stages of their development. We have to surround them from all directions with consistent processes in a world of disjointed programs.

More importantly, we must look for ways to simplify and streamline resources and accountability measures so we can impact student learning. Professional Learning has to be targeted, individually meaningful, paired with mentoring, and most of all aligned to the individual needs of our employees.

The Human Resources Perspective

One simply cannot complete a successful growth journey if the end is not defined or if the path to that end is not clear. We cannot provide that path without putting the employee at the core of our philosophy.

It’s imperative to the practice of Human Resources that we provide a learning vision based on accountability, process, and structure. The path for an employee to achieve his or her learning and growth goals should not be so daunting that it prohibits success. Rather it should be a smooth, clear guide to the end goal. Professional learning and a culture of success is supported by a targeted, flexible, and meaningful path that employee and employer can enjoy together.

Recruiting the 21st Century Teacher

 Center Retention Around Mentoring and Measurement

The Instructional Growth Perspective

When effective new teachers leave, everyone shares in the loss: the programs that prepared them, the school districts that recruited them, the schools where they worked, and the students they taught.

Although much is made of a teacher shortage, no matter how many teachers are recruited, it will do little good unless they stay in teaching long enough to develop into skilled professionals, and then stay to share their expertise throughout their careers.

We need to:

  • Create mentors from our mentees.
  • Look at professional performance data and pair teachers with mentors and coaches that support their individual needs.
  • Create outcomes that are employee-centered, promote individual growth, promote the groups in which they work, and provide accountability measures that point to student success.
  • Measure the impact of our professional learning and the correlation to student improvement.

The Human Resources Perspective

Human capital is the single greatest investment we can make to ensure a successful future for our students. Because it impacts everyone and everything, it is extremely difficult to recover from a loss in this investment. When we lose an employee, not only are we faced with the financial expense of replacing them, but we are also losing our investment in the intellectual capital that employee provides. HR’s focus should be on retaining and supporting this investment in every way possible.

Research has shown that professional growth and learning is at the core of a long-term retention strategy. That means that we must be thorough in our approach and provide mentor leaders that guide the learning experience with success measures along the way. By giving all we have to the retention efforts of our teachers, we are creating a profession worth choosing and worth staying in. 

Center Retention Around Active Engagement With Growth Opportunities

The Instructional Growth Perspective

We need to provide multiple opportunities for employees to be actively engaged. This should include job-embedded content that includes meaningful and authentic learning experiences such as collaborative learning groups, employee-led interactive sessions, analysis, discussions, case studies, portfolio creation and justification, safe conversations, and valid, relevant peer interactions.

Through coaching, mentorships, relationships, and vulnerable conversations, we need to consistently engage our teachers and help them answer the following questions:

  • What are my “Learning Gaps” and how do I connect them to measurable goals that will improve my students’ learning?
  • Is everything I am doing relevant to my day-to-day job?
  • Do I have flexible learning opportunities that are sustainable and created around my personal growth needs?

The Human Resources Perspective

A retention first staffing model is not a linear one. It is a continuous cycle of growth that promotes the evolution of the individual and effectively directs his or her development toward the success of the greater good.

When the student becomes the teacher and the mentee becomes the mentor, a cycle of growth has come full circle and should begin a new journey to the next level…and so the path continues.

As Human Resource leaders, it is our responsibility to make sure all paths are directed toward mastery and the continual cycle of growth.

Conclusion

The goal of an educational leader is to create a working environment where the best teachers are retained year after year, and we engage them in growth opportunities to help them expand their instructional maturity. The goal of an HR leader is to create a retention-first, employee-centered culture of engagement and support. It’s not hard to see what these goals share in common, when you look at it this way. Break down siloes between HR and instructional growth the begin retention efforts during the recruiting process.

5 Strategies to Build Your and Students’ Resilience

Stress and unpredictability are not foreign concepts for most educators and other school personnel ― far from it. But the kind of stress the K-12 education community faces now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, differs in many ways from the norm. As stated in a recent EdWeek article, the scramble to provide remote student support has caused many educators to feel exhausted and uncertain. Meanwhile, on the other side of the virtual classroom, students and their families are feeling much the same way.

So, how can those working on the front lines of education help students, families, and each other navigate this uncertain and unprecedented time? We asked Dr. Kenya Coleman, LICSW, LCSW-C, Senior Director of School Mental Health at District of Columbia Public Schools, for guidance on how to build resilience. Here is what she shared.

We are resilient. Most of us have endured several significant challenges and have overcome them. For example, two decades ago the world looked on in horror as the events of the Columbine Massacre unfolded. We had never before witnessed a mass shooting inside of a school, and the unfamiliarity initially led most to feel overwhelmed. The Washington Post estimates that the United States now averages 11 incidents of mass gun violence at K through 12 schools each year. Are we no longer concerned? No! These incidents continue to be disheartening, but we now have policies and procedures in place that detail how to respond effectively, and they help us to feel more secure.

We’re currently “alone together” as we respond to a pandemic as an international community. This, too, is a new experience that has given us pause. Nevertheless, we adapt with each passing day. We continue to engage in as many normal day-to-day activities as possible, and our efforts help us gain a sense of control during what could easily be described as a traumatic experience. Our resilience is demonstrated when we participate in our standard routines in the aftermath of a situation that is out of our control. Our rigidity is revolutionary in the face of chaos. Strictly adhering to our daily schedule plays a pivotal role in our ability to obtain a sense of normalcy and allows us to return to our baseline functioning.

Adhering to a schedule is not the only strategy available to us though. Here are five additional strategies you and your students can use to cope with anxiety and other challenges during uncertain times:

1. Move

Physical activity in almost any form can act as a stress reliever. Walking up the stairs, using resistance bands, doing pushups or squats, taking virtual yoga or HIIT classes, stretching, et cetera will boost your endorphins, your body’s feel-good neurotransmitters, and help improve your mood.

2. Create healthy distraction

Laughter is a good thing! Search social media sites to find memes and videos that make you chuckle as you enjoy the spontaneity of others. You may also want to consider attending a virtual concert, participating in video chats with family and friends, and/or preparing a new recipe. Whatever healthy distraction you chose, try to make sure it adds value to your day.

3. Be mindful

“Mindfulness” is the ability to pay careful attention to what you’re thinking, feeling, and sensing without judging those thoughts and feelings as good or bad. Countless studies link mindfulness to better health, lower anxiety, and greater resilience to stress. Mindful breathing in particular is helpful because it gives you an anchor — your breath — on which you can focus when you find yourself carried away by a stressful thought. Mindful breathing can build your resilience to sudden and expected change.

[ctt template=”9″ link=”f2hQ4″ via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]“When we are faced with a crisis, we learn to appreciate the small things that we may have taken for granted before we experienced a crisis.”[/ctt]

4. Manage your environment

Incorporate wellness into your environment. Place an image, picture, or other memento in your room or on your desk that creates the thoughts or energy that you know you will need. For example, a succulent next to your computer could remind you to give life to yourself. Environments that mimic nature have a big effect on minimizing stress and improving overall health. Even viewing representations of nature helps reduce stress. I’ve read that some hospitals often put fake skylights above beds to create calming environments. Use what you have to create the same effect in your space, or just look out of the window and take in the natural landscape.

5. Journal

Journaling can be a fun way of engaging in self-care while tapping into your creativity, and it has many benefits. For example, research suggests that journaling stimulates an area of the brain called the reticular activating system (RAS), which filters and brings clearly to the forefront the information you are focusing on. Journaling also strengthens T-lymphocytes, is associated with reduction in depression and anxiety, and increases positive mood, social engagement, and the quality of close relationships. It provides you with some health benefits such as reducing heart rate, increasing serotonin flow, and decreasing stress responses. Most important, journaling is free of judgment. You should not edit your words, poems, or pictures. Instead, use them as a reminder that it’s OK to make “mistakes.”

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All of these strategies foster a sense of gratitude. We absolutely do not celebrate our circumstance. We’d much rather live in a predictable world. But when we are faced with a crisis, we learn to appreciate the small things that we may have taken for granted before we experienced a crisis. Our long walks may include a family member with whom we may have spent very little time in the past, giving us an opportunity to reconnect and rekindle stale relationships. Attending a virtual concert gives us a chance to dance, laugh, and be silly when we’d previously been bogged down with work and feeling very serious as a result. Ultimately, our newfound appreciation of what we already have is what I would call the quintessential cherry on top. It reminds us that all is not lost.

I have no desire to downplay the seriousness or the severity of the difficulty we are currently facing or the difficulties we have faced in the past. The health and welfare of many people have been compromised, and the situation is scary given its unpredictability. My goal is to remind you that you have the capacity to cope with crises. You have the psychological resources you need to keep moving forward despite the myriad of feelings that are undoubtedly surging through your body at this very moment. Trust yourself and do what comes naturally. Utilize the strategies that have helped you effectively overcome difficulty in the past. YOU and your students are resilient!

This Is What’s at Stake in Gifted & Talented Programs

“Special student populations” usually conjures images of students in special education, English learners, or those who need extra classroom support for various reasons.

One special population that is often overlooked? Gifted students.

Schools rightly spend substantial time and resources ensuring that those students with learning disabilities or who face other challenges receive the support they need to thrive. But, argues Kim Stewart, an Instructional Support Teacher for Gifted/Talented at Northside Independent School District in San Antonio, gifted students also need specialized instruction to grow to their fullest potential.

Kim joined us for a conversation in April to talk about Gifted and Talented programs, the opportunities and challenges facing such programs, and why these programs are so important not just to gifted students, but for entire schools.

Kim also invited Stephen McNierney, a GT (gifted/talented) student she taught in elementary school who’s now a sophomore Aerospace Engineering major at the University of Maryland, College Park. Stephen is currently taking part in a co-op with NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Kim, could you first give us an overview: what are gifted programs all about? Who are you trying to reach?

Kim Stewart: There are lots of definitions, but typically we’re looking at students who display high capability in one or more areas. Some of those areas might include intellectual, creativity, artistic, even leadership. They could be exceptionally advanced in a specific academic area like math or science. But you’re comparing this in relationship to same-age peers with similar experience and background, which is critical in identifying gifted students.

Oftentimes the term ‘asynchronous development’ is used when describing giftedness, and that just generally means a child’s development is somewhat out of sync with itself. In other words, one or more areas are typically more advanced than others.

Let’s look at a history for a minute. When did gifted programs start to gain traction, and how have they evolved over time?

Kim Stewart: I honestly believe now is the best time to ever have been identified as gifted. Giftedness as a special diagnosis, if you will, emerged back in the mid-70’s.

A lot of districts will identify [gifted] students but not necessarily serve them in a particular way. It’s handled in a regular classroom, where the teachers are expected to differentiate for these highly advanced learners.

The problem with that is, when you have a general classroom with lots of different abilities, especially if you have both ends of the spectrum, teacher attention is going to need to be focused. It’s natural to get those kids who are below grade level up to speed, and that often leaves our advanced learners in situations where they’re utilized as peer tutors or asked to “Just go read a book at your desk.”

While there’s nothing wrong with reading books, our priority is to make sure all kids grow to their maximum potential. When we don’t address the needs of our advanced learners, that doesn’t always happen.

Stephen McNierney: It’s a double-edged sword, because being able to teach other people is a sign that you have a really firm understanding of that material in the first place. It was beneficial for me because I learned how to absorb knowledge at one end and then present it at the other.

But by the same token, that meant that I was not able to engage in new content. If that becomes the norm, then there’s a a real possibility to lose interest or to disengage from the learning environment because I’m not being challenged or stimulated.

So that’s where Ms. Stewart and my GT program came in. I needed that extra challenge.

Northside ISD is a large district. What other challenges does a district the size of yours have in offering a gifted program?

Kim Stewart: One of our hurdles is not just a local trend, but something we’ve seen nationally, and that is the underrepresentation of certain populations, such as economically disadvantaged, special education, and African American students. They are under-identified in our gifted programs. So I’m really proud of some of the initiatives that we have been taking.

First of all, we have been using local norms for as long as I can remember in efforts to combat this. We give a CogAT test to all third graders. We can take each campus and look at their top 5-10%. It’s critical that we look at the abilities of students in relation to their same-age peers with similar experience and background. Our district is extremely diverse, our campuses don’t all look the same, so when we look at a campus local norm, we’re able to identify students for a gifted program per campus as opposed to per district.

Once students are identified as part of the Gifted program, how do you support them? Is it solely by pulling them out of the regular classroom for special instruction?

Kim Stewart: One of the hurdles in gifted education in general is trying to meet the needs of gifted students in their regular classrooms. In elementary we do have a pull-out program — we have designed a very deep and rich curriculum that’s rooted in critical and creative thinking. Students are taught from a young age how to think through a lens using Depth and Complexity, which is a framework of thinking tools that pushes students to really extend their thinking to master content.

But a pull-out program only happens once a week. So we implemented a program that we call Mac-GT: Math and Clustering with GT students. It’s one way we aim to meet the needs of our gifted students all day, every day, and not just once a week during their pull-out GT class. GT students are clustered with high-ability math students who may not be identified for GT, but math is kind of their strength, and they’re clustered together in their general education classroom.

There are also students of average ability in that classroom. But the goal is not to have students who have true learning deficits — those students who need a great deal of teacher attention in which to grow — because then the teacher will have to spend her time bringing those kiddos up to speed.

For those teachers who have a Mac-GT group, they receive a series of professional development trainings that show them how to work with kids that can move faster, that can understand things at a deeper level than those at average grade level.

What effect does that have for the rest of the students, those who aren’t in the GT program or in the Mac-GT classroom?

Kim Stewart: We’re really proud of the results that we’ve seen so far — not just for the kids in our Mac-GT classes, but we’re actually getting to see what research had told us would happen: the kiddos who are not in the Mac-GT classroom, they have new leaders arising. Those kids who may have been overshadowed by the GT kids… oftentimes, for better or worse, they sit in the background and let those GT kids answer. The same kids like to raise their hands over and over.

It’s a natural instinct for teachers to choose the kids who are raising their hands, and that gives permission to the other kids. They know, “Hey, somebody else has me covered.” But when we pulled those Mac-GT kids out, those other classrooms began seeing new leaders arise. That’s good news.

Stephen McNierney: She’s right. When I was 10 or 12, I didn’t have the social skills to understand that I was running other people out of the conversation. But I can look back now and say, “Oh yeah, I answered way more questions than I should have.” To some extent, that could have been a barrier to other people wanting to get involved. Now I go to college and I’m not the smartest person in the room. I can see that those people step up and want to be the ones to answer the questions, and everybody else takes a back seat.

Kim Stewart: I think a lot of districts do what we did for many years, which is kind of farm out your GT kids so that all teachers have one or two or however many it is. I think that’s lonely for our GT kids when they don’t have peers to collaborate with.

Peers who are more like them academically?

Kim Stewart: We call those “like-minded peers,” other peers that they can really talk to. Otherwise, you’re the only one in a class. Again, you’re often used as a peer tutor, or you’re reading a book in a corner while the teacher’s working with the kiddos to bring them up to speed. And so this is an opportunity for kids to have a little group to collaborate with.

I won’t say there aren’t struggles — We have a lot of dominant personalities in one class. That presents other issues. But ultimately, we feel like kids are benefiting from being together and getting to work with kids that are more in sync with them in how they think.

Stephen McNierney:  If you’re sitting around in a classroom with no real motivation to push yourself, there’s only so far you’re going to go. If now you’ve got 10 of these GT students all together, you’re going to have them pushing each other, ideally in a friendly and competitive way, and it’s going to raise the overall performance of each of those students.

Do GT students face added pressures — either from their families or from schools or from themselves — that other students don’t?

Kim Stewart: One of the big pressures that we see among your stereotypical gifted students, if there is such a thing, is perfectionism. So many of our gifted students impose pressure upon themselves. Anything less than a hundred percent is not good enough.

However, that doesn’t always come from the students themselves. We, as teachers, sometimes impose pressure without intending to. Just because a student has the label of ‘gifted,’ we expect them to be gifted in everything — and that is absolutely not the case and we can’t expect that from them.

Also, parents. And I’m not advocating that we should not have high expectations for our very capable kids. I tend to have very high expectations for my own children, my own students. Steven can attest to that, I’m sure. But we need to be cautious about imposing unrealistic expectations.

Kids suffer from anxiety. Anxiety is very common among perfectionists, but there are lots of different types of giftedness. Stereotypically [gifted] kids often have what we call ‘multipotentiality.’ And that describes the student who is good at many, many things, and they enjoy many things, so they often try to do it all.

We don’t recognize this as a problem, necessarily, kind of like feeling sorry for the rich —nobody really has a lot of empathy for that — but it does cause stress and anxiety, because students are forced to make choices in how they spend their time. It’s very difficult for some of our kids to make those decisions, because they know that they’re giving up something in lieu of something else.

Do either of you have anything else you’d like to tell someone who might be trying to improve the GT program at their school or district?

Kim Stewart: I think an all-too-common misconception is that these kids will be okay with minimal intervention, without some direct intervention for them. When that philosophy is enacted, students do not learn at the rate at which they’re really able. But it’s more than that — sometimes we lose them. Today we’re talking to Stephen who is a self-motivated kid, but they’re not all like that. And sometimes they get lost in the system. Sometimes they give up on school, and sometimes they give up on more than school.

What I would hope people listening would take away is to recognize gifted students as a special population who need direct intervention in order to maximize their full learning potential. I truly believe that we have students sitting in our classrooms right now who can find ways to improve cybersecurity and solve real world problems like how we’re going to feed the masses as our population continues to grow, and even cure and prevent diseases so that we may never again see a pandemic of this proportion, right?

But they’re not going to do that alone. As educators, we absolutely need to meet the needs of our struggling students, but that cannot be at the expense of our more advanced students who are ready for more.

Stephen McNierney: This is a letter that I wrote a year and a half ago to my state representative when there was a house bill being debated that would have eliminated mandatory funding for GT programs. So districts could have chosen to fund the GT programs if they wanted to, but no longer would have been mandated to do so. Something I wrote was:

Contrary to popular belief, GT students don’t just ‘get by’ in regular classrooms. Instead, these students are often at risk of being left behind by an educational system that fails to push them to achieve their full potential.

If we leave these GT students to themselves and expect them to be peer mentors or to just read books, that’s our greatest source of untapped potential.

RTI/MTSS & COVID-19: 3 Steps to Regain Control

This post is for you if you have wondered:
  • How can we tell which learners are most affected academically by the school shutdowns?
  • What will the academic impact be? How can we even start to measure it?
  • Can we still successfully implement RTI/MTSS programs during distance learning? How?
  • What can we do NOW to lay the groundwork for RTI/MTSS needs when school reconvenes?
  • How can we triage RTI/MTSS services fairly and equitably when buildings reopen?

In mid-March 2020, schools across the nation closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This sudden and massive interruption of instruction is unprecedented and represents a cataclysm with no playbook on how schools should respond. And there is the further possibility that — even after schools reconvene — future instructional lockdowns may be ordered due to flareups of the virus.

Most schools are regularly delivering some form of online instruction during the current COVID-19 lockdown. However, schools are reporting that numerous students — perhaps as many as half in some low-income school districts — are not participating in online learning1. The medium- and long-term consequences are likely to be dire for this large group of “digitally absent” students. Not only are they failing to receive new instruction, but they are also missing opportunities to review and reinforce previously taught skills and academic content. As a result, when schools return to session, this substantial group of students is predicted to have large learning gaps that must be identified and remediated.

Students who received RTI/MTSS academic support prior to school closure are at even greater risk for academic regression. These learners typically show deficits in such basic academic skills as math-fact fluency or reading comprehension, reducing their ability to work independently. To compound the problem, these RTI/MTSS students also often lack strong self-management skills — such as the ability to schedule their time, organize their workspace, study — that are necessary components of home instruction. RTI/MTSS students may also face additional risk factors, such as parents who struggle to adequately supervise and coach their learning or having little or no access to home Internet service.

It is understandable that RTI/MTSS Teams might feel helpless when faced with the colossal impact of the COVID-19 interruption to schooling and uncertainty about its duration. In fact, however, there are three important tasks that your RTI/MTSS Team can take on immediately to assert control even as this crisis continues to unfold: The Team can:

  • While schools are closed, coordinate problem-solving conversations with parents of at-risk home-bound students
  • When schools reopen, lay plans to rapidly screen students for academic risk
  • When schools reconvene, triage future intervention services to ensure that the widest range of eligible students are matched to RTI/MTSS academic support

Taking these three steps can help you minimize disruption for your students and regain control of your RTI/MTSS efforts. Keep reading for an outline and examples of each step.

1. Schools Closed: Create RTI/MTSS Home-Based Intervention Plans

The current education lockdown can seem bewildering to school staff because the learning environment has been relocated to the home — and therefore lies outside of teachers’ direct control. One complication is that the parent(s) or guardians may need direction and guidance to take on an unfamiliar educational role as onsite supervisor of their child’s learning. Another is that the home setting offers many distractions that can interfere with learning.

Despite such hurdles, RTI/MTSS Teams should remember that the essential elements of instruction are still in place in home-based distance learning: teachers deliver instruction, assign academic work, and provide performance feedback/grades to evaluate student work. It follows that, even via online instruction, teachers should be able to identify which of their students fail to engage in, or are doing poorly in, schoolwork and would benefit from an RTI/MTSS intervention. With only minor modifications, then, the RTI/MTSS Team should be able to adapt its familiar school-based process of teacher referral and intervention planning to home-based instruction.

It should be acknowledged, though, that most schools cannot offer intensive-intervention services such as Tier 2 reading groups during the lockdown period. Instead, intervention attempts centering on home learning will be modest in scope — equivalent to Tier 1/classroom support. Still, such interventions are worth attempting and documenting as they may help to salvage at least some learning for the student. The steps below sketch out a general process that the RTI/MTSS team can follow to find learners struggling with home-centered instruction and provide and document RTI/MTSS support plans.

  • Survey teachers. The RTI/MTSS Team contacts all teachers and requests that instructors send them names of any students who are substantially underperforming or failing to participate in online instruction.
  • Schedule parent problem-solving conferences. The classroom teacher or other school representative (e.g., school counselor, school psychologist, reading or math interventionist) schedules a phone call or video conference with parent(s) of at-risk students. During this call, parent(s) and school personnel identify what blocker(s) appear to prevent student success and develop a brief written intervention plan to address these blockers. (For a teacher protocol with guidelines for conducting a parent conference by phone, access the handout RTI/MTSS in the time of COVID-19: Writing a Home-Based Academic Support Plan.)
  • Archive RTI/MTSS plans. The school saves and archives these home-based RTI/MTSS plans as part of the overall intervention record of at-risk students.

[ctt template=”9″ link=”kEcH4″ via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]When students return to school, the race will be on to speedily match those requiring RTI/MTSS support to the appropriate level of intervention services.[/ctt]

2. Schools Reopen: Strengthen Academic Screening and Diagnostic Capacity

The reality haunting district and school leaders and their teams during the closure period is that instruction has been interrupted for months for an unknown but potentially large number of students. While there is no recent parallel in America for the current pandemic lockdown, one way that you and your teams can better understand its likely academic impact is by looking at the pattern and magnitude of “typical” student academic regression during summer recess (the so-called summer slide).

Research indicates that when schooling is interrupted for summer vacation, the majority of students exhibit at least some academic loss, math shows a greater decline than reading, and there is a greater proportional impact on learning in the upper grades2. So, the probability is high that the COVID-19 “school closure slide” will result in a similar pattern across students but with greater losses in learning corresponding to the longer period of school interruption.

When schools reconvene, this group of delayed learners will need timely remediation to “catch up” on missed instruction. The question of exactly how schools will provide such large-scale remediation lies beyond the scope of the RTI/MTSS Team, as this decision is complex and will require input from important stakeholding groups such as school boards, teachers’ unions, and state education departments.

However, when schools are back in session, the RTI/MTSS Team can play a vital role in measuring the scope and magnitude of academic delays in the student population. Applying its existing skills in school-wide screening, the team has the tools to rapidly tabulate the number of learners at each grade level with substantial instructional gaps and highlight the specific “lost” curriculum content from the closure period that teachers will need to reteach to the entire class or grade.

While school-wide academic screeners can give general information about student skill gaps, instructors may wish to supplement screeners with their own teacher-made assessments that evaluate targeted skills and content originally taught during the lockdown period.

Example:

If schools reopen in the fall of 2020, a 4th-grade math teacher may administer a test within the first week to survey students’ mastery of important grade 3 math skills and concepts first covered during the spring school closure.

The combination of RTI/MTSS screening data and teachers’ supplemental assessments should supply sufficient information to reveal how much time instructors will need to set aside to review past learning and the specific curriculum content to revisit.

There will be considerable pressure to conduct these assessments as quickly as possible when schools reconvene, to make up for lost instructional time. For this reason, schools should lay the groundwork for these screenings now, during the closure period.

Example:

The RTI/MTSS Team should consider reviewing its schoolwide academic screener(s) (e.g., Measures of Academic Progress/NWEA; STAR Reading or Math, etc.) and familiarize itself with any reports generated by the screener(s) that summarize group academic performance. These group reports analyzing shared skill deficits will be extremely helpful in gauging the pattern of “school closure slide” experienced by each grade level.

Similarly, teachers can use the lockdown period to review the academic curriculum currently being as delivered in home instruction and develop classroom assessments that will allow them to rapidly assess degree of student mastery as soon as classes reconvene.

3. Schools Reopen: Create a Plan to Triage RTI/MTSS Services

When students return to school, the race will be on to speedily match those requiring RTI/MTSS academic support to the appropriate level of intervention services. In an average school, about 10 to 15 percent of students may typically qualify for Tier 2/3 services at any one time3. However, if substantial numbers of learners have regressed in academic skills because of their “digital absence” during the closure period, you may find that the pool of eligible RTI/MTSS students has swelled to a level that potentially could overwhelm that building’s capacity to provide those services.

While the lockdown phase continues, the RTI/MTSS Team will probably find it impossible to estimate with any accuracy how many students might qualify for RTI/MTSS Tier 2/3 support when schools eventually reopen. Still, schools recording high numbers of non-participating learners during closure are likely to experience a spike in Tier 2/3-eligible students down the road. But even without clear projections of at-risk students, the RTI/MTSS Team should develop contingency plans in case they encounter an unexpected demand on intensive-intervention services in the near future.

One idea for schools overwhelmed with potential Tier 2/3 referrals might be to place on a “Tier 1 watchlist” those students falling in the mild to moderate risk level (e.g., 15-25th percentile) on a building-wide RTI/MTSS screener. As an RTI/MTSS service, these students would receive Tier 1/classroom instructional review of curriculum originally covered during the closure period. Those watchlist students flagged again with mild to moderate risk on the next school-wide academic screening would then be placed in Tier 2/3 services.

Another expedient to manage a possible surge of Tier 2/3 students may be to identify a cadre of non-instructional personnel within the school community (e.g., paraprofessionals; adult/parent volunteers; cross-age peer tutors; etc.). These personnel could be supervised by intervention teachers and would assist in delivering intervention instruction4.

Example:

In one urban elementary school, 5th-grade students trained and overseen by adults successfully provided intervention support to 2nd-grade children to promote reading fluency.5

Key Takeaway: The RTI/MTSS Team Replaces “Chaos with Order”

During the current COVID-19 educational closure, schools might feel that they are in free-fall with little sense of how to reconnect with disengaged home-bound students, assess the magnitude of lost instruction across the school, or triage RTI/MTSS services fairly and equitably when buildings reopen. And we should be under no illusions: the negative effects of the pandemic will probably reverberate through our school systems for years to come.

During this difficult time, however, the RTI/MTSS Team can follow the recommendations shared here to replace COVID-19 chaos with order, assisting their schools with the continuing mission to deliver timely academic support to their most vulnerable learners.

Whether remote or in-district, collecting high-quality, actionable RTI/MTSS data is critical for assisting struggling learners. Frontline can make RTI/MTSS data collection easier for you and your team. Learn how

1 Goldstein, D., Popescu, A., and Hannah-Jones, N. (2020, April 6). As school moves online, many students stay logged out. The New York Times, Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com

2 Kuhfeld, M., & Tarasawa, B. (2020). The COVID-19 slide: What summer learning loss can tell us about the potential impact of school closures on student academic achievement. NWEA. Retrieved from https://www.nwea.org/

3 Wright, J. (2007). The RTI toolkit: A practical guide for schools. Port Chester, NY: National Professional Resources, Inc.

4 Burns, M. K., & Gibbons, K. A. (2008). Implementing response-to-intervention in elementary and secondary schools. New York: Routledge.

5 Wright, J., & Cleary, K. S. (2006). Kids in the tutor seat: Building schools’ capacity to help struggling readers through a cross-age peer-tutoring program. Psychology in the Schools, 43(1), 99-107.

What the Data Says: K-12 Hiring During COVID-19

Eight weeks. That’s how long it’s been since the President declared a National Emergency on March 13, calling for measures to fight COVID-19. The following days brought restrictions and stay-at-home orders in nearly every state.

You’ve seen the bad (overwhelmed ERs, stratospheric unemployment) and the good (schools providing lunches, cheers for medical workers). You’ve probably become accustomed to wearing a mask. You’ve made tough decisions about schooling — and more tough decisions lie ahead. At a time when the teacher shortage already makes it difficult for many districts to fill open positions, some fear that this year could be even worse if large numbers of experienced teachers decide to exit the field once schools reopen in the fall.

The stakes are high, and it’s never been more important to make data-driven decisions about hiring for your schools. So today, we’re looking at data from the Frontline Research & Learning Institute to see what can be learned about how this crisis is impacting districts and job-seekers in K-12.

In the charts below, “Week 11” refers to the 11th week of 2020: Sunday, March 8 through Saturday, March 14. This appears to be the last week of relatively normal applicant data — not surprising, as it corresponds with the Declaration of National Emergency. Depending on where you live, schools and businesses also began sending people home around this time.

Above, we can see that up through Week 11, the number of 2020 job applicants in Frontline Recruiting & Hiring and K12JobSpot tracks closely with prior years. Beginning in Week 12, the number drops noticeably. Did job seekers simply stop applying for jobs at that time?

Looking at the average number of applicants per district, the same trends appear: job seekers applied in similar numbers to 2018 and 2019 through Week 11, and there is a sharp dip in Week 12 — the very week that in prior years saw a notable increase.

Again, this was around the time schools and businesses closed and states began issuing stay-at-home orders. Were applicants reluctant to go out in public to interview? Did districts decide to limit the number of applicants? Did applicant pools simply dry up?

At least part of the answer seems to be that beginning in Week 12, districts as a whole posted fewer jobs than they did in prior years.

That’s a noticeable shift from 2018 and 2019, and the line correlates with how many districts posted jobs — a number that also declined in Week 12 and remains lower than the previous two years.

However — and this is where it gets interesting — it appears that not all districts are responding to the crisis in the same way. Districts as a whole posted fewer jobs, and fewer districts posted jobs, but those districts who were hiring were doing so at similar rates to the past two years:

We can see even more noteworthy data when we look at the number of jobs filled.

Although there was a slight dip in Week 12, the trend bounced back and is now at similar levels to previous school years. Fewer districts were posting jobs, fewer jobs were posted, but roughly the same number of jobs were filled compared to 2018 and 2019.

And (drumroll, please) take a look at the average number of days it takes to fill jobs posted:

2020 appears to be an anomaly, and since the beginning of the year the average days to fill have been lower than previous years, so it’s unlikely COVID-19 is responsible for that trend. However, it’s interesting that in Week 11 the average time to fill drops even faster than before.

How job applicants are faring during the COVID-19 shutdown

Applicants to jobs at school districts have noticed the change as well. An overwhelming majority of respondents to a survey on K12JobSpot (data collected between April 6 and April 21) said that COVID-19 has impacted their job search.

Has your job search been affected by COVID-19?

The “why” is especially compelling. When asked “How has our job search been affected by COVID-19?” more than half of respondents said that districts have delayed or frozen hiring. Others noted challenges presented by physical distance, uncertainty, loss of a job or job opportunity, or said that they are looking for remote work.

How has your job been affected by COVID-19?

How has hiring gone for you?

What have you noticed about hiring in your school system since states began shutting down? Take our instant poll and let us know your experience.