Each week, NREA and the I Am A Rural Teacher Campaign share how vast rural America is. Check out our 50 States highlight on Facebook: facebook.com/iaartcampaign

We now have a public-facing spreadsheet showing every state featured so far, where to see it, and a story from the state! Check it out: https://bit.ly/50s50w

Are you a Virginia rural teacher? We'd love to hear from you Coalition of Small and Rural Schools of Virginia! Submit today at http://bit.ly/iaartsubmit.

Feel free to contact Hailey Winkleman, the NREA Advocacy Liaison for this campaign, at iaartcampaign@gmail.com with any questions about submitting your story.

Going virtual offered the opportunity. We seized it! GLR WEEK 2020 has been transformed into series of events and activities featuring the work, priorities and progress of two dozen states and communities in the GLR Network. Dr. Carey Wright, the nationally recognized educator and Mississippi State Superintendent will headline the GLR Learning Tuesday webinar Maintaining Momentum in Mississippi. Please join us!!

Please register here for this event and all other GLR Week events - many of which are being planned and led by state leads - and refer to the GLR Week landing page - where additional virtual event information will be posted soon.

And please share this information with your colleagues and members at NREA. GLR greatly appreciates your partnership and we hope that the learning opportunities next week will advance progress towards our common goals for early school success. I would be happy to answer any questions.

PURPOSE

TYPES OF ARTICLES

Right now, uncertainty is the only certainty for the U.S. education system.

In March, as schools across the country were thrown into upheaval with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, some students stayed engaged via virtual learning while others — particularly students with special needs, English learners and low-income children — struggled to participate. Many have declared distance learning a failure.

Given this, schools must plan for uncertainty. Only 9 percent of school leaders say they plan to start the year with remote learning, according to an Education Week survey, and more than one-quarter haven’t started planning at all.

Where schools have begun planning, instead of shoring up weak remote programming, the focus is on creating a drastically different in-person school day: In New York City, which serves 1.1 million students, the district issued guidance that classrooms should hold eight to 10 people. In Washington, D.C., draft plans include scenarios like students attending school in person one or two days per week.

But the pandemic, not school leaders, will dictate what is possible and safe for in-person education. And while logistics will be complicated, we know, more or less, what schooling in a building can look like.

That’s why the surest path forward is for school leaders to prioritize improving virtual learning as the default, not the fallback, and align teaching and learning for the year to an online approach.

Students and school districts had to adjust dramatically this spring as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The transition from face-to-face education to remote learning was challenging enough given how quickly it had to be enacted, but, for many districts in rural areas, the transition was made nearly impossible by a lack of broadband connectivity in students’ homes.

Rural America is a great place to work, learn, live and play.

NTCA members deliver high-quality communications services in the most sparsely populated, highest-cost rural areas of the country. These companies are innovating to stay ahead of the technology curve and are helping to build unique, successful rural communities using broadband as a critical tool. Follow their stories of innovation to learn why rural America is a great place to work, learn, live and play.

Just Ask Us is a grassroots movement designed to discover and share what over a million students and families want from their schools in a time of social and economic crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting all institutions, systems, and relationships fundamental to our society. The massive move to remote learning this Spring has highlighted the resilience of many students, families, teachers, and schools as well as exposed enduring inequities and vulnerabilities. Moving forward, school systems will be further stressed by budget cuts related to the economic downturn; and, many students will face significant challenges to “catching up” and they will need social and emotional support related to months of isolation, family economic hardship, and health distress. At the same time, America is experiencing a cross-cultural movement calling for racial, economic, social, and educational justice. Schools have no choice but to adapt to these forces. The challenge is how to ensure the voices of students and families are recognized as schools navigate to a new normal.

The Levy Group is a 75 years old company headquartered in New York City. We are one of the largest apparel manufactures in the United States. Our client base has grown to over 300 retail partners and a portfolio of iconic household name and proprietary brands.

Project Reopen is a initiative to use our world wide sourcing and manufacturing skills to produce real health protective masks to help protect us and others from getting or spreading Covid-19. Our face masks meets CDC recommendation for wearing masks in public. Our masks are not a replacement for medical-grade protective equipment, and should not be used in place of other recommended measures to inhibit the spread of

COVID-19. Please continue to follow CDC guidelines, practice social distancing, hand-washing, avoid touching your face, and adhere to stay-at-home orders.

For more information or place an order contact:

John Schmitt

828-388-1717

JohnS@thelevygroupinc.com