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Spring 2021 Newsletter — Up Next In Public Education

Throughout the pandemic, we have added our voice to the chorus calling for policies in education and beyond to not return to “normal” as more people are vaccinated and return to their previous way of life. If we are to move into a reimagined future, we must have objectives in place, goals we want to reach through rethinking and reinventing. I would offer four: to make sure students are safe, happy, loved, and learning.

These goals remain regardless of what type of school that students are learning in, or whether students are learning remotely or in person. The role of families, educators, and local leaders is to mitigate these risks and to create environments — wherever they might be — where students are in position to learn. With some students out of school buildings for one full year, it is imperative that we come together as a community around these types of goals, these types of universal aspirations that can unite families, educators, and policymakers who have been riven by the school reopening debate.

Speaking of educators, let me be the first to wish you a Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

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January Newsletter – So We Must Advance

Following the close of one of the most extraordinary years in our country’s history, we have started 2021 with a stunning month, a month when the most monumental events bear repeating, even as they are still fresh in our memories.

This month, this month that is still not over, Georgia elected its first Black U.S. Senator and its first Jewish U.S. Senator. The United States faced an insurrection as domestic terrorists stormed the Capitol Building in Washington. The former President was impeached for the second time. And then, two weeks after the insurrection and one week after the impeachment, the United States inaugurated its first woman, its first Black woman, its first South Asian woman as Vice President. All the while, more than 60,000 Americans have died of Covid, just this month.

Amidst all these tectonic shifts, it would be understandable to look for stability in some of the cornerstones of our communities, like our schools. It feels natural, to grasp for some familiarity in a time of such uncertainty. But in education, and in so many parts of our society, we cannot go back to what once existed. It is only by reimagining, by rethinking, by reinventing, that our country will move forward. Here locally, where families in Atlanta Public Schools are once again adjusting to a slowed pace of return to in-person learning, reimagining is our focus.