Two years have passed since COVID-19 forced schools around the world to close their doors, a tectonic shift in daily life with effects still unfolding.
It was March 11, 2020, when the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic. By Friday, March 13, many schools here and beyond announced that campuses would cease in-person instruction and move to distance learning to help stop the spread of the virus. The decision catapulted our school leaders, teachers, and staff into a logistical maze as they scrambled to convert a 200-year-old American education system into an online model in a matter of days. The County Education Office supported nearly 70,000 students, educators, and families each step of the way, working together and sharing information with our 20 school districts to solve the evolving problems.
By March 28, 2020, nearly all U.S. public school buildings were closed, and almost all would remain closed for many months thereafter, affecting at least 55.1 million students in 124,000 U.S. public and private schools ( Education Week, Jan. 2022 ).