The threat of a pandemic places P-20 educational leaders in the difficult position of having to make decisions with incomplete information that affect the welfare of students, employees, and the community. Due to extraneous factors, pandemics are almost impossible to plan for in detail. In an effort to illustrate the unique position P-20 educational leaders find themselves in during the threat of a pandemic, a leaders’ dilemma matrix is presented to illustrate possible outcomes based on leaders’ responses. While educational leaders may feel a need to take unilateral actions, national- and state-level systems exist to guide appropriate responses. Ultimately, some preparatory steps are enumerated.

Update on the state funding formula for Colorado.

Relying on survey research, the purpose of this study was to collect the data necessary to answer the following question: What are students’ perceptions of the different asynchronous assignments used in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (ELPS) program’s online graduate courses? The survey, which consisted of close- and open-ended items, was circulated to 121 former and current ELPS students, with a response rate of 24.79%. The data from the completed surveys were analyzed to identify themes. These themes demonstrate that the participants found value in both asynchronous assignments examined in this study. In addition, the participants identified different benefits associated with each asynchronous assignment. The subsequent discussion of the findings focuses on the value of each asynchronous assignment, the importance of determining the purpose for using asynchronous assignments before assigning them, and the limitations of exclusively using one asynchronous assignment.

Despite all of the disruption the pandemic introduced into public education, COVID-19 also serves as an invitation for leaders to creatively explore ways to better utilize existing resources for the benefit of all students. The pandemic is the crisis that educational leaders cannot allow to go to waste. Instead of striving merely to return to a pre-pandemic normal, all stakeholders involved in public education should explore ways to better utilize existing resources to support each and every child’s academic growth. In this call to action, we encourage public education stakeholders to work toward maximizing the utilization of time, facilities, funding, personnel, and instructional materials. We believe that this focus on maximizing utilization will result in the necessary transformational power to change the system of public education and will have a far greater impact on the improvement of public education than efforts focused on curriculum and instruction reform. This is not to say that curriculum and instruction are not important; rather, the systemic transformation needed represents the foundation of all that happens in public education.