Page 10 - spaces4learning, Fall 2020

spaces4learning READER SURVEY
THE ONGOING IMPACT OF COVID-19 POLICY IN EDUCATION
By David Nagel
IT’S NO STRETCH TO SAY THAT THE PUBLIC POLICY response to COVID-19 has changed and will continue to change every aspect of education in K–12 and higher education for the foreseeable future.
What once seemed a short-term emergency akin to “snow days” has grown beyond most people’s wildest fears. Every state in the nation shut down its K–12 schools last spring, and, with the exception of one state (Montana), they all stayed closed through the end of the school year. Colleges and universities closed one by one. Some reopened only to have to close again weeks later.
We polled our readership to learn of the experiences taking place across the nation and get a glimpse of what’s being planned going into the spring 2021 semester and beyond. We heard from facilities planners/managers, administrators, information tech- nology professionals, faculty, policymakers, architects, mainte- nance professionals and engineers from around the country.
The impact on facilities planning, design and management has been profound. “We were not prepared for anything like this,” one K–12 education respondent told us. “We’re doing it all on our own; every school is doing something different,” said an- other. “The lack of guidance and support from the national level is appalling.” One higher education respondent said, “[Campus] will never fully reopen in the environment that we once knew. COVID-19 has changed the very face of how instruction is given.”
Delivering Instruction in the Fall
Overall, in both K–12 and higher education, the vast ma- jority of respondents reported that their institutions have been using a hybrid model of instruction — about 70 percent in K–12 education and 83.5 percent in higher education. All-on- line instruction was the second-most-popular response, at 16.4 percent in K–12 and 12.6 percent in higher education. In K–12, about 7 percent reported they were doing in-person instruction, compared with less than 1 percent in higher ed- ucation.
The remainder were doing variations — for example, mixed by grade level or offering students the choice of either all on- line or all in-person instruction. Some switched models partway through the semester.
“We are primarily teaching online courses, no more than 25 percent face-to-face, and most of those we are offering an option to participate via zoom,” said one respondent in the higher ed space. “Most of our students have obeyed the rules of face masks and social distancing. We’ve been having a rolling 14-day aver- age of between five and 14 infections, although we are relying on self-reporting because we are not testing. Our IT department has offered students resources for those with poor or no Internet connections or who lack cameras on their home computers. We are doing well.” (See Figures 1 and 2)
8 FALL 2020