Exploring a Bright Spot in Crisis Response: A VBCPS Case Study

Written by Rachel Lopkin, Consultant + Kelly Ocasio, Senior Consultant

A few weeks ago, Kelly wrote a blog reflecting on the ways in which change is emerging from everywhere in our current COVID-19 context. The world is being thrust into transformation in ways that we’ve never seen in most people’s lifetime. We reflected on the reality of districts and schools being in emergency response mode and how everyone is dealing with these “fires” in different ways - patching holes to stay afloat, innovating and trying new things, and ultimately, trying to ensure that learning continues, in some fashion, for the sake of our kids. As our team works directly with schools, districts, higher education partners, and other education support entities, we have been figuring out how best to support our partners, pivoting and creating new paths to respond to needs, and adjusting scopes of work and travel plans. 

While each partnership is navigating a new path forward, we noticed that one of our projects felt different throughout the past two months of chaos and scrambling: our partners in Virginia Beach. As a member of the Integration Design Consortium (IDC), funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, our multi-year partnership with Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS) has focused on building an integrative and innovative community through deep empathy work, capacity building, and prototype design and testing. Rachel has written about the evolution of our partnership with VBCPS from early on (2018) through more recent reflections on our work. (Visit this microsite to learn more about the work to date and view stories on equitable access and transformational mindsets.) Unlike other projects that are scrambling to pivot and shift as a result of COVID-19, the work in VBCPS has remained very much on track - in fact, in many ways, the work has accelerated in the midst of the pandemic. So we wondered... why is that? 

We’ve been reflecting quite a bit on what conditions are in place in VBCPS that have allowed the district to shift quickly to accommodate this new reality, while continuing to prioritize the work of our implementation networks during this time. In addition to our collective reflection, we conducted a few empathy interviews with some of our colleagues across VBCPS. The following themes represent the collective wisdom gleaned from conversations with Dr. Kipp Rogers, Chief Academic Officer; Dr. Lisa Banicky, Executive Director of Planning, Innovation, and Accountability; and Dr. Admon Alexander, Director of Family and Community Engagement. We consider VBCPS a bright spot always, but especially as they’ve responded to this crisis. We share the following insights as possible systems levers that have been instrumental in VBCPS’ ability to respond quickly, effectively and efficiently to COVID-19. 

Strong Leadership

Even before COVID-19, VBCPS enjoyed strong leadership as a core asset. The district’s Superintendent, Dr. Aaron Spence, has been applauded by many across the community (including by each of the individuals we interviewed) for his steadfast commitment to equity - advocating relentlessly for equitable opportunities for all VBCPS students. His leadership, coupled with the district’s future-focused strategic plan and portrait of a graduate, serves as a clear “north star” for the district that has kept them grounded and focused on a broader vision of success for their students. According to Dr. Rogers, the district leadership team believes deeply in the work of VBCPS and has committed to keep teaching and learning going during this period of school closures, and to provide opportunities for students and staff that are connected back to the graduate profile. In fact, #VBAlwaysLearning has taken off as a way for educators and students to document the ways in which teaching and learning has quickly evolved during this time. The strong leadership noted at the district level was also echoed by Dr. Alexander on the network team participation. He believes that the work of our partnership has continued because the participants are strongly invested in the work and want to see it carried through. Like the VBCPS leadership team, they are passionate about equity and integration, and have made the work a priority. The strong leadership in VBCPS is an asset that creates the foundational “north star” to anchor to during “normal” times, but especially during a crisis.  

Equity-Driven

The prototyping networks, community advisory council and VBCPS central leadership team participated in a robust community-driven process in 2018 to identify the two areas of focus for our work together. Equity (specifically - exploring inequitable access to opportunities within and across VBCPS) rose to the top of the list. As the work progressed over the past year-and-a-half, part of the challenge was helping stakeholders understand that, while VBCPS was making strides in equity, there was still a gap in access to opportunity. Dr. Alexander, along with the equity network participants, have commented about how “this pandemic has really opened people’s eyes to seeing the true inequity in Virginia Beach, thus making our work even more urgent.” In this virtual learning context, each student’s level of engagement is much clearer, perhaps making it “easier” to apply an equity lens to the work. Dr. Banicky shared that “[the pandemic] has made equity a more permanent part of [her] thinking”, with a heightened awareness and increased need to work towards greater equity. As the network team works to bridge the opportunity gap in two targeted feeder patterns, the need could not be more clear than it is right now. This has helped accelerate the work in powerful ways, creating momentum, urgency and clarity.  

Human-Centered 

When districts began their emergency response planning, it became clear that many focused (and still do) on the continuation of “normal” teaching and learning. The priority was/is about how to deliver content, standards and instruction in this virtual setting. This is, of course, an important, necessary, and obvious part of the response. However, we noticed that VBCPS’ response has been focused much more on the human element of people and relationships. As Dr. Rogers said, “We’re not trying to replicate ‘traditional school’ here.” Instead, VBCPS has chosen to focus on trust, relationships and the well-being of people first - including staff, students and families) . This human-centered approach to crisis response allows students and staff to feel supported in processing the complex reality of our world right now, and focus on steps forward that feel right for them. In looking ahead, this focus on people will continue to be at the center of VBCPS’ reentry planning. Similarly, within the implementation network, Dr. Alexander is focusing heavily on building community coalitions that are grounded in empathy and meeting Virginia Beach families where they are.  

Integrative Systems 

For VBCPS, an effective systems-level response required rethinking their communication pipeline. No longer limited to physical spaces with only a few number of available seats, central office leaders found themselves in the unique position of holding “open access” Zoom meetings, with representation from every department and level. Suddenly, information was no longer siloed between teams, nobody needed catching up, and the work, while challenging, was clearer to all. As Dr. Banicky said, this has likely become “a permanent change in the way we share and collaborate on information.” By shifting communication streams to be more collaborative, VBCPS has created a tighter, more integrative system. Additionally, focusing on one shared goal -- supporting students and families through this crisis -- has made it easier to integrate, as people became more willing to collaborate across teams in service of a common purpose.

Design Mindsets 

As we’ve learned throughout this partnership, unlocking transformational mindsets is key to a more integrative and innovative system -- especially now (more than ever) as we are all planning for the unknown. Our work in VBCPS includes a mindset network that is supporting educators prototyping new ways of teaching and learning through district-wide “Innovation Squads.” The group has already seen how certain habits of mind have become essential to planning for an unknown future. The Innovation Squad members have not only creatively redesigned their prototypes to better fit a virtual teaching environment, they have also expressed their eagerness to continue designing and testing their ideas, even in the face of a pandemic. Their openness to innovation speaks to our earlier reflections on strong leadership -- these educators have complete trust that innovation is not only still permitted, but indeed welcomed. Dr. Rogers has shared that there are “so many opportunities to rethink learning” as he identifies a sense of “excitement around the newness of being able to provide learning opportunities for teachers and students [that are] outside the box.” VBCPS is building off of their existing practice with design thinking methodologies to learn how to be agile, flexible and iterative throughout this crisis. As Dr. Banicky wondered, “how do we prioritize what matters most? What do we consider to be essential?” VBCPS has recognized, already, that the most important learning isn’t always the way it was done in the past -- and that we can continue to design, test, and iterate new and different ways of supporting students in this ‘new normal.’

We continue to be curious about what is making districts, like VBCPS, stand out as exemplars in their response to COVID-19. While we hope that a global pandemic is a once in a lifetime occurrence, we are hopeful that the lessons we are learning about flexibility, innovation, integration, and equity permeate our systems as we look toward the future. As you reflect on these five systems levers, we’d encourage you to consider them in your own context. Where is your district strong in its response? Where is it struggling? Have you noticed a district or school that has responded to the pandemic in effective ways? We would love to hear from you! If you have thoughts, questions, or wonder about how to apply these lessons in your own context, please let us know!