We have education leaders and CIOs in the Ed-Fi Community that provide great examples of business continuity best practices and preparations for their systems to be resilient in the face of natural disasters and other significant disruptions that school systems may face. At the Ed-Fi Summit a few weeks back, we talked about the notion of “Learning Continuity” in our fireside chat, and how interoperability is another way to build and harden our collections of systems so that our data is secured, available, and accessible to us. This data and learning architecture that the Ed-Fi standard and tooling provides gives education organizations another critically important layer of services to get learners, educators, administrators, and parents connected again throughout and after challenges like the ones faced by our friends along the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, and Florida in recent months; in areas of California and the West affected by wildfires, and others.
As we collaborate, learn, and share practices across the Ed-Fi Community and our K12 field that help us all improve our planning and readiness, let’s rally around the idea of interoperability supporting Learning Continuity to prioritize and keep our learners learning and our teachers teaching as much and as quickly as possible even (and especially) in the face of these major disruptions in our communities. A perfect example of this Learning Continuity in action is the school-technology leaders in Houston schools who, as reflected in a recent Education Week article, dedicated their time to keeping communications systems operational during Hurricane Harvey to continue classroom learning for students despite the disaster. These valiant efforts serve as key learnings for the future in helping us keep our systems, staff, and students safe and prepared for any adversity.
