COVID-19: Transitioning to Virtual Schools Overnight

Recording: Operoo Thought Leadership Webinar

An expert panel by and for education leaders

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Thought Leadership Webinar

Learn from 5 leading principals

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15 Ways Operoo Can Help

Digitize and automate your processes

Resources, Case Studies for virtual school

Making remote education work

What plans and mechanisms is your school or district putting in place to run remotely during the Coronavirus crisis and prepare for the next school year? Watch this on-demand webinar — recorded Thursday 2nd April and moderated by former Deputy Chancellor of New York City’s Department of Education, Phil Weinberg — to get the support you need.

Download: Webinar presentation slides HERE >

Access: Panelist resources and case studies HERE >

The rapid spread of COVID-19 has forced schools throughout New York, and many parts of the United States, to transform from brick-and-mortar education facilities into online education providers within days.
Listen-in as 5 renowned NYC School Principals share their experiences, lessons learned, tools and best practice techniques for delivering quality online learning outcomes, effective parent engagement, cohesive staff communication, digital school operating processes and more.

COVID-19: 15 Ways Operoo Can Help

For educators, parents and students alike, Coronavirus presents the biggest challenge ever faced by modern schooling systems. Discover 15 ways Operoo’s School Process Automation Platform can help you digitally manage the frenetic transition to remote education prepare for the 20/21 school year.

1. Digital Blue Cards

During the rapidly evolving COVID-19 crisis, it’s imperative that all your emergency information is up-to-date and digitally accessible to all authorized staff — from wherever they’re working. Traditional Blue Cards are hard to manage, distribute and collect, and become outdated fast. Discover a better way.

With Operoo, parents complete a digital Blue Card Form once, quickly update it whenever information changes, with staff able to immediately access that updated Blue Card data on any device or platform.

Authorized staff are also immediately alerted when changes are made, so you’re never caught off-guard.

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2. Seamless Student Onboarding

Take your whole Pre-Registration workflow online. Upload your incoming students now, and get a head-start on student onboarding for 20/21.

Start digitally distributing and collecting all the information you need today for the upcoming school year — from media consent, opt out or preference forms; to cell phone, class and discipline contracts; Blue Cards, student and parent handbooks, school calendar, supply lIsts, testing data information, club sign ups, Family Guide, Parent Affidavit of Residency and everything in-between.

3. Appointment Scheduling

With everyone working remotely, it’s important to maintain regular contact to assess progress, offer assistance and clearly communicate expectations.

Effortlessly push out a weekly appointment scheduler to ensure parents are informed, students are engaged and staff are on the same page. Set-up virtual meetings and block or reserve times without double-booking.

Easily track responses, trigger automated date or action-based reminders, and send personalized alerts. Keep your school community connected with Operoo.

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4. Parent Expectation Surveys

With the unprecedented circumstances of the Coronavirus pandemic, and sudden transition to virtual schooling, it’s critical to deliver frequent Parent Expectations Surveys. Provide school administrators and leaders with the feedback required to adjust school learning, engagement operational practices and policies  as needed.

Leverage Operoo’s best practice survey templates, or easily build your own in minutes, and digitally distribute and collect surveys across a range of areas, including the quality of virtual classes and teaching instruction, parent and student engagement, pupil mental health, clarity of school communication and more.

5. Manage Tech Support Requests

Organizing and tracking all your technical support requests can be hard at the best of times. And, with staff and students all working from home, you need a robust mechanism for managing your support ticket process online — from start to finish.

With Operoo, effortlessly set-up an end-to-end digital workflow to ensure nothing falls through the cracks — from logging, categorizing, resolving and communicating progress of support tickets submitted by parents, students and staff alike. Easily route support tickets to appropriate staff, while tracking each one being approved and managed.

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6. Policy Updates

Developing scalable practices to ensure parents, students and staff remain engaged in the learning process, informed and compliant with rapidly changing policies and school participation requirements is critical.

Operoo empowers you to automate the creation, distribution and collection of all new policies in one place. Provide parents, students and staff with updated NYCDOE or school policies, memos, letters and more in each recipients’ preferred language.

Easily track responses, and include an acknowledgement button or mandatory signature field, to ensure compliance with any policy update. Even set automated follow-ups and reminders to receive higher completion rates in less time.

7. One-click messaging

Effortlessly ensure parents are informed and engaged with SMS, push notifications and email communication accessible anywhere, anytime via the Operoo Mobile App.

Distribute digital school forms directly to parents (in over 100 languages), as well as newsletters, memos, policy updates, meeting or consent requests and more.

Track responses, trigger automated follow-ups, personalized alerts, and manually or programmatically send SMS, email or push notifications to any group of parents or staff.

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8. Teacher Preference Sheets

The end of the school year is coming. Easily create, and programmatically distribute, customized teacher preference sheets. Track completions in real-time, and have our system send automated reminders — at a cadence of your choosing — until each teacher completes the sheet.

Ensure you have all teachers’ grade, course and other teaching requests needed to program the school for next year.

9. Student Course Requests

It is time for students to provide which electives and courses they would like to take next year, Operoo replaces any manual, multi-app or paper-based process.

Receive student course preferences within minutes; not days or weeks. Easily route responses to the right place at the right time — to the Grade Advisor or Careers Counselor, Assistant Principal and Program Chair — to avoid unnecessary scheduling delays. And, trigger follow-up actions based on submissions received, such as the distribution of student contracts, onboarding documents, handbooks, school fees and more.

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10. Grade Changes / Transcript Updates

Efficiently manage and track grade changes and transcript updates with automated Approval Workflows.

With Operoo, you can set-up unlimited approval workflows, with each step customized to your needs.

Automated alerts notify designated approvers when action is required. And, approval tracking means you always know the stage and status of requests. Staff members can monitor the progress of a grade change or transcript request in real-time.

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11. Guidance Referrals

The COVID-19 crisis has been, and will continue to be, a difficult and emotional time for our students. Ensure teachers can quickly and easily refer pupils to the school Guidance Counselor to get them the emotional and practical support they need.

And, be sure that requests are followed through with approval tracking and trigger actions. Designated staff members receive automated reminders until the request has been addressed. Submitters can view the progress of their request, while trigger notifications can distribute internal and external communications — such as pre or post interview surveys — once counseling sessions have been set or completed.

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12. Weekly Teacher Check-ins

In a rapidly evolving remote education environment, it’s not just parents and students who need regular communication — school staff do too.

Easily customize and schedule a weekly update to teachers and broader school staff to facilitate clear and consistent internal communication, including policy management and sign-off, new NYCDOE guidelines,, professional learning opportunities, distributing self reflection surveys, encouraging coworker resource sharing, tracking staff output and more.

Help facilitate staff cohesion, wellbeing, professional learning and productivity with Operoo.

13. Community Requests

With staff working remotely, you need a robust method for virtually tracking and responding to inbound community requests. Operoo Public eForms offer an extremely powerful way to do just that — think of them as Operoos version of Google Forms; only better.

Publish Public eForms to any third-party web platform, enabling anybody to complete a Operoo form — not just registered Operoo users. Responses are tracked and stored in Operoo, where you can view, print, export or integrate them with your existing school data.

Posting Public eForms on your school website allows you to quickly and easily collect responses for a range of purposes, including: Requests for school transcripts with payment; Open House registrations; Alumni registrations and volunteer sign-ups; School donations; Receiving surveys or anonymous feedback and more.

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14. Donations

In this time of need, having your community support you with supplies or funds can be a real lifeline for your school. Pair Operoo Public eForms and Simple Cart payment functionality to collect donations from anyone — not just school staff and registered parents.

Seamlessly include mandatory or optional payment steps in any Operoo form: From uniform purchases, to enrolment fees, and of course donations.

Donors have the flexibility to select a range of payment methods, including the use of international credit cards, with digital transactions securely processed through our payments partner and global market leader, Stripe.

15. Distributing learning packets

Distributing and validating learning packets is particularly critical while remote education remains the only option for most students — especially younger pupils (PK – 3).

Easily distribute links to learning materials — along with instructions, grading guidelines and criteria for completion — to parents. Even include mandatory signature fields where parents consent that they’ve read, understand and agree to the learning tasks and outcomes outlined.

And, include optional meeting request functions, enabling parents to book calls to clarify study requirements with relevant teachers.

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Useful Resources

Below, you can find useful resources our webinar panelists have harnessed and developed, Operoo and its partners have compiled, as well as additional Operoo workflows to help you digitally manage your educational and operational processes during the COVID-19 pandemic:

Additional Operoo Workflows

To help manage your school remotely.
When the current COVID-19 challenges begin to subside, Operoo can be used to streamline the rest of your routine operational tasks with automated workflows for parents, staff, students and payments.

Parent Workflows

Blue Cards

Media Consent Form

Field Trip Permission Slips

Lost Metro Cards

Absence Notes

Parent Teacher Conference Registration

Tutoring Registration

After School Program Registration

Discipline Contracts

Cell Phone Contracts

Class Contracts

Event Registration

Injury Reports

Student Parent Handbooks

PSAL Athletic Forms

Parent Opt Out Forms

Parent Surveys

Parent Consent Forms

Student Onboarding

Newsletters

Memos

Proof of Residency

Health Forms

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Staff Workflows

Receipt of Chancellor’s Regulations

Teachers Choice

Circular 6 Request

Supply Request

Room Request

Professional Development Tracker

Trip Plan Approval

Teacher Observation Selection

Personal Time Off

Personal Emergency Contact Card

Technology Repair Request

Building Maintenance

Reimbursement Request

Teacher Preference Sheets

Teacher Surveys

Teacher Self Reflection

Volunteer Request

Laptop Cart Management

PA Announcement

1 to 1 Device Initiative

Copy Center Request

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Student Workflows

Course Requests

Club Registration

Event Registration

Student Surveys

Student Elections

Student Sign Ups

Guidance Meetings

Technology Request

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Payment Workflows

Field Trip Payment Management

Event Tickets

Uniform Purchasing

Shopping Cart Purchasing

Senior Dues

Athletic Fees

Donations

Yearbook Boosters

Locker & Gym Uniforms

AP Exam Payment

Student Dances

Books and Supplies

Peer Resources and Case Studies

From your webinar panelists

Check out the content, communications, tips and solutions leading NYC principals have embraced to run their virtual schools remotely.

Case study: Staten Island Technical High School

See how Staten Island Tech worked with Operoo to digitize and automate staff processes, reducing the manpower required to perform them by 75%, while taking each workflow online. Access the full case study HERE >

Case Study: Elias Bernstein Intermediate School 7

Learn how Elias Bernstein worked with Operoo to automate paper processes, enhance student participation, increase parent engagement, and bring its school community together. Access the full case study HERE >

School Updates Landing Page: Staten Island Technical High School

View Staten Island Tech’s parent and student facing page, created as a central destination for Remote Learning Plan documents, FAQs and Operoo usage information.

See it HERE >

Remote Learning Parent Survey: The Robert Fulton School PS 8

To gauge parent expectations and receive feedback regarding remote learning, PS8 is built and distributed a short 8-question survey to all parents. View the survey HERE >

Digital Daily Staff Updates: The Robert Fulton School PS 8

When school is operating as usual, the school’s leadership team posts a daily notice in the main office. Since, being homebound, this update is shared digitally the night before.

View PS 8’s “Starting Off Home Learning” staff guide HERE >

View a daily update example HERE >

Setting-up virtual classrooms: The Robert Fulton School PS 8

PS 8 was quick to establish 40 virtual classrooms via Google Classroom, digitally communicate the introduction or virtual classroom to parents, and provide self-help resources to support at-home implementation of the program.

Weekly subject grids: The Robert Fulton School PS 8

To complement Google Classroom, PS 8 also created weekly learning grids for core content areas, such as ReadingWriting and Maths. These grids provide a daily breakdown of learning activities, assessments, desired outcomes and required resources.

Mark Twain National Poetry Month: Mark Twain Intermediate School for the Gifted and Talented

The staff at Mark Twain are keeping a sense of community spirit and cohesion through sharing daily poems inspired by Mark Twain himself.

Access Mark Twain Intermediate’s Vimeo Channel HERE >

Access Mark Twain Intermediate’s YouTube Channel HERE >

Parent Digital Learning Survey: Elias Bernstein Intermediate School 7

Using Operoo, Elias Bernstein built, distributed and collected a parent survey in the first week of remote learning to ascertain expectations, behaviours and requirements to help deliver effective digital learning to students. View a PDF of that survey HERE >

Resources for Virtual Schooling

Complimentary platforms, services and content

Explore a range content and tools compiled by education providers and Software-as-a-Service experts to help schools and districts digitally manage operations and deliver remote learning.

ISTE: 10 Strategies for online learning during a Coronavirus outbreak

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has released a number of resources to help schools transition to remote learning. Check out its blog, 10 strategies for online learning during a Coronavirus outbreakHERE >

Newsela: Remote Teaching Toolkit

Newsela’s professional learning team has compiled a comprehensive remote teaching toolkit.

Access the Staying Connected Beyond COVID-19 resource HERE >

Illuminate Education: Supporting Schools and Districts Impacted by COVID-19

Our friends at Illuminate Education have set-up a community resource page, containing free tips and content for supporting students’ remote learning. Access webinar, professional learning activities, articles and more HERE >

Google Education: COVID-19 support resources

Google’s education team have compiled distance learning resources for educators and IT administrators preparing to engage students through distance learning. For details, go HERE >

Zoom: Support during the COVID-19 pandemic

Zoom, one of the world’s leading video conferencing tools, has put together a resources page, containing tips for effective remote working and hosting virtual events. For more information, go HERE >

As an educator, you can also create an account with Zoom and request free usage for your school during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Find out more HERE >

Microsoft Teams

With Microsoft Teams, all your class conversations, files, meetings, and apps live together in a single shared workspace. If you want to set-up teachers, students, and administrators on Microsoft Teams, use Office 365 A1 (the free version of Office 365), which is available to education institutions.

Sign up HERE >

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