From the article: "The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework that explains structural responses to external organizational shocks. The authors illustrate framework dynamics with one district's secondary schools' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The conceptual framework imagines structure as emergent, dynamic and responsive to external pressures, as the authors posited in an earlier publication. From an open systems perspective, the authors focus on restructuring for more effective sensemaking and bridging and buffering. The framework in this paper shows promise for its descriptive power. Interview participants' recollections of their responses to COVID-19 revealed an emergent structure and displayed evidence of crisis management, sensemaking and bridging and buffering."