It amazes me how quickly we seem to forget that in March 2020 we experienced the beginning of a global pandemic. The K-12 education systems throughout the country closed and then moved to remote learning.  

And thus began our journey learning how to operate a public K-12 education system in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Five years out from the initial COVID-19 school closures, the education research community faces the question of what lessons we can take from our pandemic era research into the future. For more than three years, the Education Policy Initiative at Carolina (EPIC) has partnered with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) to study the impacts of the pandemic on students in North Carolina and how state sponsored summer programs help students catch up academically and re-engage in school.

Driven by a commitment to put actionable research directly into the hands of policymakers and practitioners, the RESTART Network’s five research teams have distilled years of rigorous analysis into accessible infographics. Each team has carefully crafted these visual summaries to highlight the most important findings and recommendations, making it easier for leaders to apply evidence-based strategies to build resilient schools and prepare for future disruptions. 

Five years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered schools across California, leaving millions of students with acute academic and social-emotional needs. In response, we established a research-practice-partnership to identify what works to uplift student learning and well-being. This blog reflects on the key lessons learned from this partnership and outlines actionable steps for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners. 

When the COVID‑19 pandemic led to the closure of school buildings across Georgia in March 2020, the Georgia Policy Labs (GPL) and our metro-Atlanta district partners were already several years into a research-practice partnership. Because the legal agreements, data pipelines, and personal relationships were in place, we quickly pivoted from our existing research agenda to answer urgent questions about lost learning time, remote instruction, and recovery strategies.

For the past two and half years, the RESTART Network  has been tasked with conducting a systematic search for studies on district and school activities focusing in COVID-19 pandemic recovery and academic acceleration.  We identified and reviewed academic recovery studies published between January 2020 and March 2024. We focused on critical topics identified by policymakers, school leaders and practitioners as imperative.