When There’s No Handbook: One Urban Elementary School’s COVID-19 Crisis Response

Using qualitative methods and a Communities of Practice framework, we studied one urban elementary school’s crisis response to COVID-19 during the emergency remote education phase, Spring 2020. In the last two years, there has been overwhelming variety in schools’ instructional modalities in our state—face-to-face, remote, hybrid—leaving Spring 2020 the first fully remote experience to study. In this study we focus on the remote learning pivot, specifically highlighting the campus’ use of digital literacies and the caregiver, student, and teacher responses to the immediate, unplanned modality change. Findings are meant to assist schools in planning ahead of future crises, including ways to use digital literacies to strengthen learning communities.