Adapting to virtual learning, with challenges ahead.

• Author: Exstrom, Michelle
• Position: EDUCATION - Impact of COVID-19 pandemic

Education has been dramatically affected by COVID-19. All states eventually shut down college campuses and K-12 schools through at least mid-May, and most turned to online learning.

School leaders and teachers face significant challenges to ensure students have access to technology, whether that's devices or internet connections.

Teachers, not all of whom are trained in remote instruction, have had to quickly adapt their delivery to a virtual platform, whether their students are kindergarteners or graduating seniors.

Schools, too, are struggling to get materials and meals to students in rural areas who qualify for free and reduced-price lunches.

Meanwhile, higher education is working to ensure that students who were quickly displaced have a safe place to live and access to distance learning.

Even as schools face these immediate and significant challenges, state policymakers are trying to determine how best to help them. They have applied for waivers from the federal government's required testing, held harmless K-12 grades, released schools from taking attendance and...