School in the Time of COVID-19

Academics

In 2019, a study published by the Massachusett s Institute of Technology (MIT) showed that Noble High Schools “boost achievement sharply for students just below the cutoff for selective enrollment schools.”1 Similar peers who ultimately att ended selective enrollment schools experienced less academic growth. This research came on the heels of naming Noble schools as 13 of the top 40 high schools in the city and the Niche research group naming all 17 Noble high schools to their list of the top 30 charter schools in Illinois. We are proud of our achievements and will continue to refi ne our academic approach and delivery to achieve the most ambitious outcomes for our students.

1 Joshua Angrist, Parag Pathak, Román Andrés Zárate. (2019). Choice and Consequence: Assessing Mismatch at Chicago Exam Schools, Massachusett s Institute of Technology.

School in the Time of COVID-19

When Governor Pritzker announced school closures in March 2020, our fi rst priority was to ensure the wellbeing of our students and staff . By April, we found our footing and quickly started planning for the 2020-2021 school year so that we could share a general direction with teachers and campus staff before they departed for summer break. Although we had high hopes that we would off er some in-person instruction, we knew that we needed to be nimble should another closure occur. This meant planning for mostly remote instruction so learning wouldn’t be interrupted. We communicated this in June and released our complete plan in July. To develop this plan, our senior leaders split into two teams, a “Design Team” and a “Refi ne Team.” Noble’s President, Matt Niksch, led the “Design Team,” which collaborated with leaders from Operations, Academics, and Data and Innovation to create a series of options that were then vett ed and improved by the "Refi ne Team". Ellen Metz, Head of Schools, led the “Refi ne Team,” which called on fi ve stakeholder groups to provide feedback in a series of focus groups that included students, parents, staff , social workers, and principals. Together, the teams provided incredible insight that considered almost every possible obstacle and potential outcome. We are proud of how we intentionally involved our community throughout the process and achieved the best possible results given the challenging circumstances. Our plan’s highlights included:

• Excellent remote instruction grounded in equity:

Each campus designed a schedule that is rooted in asynchronous learning that students can access at their own pace, while we built synchronous (live) learning opportunities around this framework to support students.

• Rigorous, data-driven health and safety guidelines to inform planning.

• Commitment to community-informed decision making: We created a three-step reopening framework that gave campuses the fl exibility to resume in-person programming when it was safe to do so. Participation was optional and informed by the comfort levels of staff , students, and families gathered through a series of ongoing surveys.