Amid the struggles that 2020 brought to all of us, here’s what I saw in action this year: educators are under-leveraged experts.

As we at LEANLAB watched Kansas City families grapple with one hardship after another, we knew we had to stop and retool how we do things. The kinds of tenacity, courage, and resourcefulness I witnessed in our local families, community organizations, schools, and staff was nothing short of remarkable.

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the inequities that have long existed in our community-- but we’ve seen people step up to address them in new and powerful ways. One example is the local work around internet connectivity.

The digital divide has always been there but it became a full-blown, urgent crisis when the pandemic hit. Putting an end to this inequitable distribution of resources is at the core of what we do at LEANLAB. We rolled up our sleeves, crunched the numbers. We were able to use data we collected to support city leaders, philanthropists and system-level school leaders identify the greatest areas of need, so they could be more efficient with their resources.  To date, nearly 8,000 students have gained internet access across the Kansas City metro area.

There’s still more work to be done. Around 800 students still aren’t connected. That means their learning suffers as a result, and that’s just plain unacceptable. We can and must do better than single hot spots shared among entire families. We need more infrastructure at the local and regional level. We need sustainable funding sources and truly affordable internet connectivity plans. 

That’s the difference between the digital divide and digital justice--a vision where all students have access to the technology they need to thrive in the 21st century.

We also saw our community step up to reckon with inequities that exist for BIPOC throughout our society. We made a statement declaring  Black Lives Matter--and then we followed it up with dollars and strategic support for under-represented education leaders in our community. Our Micro-Grant program supported 19 Black and Latinx innovators in education at a critical juncture in the national conversation around racial equity. 

We realized that our education sector is shifting and that the time to innovate is now. Following, we re-launched our Pilot Program, which connects promising education technology startups with school communities. Together, they collaboratively design (“co-design”) pilot studies to measure the technologies impact on learning. As we move into 2021, our work will focus on this model, in search of community informed breakthroughs in education technology.

Finally, there has never been such an imperative for innovation in the education sector. We partnered with 7 school communities throughout Kansas City to understand their challenges and searched internationally for the most promising education entrepreneurs designing inventive solutions that match our needs. 

We’ve built a world class research advisory board and have been working to redesign how we build, measure and evaluate the technologies and tools we put in front of students during these unprecedented times. As we move into 2021, we will deepen this practice, working urgently to design, measure and share game-changing education technologies in partnership with the school communities they serve. 

We’ve learned to adapt this year. We went back to our roots and focused on the essentials. We innovated without losing sight of community voice in the process. We listened to parents, teachers and education innovators. We’ve found out how truly strong we are--together. For that I’ll be forever grateful. 

I’m hopeful for a new year in which we’ll be better equipped to tackle the deep, structural issues standing between our families and transformative education for their kids.

With gratitude,