School communities quickly shifted to remote learning, ensuring basic needs of safety and security in an uncertain time. Now educators face another challenge: getting ready to open schools with looming public health risks, wider learning gaps, and heightened trauma and social-emotional needs. To do this right, we must settle the ball.

How we reopen and recover now will shape public education for years to come. Our mandate is clear: We must prepare in a way that is flexible enough to respond to an uncertain future under COVID-19, yet robust enough to ensure that all students—including students with disabilities—have an equal opportunity to succeed over the long term. Doing so can help ensure that equity is built into the foundation of a new era of education.

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