( bright upbeat music)
Hello, Sandy and Thuan. Welcome.
And thank you for agreeing to talk to us today
about AVID's goals,
how AVID has driven business model innovation
during the pandemic.
as well as the incredibly strong impact
you've been able to have in a very short amount of time.
Perhaps let's start, Sandy, with you.
Could you tell us a little bit more about AVID
and the goals you were pursuing before COVID-19?
Hi Nithya. Great to be here with you
and Thuan today. Thank you so much.
So historically AVID has been a very successful nonprofit,
providing professional development,
systemic support to educators across the nation.
When I started back in 2014,
we were impacting about 700,000 students a year.
And prior to COVID, we were at
about 2.2 million students a year.
So February is about the time where we're really focused
on kicking off our spring and summer sessions.
So all of our behind the scenes planning has happened.
We were registering educators for the summer work.
We had just finished a really productive board meeting.
Our budget was adopted, our year end indicators
look really good.
And then, of course, was the end of February.
I think it was February 27th.
We started to see the impact of COVID across the world
and the beginning impact here in the United States.
So our chief operating officer, Thuan Nguyen,
quickly put together our response plan.
And a week later, we kicked off
our daily emergency command center meetings focused
on the health of our employees,
the health of the educators we serve,
and started figuring out our response plan for how
we were going to continue to serve educators,
but also do it in a very different way
than we're used to doing.
Well, you've clearly developed a turnaround success story.
So Thuan, maybe could you tell us a little bit more
about what you did, how you did it?
I'm curious about the types
of offerings you all created, how you mobilize teams.
Very early on we realized the significant impact
that COVID-19 was having
on just the greater education environment.
And so when we worked on developing our products and plans,
one of the things that we identified was
the immediate need to help as many educators
as we possibly can across the country.
Given the number of schools that were shutting
down and classrooms being forced to go virtual,
and recognizing that that's just not a condition
or an environment that our educators have ever really faced.
And so we went into it with kind
of three different product lines in mind
or offerings in mind.
The first was really this free available set of resources
that any educator could access across the country.
And we knew we couldn't do it on our own
in the timeframe that we wanted it done.
And so we partnered with MIT, Amazon,
Microsoft, Elementary for engineering,
folks who have experience working in this space,
but, more importantly content, that is ready.
And where they could really lean
on our expertise was really working directly
with educators and what educators needed in that moment.
Then the second offering we really wanted was,
AVID's professional learning has traditionally been closed
to our members only. And knowing the challenges
that were facing our country, we wanted to make sure that
the offerings that we created was available
to every educator in the country.
And then the very last piece, as Sandy references:
Over the summer, we trained the majority of our educators.
And so we took the opportunity in a very short period
of time to just rethink and reimagine
what AVID professional learning could be like online.
And so we developed an entirely new catalog of offerings
that's significantly more individualized.
And because it's digital and there's no travel involved
for our districts and our educators,
we also made it year-round.
And then there's a significant data strategy
that we've incorporated as well, knowing
that it's digital, to be able to better survey our educators
in terms of the results of the experience itself,
the challenges that they're facing in the classroom,
and their hopes and dreams when they get back.
And we're planning on using that data to assist
with the coaching followups, to make sure
that we're able to help them navigate the challenges
as they return back to the classroom.
As well as being able to send that to their administrators
to let them know the challenges that their teachers
are anticipating so that they can lean in
and assist with making that implementation better.
In terms of the challenges that we faced,
it was significant.
There was this significant timeframe and time constraint.
And so we just stopped everything that was happening
in the organization and systematically,
within about a 72-hour period of time,
we got in front of our teams to share the plan
on the new direction we're headed in,
got in front of the board and board leadership
so that they understand where we're headed
and could give us guidance and feedback and that support.
But then after that, it was really the ongoing check-ins
with staff to update them on decisions that have been made,
right? No matter what the plan is, it's gonna shift.
I have to say, this is such a remarkable story.
And not just how quickly you all created a response plan
given the situation,
but also mobilized resources within the team,
within the board, to be able to execute on this so quickly.
So Sandy, if you step back just . . .
What Thuan outlined is a remarkable story.
How do you describe the impact that AVID has achieved
as a result?
In a traditional year--at least 2019 and '18--
we would impact about 80,000 educators over the summer
and spring and early fall.
And so this year we're already at 112,000 educators.
And most importantly, we're gathering immediate feedback
and able to adapt to what it is they currently need.
That's really wonderful to hear.
Congratulations. I'm personally excited
to see what's ahead with AVID.
Thanks, Nithya. Thanks, Nithya.
(bright upbeat music)