Jack of all trades, master of none.
In a lot of districts, Jack is also the superintendent and the only person who knows the Wi-Fi password.
So when the board asks Jack to launch a virtual school, Jack assumes he’s on the hook for every single job. Dylan Hoffman, our Chief Operating Officer at Subject, would like Jack to sit down for a minute. A virtual school breaks into about 10 jobs, and districts can keep the ones their staff do best while a partner covers the rest.
Dylan has helped districts in “so many states” launch virtual programs, and he’s used to meeting skeptics before the coffee even arrives.
“If I sit down with them at a cafe, their opening statement to me will be that online learning doesn’t work,” he says.
Here’s how he changes their minds.
Here’s what’s on the dashboard this week:
Today’s Deep Dive: The sign-up sheet for your virtual school
What We’re Tracking: Phishing season + heat-and-serve lunches
From Our Desk: Can it still be Halloween?
Watch of the Week: What Elizabeth Holmes can teach you about vendor demos
The sign-up sheet for the world’s biggest group project
Every group project has one person who does all the work while everyone else “handles the slides.” You met him earlier. His name is Jack (of all trades), and he’s tired.
Funny enough, when a district starts planning a virtual school, he is usually the superintendent.
Dylan’s fix starts with a sign-up sheet:
There should be only about 10 jobs. Keep them to one name per line, and please, no forging signatures!
Teacher of record: ________
Course library: ________
Grading, with feedback on every single assignment: ________
Making sure the essay wasn’t written by someone’s older cousin: ________
Tutoring at 2 a.m., because that’s when the math panic hits: ________
Wait, where are jobs #6-10? You can find them in our latest playbook here.
Your district only has to sign up for the jobs your people do best. A partner can take the rest. Our playbook walks through six steps for splitting the sheet, including what to do when a sales rep can’t tell you who would actually run the program.
A virtual school can feel like a second school stacked on top of the first one. Once the sheet has names on it, it starts to look like a to-do list your team can actually finish.
Phishing season runs all year: Just over half of schools and districts had a cyber incident in the past year. And 87% of K-12 leaders say phishing or email scams are among their biggest problems, so that “urgent gift card request from the superintendent” is officially a trend.
The board has entered the chat: About 44% of school board members have never worked in K-12, a new EdWeek Research Center survey found. Experts say that brings both challenges and upsides, since the board’s job is oversight and the day-to-day belongs to the district.
Eight hours a week on the job nobody wrote down: Teachers spend about eight hours a week on student well-being, and about two of those hours fall outside the contract day. Half say the work got harder in the last two years, which is worth knowing before anything else lands on their plates.
Heat-and-serve is winning the lunch line: Tight budgets and strict nutrition rules keep pushing districts toward heat-and-serve meals. And 44% of superintendents say they lack the kitchens to cook it all from scratch, so Gordon Ramsay would have notes and a budget request.
Tennessee phoned a friend on AI: When Tennessee told districts to write AI policies, a nonprofit called SCORE pulled together a working group and passed what districts learned on to the state. The writers say more states need partners like that, since a guidance memo can’t vet a product by itself.
The biggest coaching study yet comes up empty: The largest study of an instructional coaching program so far found no gains in teacher retention or test scores. The model ran in hundreds of schools and didn’t come cheap, which proves scaling a good idea is its own full-time job.
Allow us to show you the best Halloween costumes from our Austin office and our LA office. Chicago, you better bring it next year.
Georgia educators, thanks for hanging out with us. Want to meet Subject IRL in your own state? Email [email protected] to connect.
The design of our new office is too good to stop talking about. Take a tour here (and yes, we’re hiring!).
Watch of the Week: You Can See Everything
Why we’re obsessed: Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim spent years filming Elizabeth Holmes, starting 34 days before she reported to prison, and the result is a three-hour study in what happens when nobody asks to see inside the box. Any district leader who has sat through a slick vendor demo should watch it with a notepad and a large coffee.
Recommended PD integrations:
Ask to see the machine. Theranos ran into trouble once people started asking how its blood-testing device actually worked. Make every vendor demo a live one, run by the person who would do the work, then compare it to the sales pitch. If the demo only works when the sales rep drives, you’ve met your very own Edison box.
Audit the board’s résumé. Theranos had a former secretary of state on its board and very few people who understood blood testing. Pair the film with this week’s EdWeek board survey and map the expertise your board and cabinet have against what your biggest projects need. Your board missing a former chemistry teacher is a much smaller problem, so relax.
Run the turtleneck test. Strip the logos and names off two competing proposals and have your cabinet rank them blind. Black turtlenecks have a mixed record as evidence, and so do glossy brochures full of stock photos of kids pointing at laptops.
Try the 34-day countdown. Holmes had 34 days before prison. Pick your next big launch, set the clock to 34 days and list everything still unfinished. Somehow a board meeting in 34 days feels scarier.
Count your dashboards. The title promises you can see everything, which is what every dashboard vendor says too. Ask principals which dashboards they actually opened this month and retire the rest. If nobody has clicked on it since August, it’s a screensaver.
Rehearse the hard conversation. Fielder once built a full replica of a Brooklyn bar on The Rehearsal so a man could practice one confession. Before your next tough board or parent meeting, role-play it with your team. Your conference room and a box of donuts will do fine.
Assign a skeptic. Name one person in every pilot meeting whose only job is to ask, “How do we know that?” Rotate it monthly so your CFO doesn’t get stuck as the fun police forever.
Daily news for curious minds.
Be the smartest person in the room. 1440 navigates 100+ sources to deliver a comprehensive, unbiased news roundup — politics, business, culture, and more — in a quick, 5-minute read. Completely free, completely factual.
That’s a wrap on this week’s On the Subject. If your virtual school plan still lives on a napkin, bring it to the playbook. See you next Wednesday.