The impact of COVID-19 on the EDmarket community of educational facility administrators is wide-reaching with long-term effects on operations, staff, and management. The recent EDmarket webinar featuring a panel of three experts in the field revealed complex and dynamic challenges for facility teams, both now and in the future. While teachers, principals, and curriculum directors are consumed with year-end academic decisions and the shift to online learning platforms, facility administrators on mostly empty campuses across the country have been working hard on mitigation activities to keep their schools safe and provide support for distance learning.
Recognizing the need to increase communications across socially-isolated groups, the EDmarket team connected with The Amos Group, an industry partner who produces SchoolBondFinder and SchoolBondNetwork, to develop a platform for the education facilities community to share ideas among peers. The purpose is to facilitate access to relevant content and problem solving, while offering connections and helping our schools prepare for the safe return of students and faculty. As a result, we are very excited to announce a special collaboration between EDmarket’s EDspaces and SchoolBondNework: EDcommunity.
The EDcommunity platform leverages the existing SchoolBondNetwork (SBN) infrastructure to host the community and establish a private, collaborative network for K-12 administrators and facility professionals to address current challenges. In addition to having access to all other SBN services, we have created the new EDcommunity Forum to give participants a private place to share information, ask questions, and participate in important and timely thread discussions with their peers facing similar challenges. These Forums are the main thrust of EDcommunity, and we look forward to robust discussions of issues and solutions.
The EDcommunity platform leverages the existing SBN infrastructure to host the community and establish a private, collaborative network for K-12 administrators and facility professionals to address current challenges .
EDmarket and SBN recognize that we’re all in this together. Although the SBN platform is a subscription service, as a result of this partnership, the fees will be waived for school officials at least through September of 2020, giving teams the opportunity to collaborate with their “flock” to find solutions, develop their plans, and seek advice from colleagues.
EDmarket and SchoolBondNetwork will be extending participation to our full school databases which include up to 100,000 professionals across the U.S. We encourage all schools and districts to take advantage of this complimentary period, sign up and begin to network and share. Access EDcommunity through the log-in page on the EDmarket website. All those who register will be verified as school district employees when they create their complimentary accounts to ensure privacy rights and that the community remains for the intended education professionals.
The global health crisis is unprecedented and has required all of us to modify our normal practices. This special collaboration is a meaningful way to devote our resources, insights, and abilities to work with a key partner to confront and resolve this challenge for our schools. EDmarket is proud to team up with The Amos Group and SchoolBondNetwork to create the EDcommunity platform as a communication bridge until we can meet in person at EDspaces, November 11-13 in Charlotte, NC.