For school districts across New Hampshire, it’s been three weeks since 17,000 teachers began remote instruction for almost 200,000 students.

With little warning, they brought their classrooms online. This was no easy feat. It meant disseminating student materials, preparing at-home lessons, learning new technologies, and building an online community, all while tending to their own families’ needs. If they weren’t already, our educators have become master jugglers.

While some industries have come to a temporary stand-still, public education has been pushed into high gear. Our industry is fortunate to have infrastructure in place to support virtual learning.

It is even more fortunate to have strong and creative New Hampshire leaders, praised by Vice President Mike Pence, to lead the nation during this crisis. Our state and district leadership responded quickly and dedicated thousands of hours to helping the children of New Hampshire.

They have created a structure to support virtual learning for teachers and students, while also answering to emergency needs like delivering meals.

In addition, our building leaders are holding virtual staff meetings to keep educators informed and to share classroom ideas to improve student learning.

Despite the fear, trepidation and straight on sadness from not being with students in person, teachers across the state are stepping up.

They are quickly educating themselves on tools like Google Classroom, Zoom and the myriad of virtual resources available. They are finding ways to connect with their students with daily readings, virtual class meetings, weekend class lessons, online assessments, daily schedules and group assignments.

We hear these stories every day, and it’s a tribute to our New Hampshire teacher’s love and passion for their profession. We know there are, and will be, bumps; but overall, it has been truly life affirming to watch this creative transformation take place seemingly overnight.

Parents have taken an active role in their child’s education to reinforce virtual instruction. For younger children, this means reviewing multiplication tables, studying the yearly calendar and reading together.

For older students, parents are talking to their children about geometry lessons and writing assignments. Many parents of older children are even learning about technology from their kids!

If you are a K-6 parent looking for ideas, check out our video at TinyURL.com/dsreads. Parents and guardians are role modeling lifelong learning for their students.

Supported by the New Hampshire Department of Education, Demonstrated Success quickly adapted our professional development offerings to support the new needs of teachers and families.

We developed and delivered 20 webinars during this transition period, such as “Using Google Classroom,” “Innovative Ideas for Virtual Instruction” and “Family Friendly K-6 Literacy Resources to Use at Home,” that have reached more than 15,000 participants.

If you are an educator who would like to register for an upcoming webinar, you can do so at TinyURL.com/dsTeachers. You also can view past webinars on our Youtube channel by searching “Demonstrated Success.”

These are tough times for so many. It is inspiring to see our New Hampshire educators rally together to support our children. The virtual connections we make now will positively impact students long after we return to brick and mortar learning.

The next time you video chat with a teacher or see your principal (6 feet away) at the grocery store, please thank them. Our New Hampshire educators may not be on the frontlines at the emergency room, but they are, without a doubt, unsung heroes.

Submitted by The Team at Demonstrated Success, education consulting, 444 Middle St., Portsmouth.