Submit Your Lessons Learned and Best Practices

Have a lessons learned or best practice for helping students and educators continue to recover from the impacts of the pandemic? View submission details below, and then e-mail Bestpracticesclearinghouse@ed.gov to share your lessons learned or best practice.

What should a submission include?

Submissions from the field should include substantive materials, which might include fact sheets, step-by-step guidance, policies or regulations, sample agreements among partners (e.g., between a local education agency and a local health agency, or an employee union), ready-to-implement resources, videos or other media focused on how to implement practices, and descriptions of how strategies have been implemented. Generally, submissions from the field should not include or reference materials such as commercial advertisements, vendor solicitations or products, and editorials. Submitters may include the actual materials or links to them.

Submissions should include:

A form with checkmarks and a pen
  • Contact information
  • Topic (e.g., safe and healthy environments; providing supports to students, young children, and families; and teacher, early childhood provider, faculty, and staff well-being, professional development, and supports)
  • Target audience (e.g., PreK-12, early childhood, postsecondary)
  • A short description (two to three sentences)
  • A short description of what makes the submission a lesson learned or best practice
  • An element of racial equity and/or another equity focus, such as a focus on historically underserved populations, within the submission, if applicable
  • The size of the school or district that benefited from the lesson learned

Submitters should be careful to include only information that can be made publicly available.

What happens after a lessons learned or best practice is submitted?

Submissions will be reviewed beginning immediately and will be considered on a rolling basis. Note that the U.S. Department of Education will not include all submissions in the Clearinghouse, and submissions that are included may be modified. Further, the U.S. Department of Education will not include commercial product endorsements, nor any strategies that are not legally supportable or that may lead a user to violate Federal law. Inclusion of or publishing of any submissions in the Clearinghouse Website does not necessarily equate endorsement from the U.S. Department of Education or from the Federal government, nor is it a certification of the effectiveness of the suggestion. The intention is to catalyze learning about the ongoing health crisis and how it affects our schools in real time. We encourage teachers, early childhood educators, faculty, and staff to use these resources as they continue their work to support their school, early childhood, and campus communities and maintain safe in-person learning and services.

Thank you in advance to all submitters for sharing lessons learned and best practices with the nation!