Salesforce Announces Work.com For Schools and $20 Million to Help Schools Reopen Safely and Support Student Learning Anywhere
San Francisco—August 11, 2020—Salesforce [NYSE: CRM], the global leader in CRM, today announced Work.com for Schools to help schools make data-driven decisions on when and how to return to campus safely, facilitate communication between teachers and families at scale, and support students remotely. The company is also granting $20 million to support five major public school districts across the U.S.—empowering them to provide equitable, safe and connected learning from anywhere.
As the new school year begins amid the continuing pandemic, administrators must try to balance education and safety as they navigate disparate reopening guidelines, data and community pressures. They’ve had to build new remote learning models while reimagining physical classrooms, placing incredible strain on already limited resources. For children, the pandemic has caused an education crisis, which is disproportionately impacting low-income and minority families, as well as those living with disabilities.
"Schools are the backbone of our communities—the heart and soul of our neighborhoods. We need to ensure that every student has access to the best education regardless of circumstance,” said Ebony Beckwith, Chief Philanthropy Officer, Salesforce. “As we reimagine education for a learn-anywhere world, we are committed to helping our schools reopen safely, teach from anywhere and create a more equitable future for every student."
Helping Schools Create a Trusted and Safe Campus Experience
Earlier this year, Salesforce released Work.com, new technology to help businesses and governments around the world reopen safely and build more resilient communities. Now, as school districts plan their return, Work.com for Schools gives administrators and staff technology designed to help them navigate the complexities of reopening and managing ongoing campus safety:
· Workplace Command Center is a single technology hub for school administrators to get a comprehensive view of campus readiness, make data-driven decisions, take action, and communicate with families, teachers and staff effectively. Administrators can make decisions based on real-time, tailored public health data as well as private wellness data from within their school community.
· Wellness Check gives schools the ability to assess if students, teachers and staff are able to return to campus. Administrators can customize Salesforce’s CDC-aligned health surveys and automate follow-up actions based on a staff or student’s wellness status. From the Command Center, school leaders can surface wellness trends and insights to drive informed decisions around returning staff and students to school, while helping to keep community health data secure.
· Contact Tracing allows administrators to manually trace health relationships efficiently and privately by collecting data from individuals who are infected or potentially exposed to an infectious disease. Administrators can use visual maps of contacts and locations to monitor and take safety precautions to avoid further interactions and outbreak.
Helping Schools Support Students and Engage with Families From Anywhere
With new Education Cloud innovations for K-12, schools can support students and families no matter where they are.
· Communications and Family Engagement Tools enable schools to manage communications quickly and at scale by connecting with families on their preferred channel or device through email, social, text or phone. School leaders can share relevant and personalized updates, track responses, and follow up with families who need additional support.
· Student Success Hub will help schools deliver equitable and holistic student support by connecting students with the services they need to thrive—from food and mental health services to devices, tutoring and more. K-12 counselors and staff will be equipped to manage student progress, intervene early and collaboratively, and measure key outcomes, even if students are remote.
$20 Million in Grants to Support Education
In addition to shutting down schools across the U.S. overnight, the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted vulnerable populations—in particular, communities of color. Schools are embracing remote learning, but too many students don’t own a computer or have internet access in their homes to log on, let alone learn. In Oakland, CA, around 50 percent of public school students lack access to technology at home, such as the internet and computers; and nationwide, about 23 percent of households lack high-speed access. This gap, often referred to as the digital divide, threatens to widen already existing achievement and opportunity gaps in our public schools...