When Crisis Meets Crisis: Sensemaking of Third Grade Retention Policy and Crisis Management of COVID-19

ABSTRACTThrough 13 in-depth interviews conducted before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, this qualitative study investigates how policy actors make sense of Michigan’s third grade retention policy as a smothering crisis, what factors influenced variations in their sensemaking, and how sensemaking has evolved to address difficulties imposed by the pandemic as a sudden crisis. Drawing upon sensemaking and crisis management frameworks, the findings reveal different meaning makings due to contextual challenges: 1) information filtering, 2) principals’ instructional leadership, and 3) parent involvement. The pandemic catalyzed collaboration among policy actors to respond to, recover from, and learn from the crisis. AcknowledgmentsI would like to express special thanks to Dr. Kristy Cooper Stein for her insightful feedback and suggestions on this article.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThe study was supported by the Summer Research Development Fellowship from the College of Education at Michigan State University.