The pandemic hit many small businesses hard. As we’re all well aware, many businesses were not able to pivot and make it through. NPCS Group helped this client pivot and become the first school of their type in their state to operate fully online.
Most of us will never forget the third week of March 2020. For those of us in business, we will also never forget the weeks after the shutdown that followed that week: the uncertainty, the worries, and the inevitable pivots are things we’ll take with us for the rest of our lives.
In the case of our client, a for-profit community arts school in Texas, the issue with the shutdown and quarantine period was simple: If they did not resume operations in a safe and sustainable way, there would be little income in their future. After all, they are a service-based business.
The solution seems obvious and simple now: within two weeks of the shutdown, we helped them shift their entire operation from an analog to an online operation. But back at that time in 2020 99% of schools in America had no setup for online education, and the teachers at the community school had never taught any online classes.
Within two weeks of receiving an “SOS” call from the school after the shutdown, we set up an online platform and learning infrastructure for the school. We also provided concise and thorough training for their instructors and staff. To the best of our knowledge, they were the first school of their type in Texas to operate as a fully online institution.
To this day, many of their students still receive online instruction, and they have progressed nicely despite not having hands-on training. Many of the students’ parents thanked the school for enabling some sense of normalcy with their kids, since most of their other after-school activities were placed on indefinite pause.
Our association with this client has continued throughout the pandemic, and we even assisted in helping the school’s music department produce and stream its first at-home “live” virtual recital for its students.
Overall, the team at NPCS is extremely proud of this project, because we didn’t just play a role in helping a business, but we directly helped to enhance hundreds of kids’ lives. And that, dear readers, is priceless.