STAMFORD — A Stamford resident will participate in a key function in helping American colleges reopen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nick Simmons, who has served in the administration of Gov. Ned Lamont because 2019, will be a senior adviser to Schooling Secretary Miguel Cardona, concentrating on “school reopening and recovery.”

Simmons has labored as Lamont’s director of strategic initiatives and was in cost of coordinating with the state departments of Education and learning and General public Wellness on the reopening of universities amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as properly as closing the K-12 digital divide and supporting college students with distant finding out.

In accordance to a press launch from Lamont’s business, Connecticut has made available additional in-school discovering for college students than any other point out in the northeast.

But what truly established the point out aside was its faculty and university student knowledge collection devices, which in accordance to Lamont’s business, was “the most comprehensive” in the country.


“We had a person of the very best weekly facts tracing techniques,” Simmons claimed, adding that he now has “the chance to convey the Connecticut design to Washington.”

The state’s efficiency with providing schooling through the pandemic has seemingly caught the eye of the administration of President Joe Biden, who before this year chosen Cardona, formerly the best education official in Connecticut, as the countrywide instruction secretary.

“President Biden has made quite obvious that he wants to get all educational facilities safely reopened as shortly as possible,” Simmons explained. “That’s the intention.”

Simmons claimed Cardona was one of the colleagues he labored most intently with in the previous calendar year and they stayed in contact following Cardona’s nomination.

The 31-yr-old Simmons, who is the brother of condition Rep. and Stamford mayoral candidate Caroline Simmons, explained just one of his initially positions will be to scale the facts devices used in Connecticut for the wider United States.

In Connecticut, condition officials retained weekly tabs on what school districts have been presenting in terms of in-individual and remote understanding. That would give them an concept of how numerous of the state’s students have been in each individual model at any time.

Lamont applauded the collection on Friday, contacting it “a excellent selection.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic has substantially adjusted the way universities function in nearly each and every potential, and I am proud of the way Connecticut’s schooling officials, teachers, and personnel have been in a position to reply in get to make sure that college students continue on to obtain a top quality schooling,” Lamont stated, in a press launch. “From the outset, Nick has worked to aid coordinate these initiatives for my business, and I value the time and energy he has contributed on behalf of the learners of Connecticut.”

Just before serving in Lamont’s administration, Simmons was a seventh-grade math teacher and assistant principal in Harlem, N.Y. He retains a master’s diploma in general public policy from Harvard Kennedy School of Governing administration, a learn of business administration degree from Harvard Enterprise School, and a bachelor’s diploma from Yale University.

On Friday, Simmons said he was fired up about the chance, but sad to go away his colleagues in Connecticut.

“It’s bittersweet to go away all the amazing colleagues who have been performing fantastic get the job done in the Lamont administration,” he explained.

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