How a Coalition Engaged in Enacted Sensemaking During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This dissertation examines how coalition members, individually and collectively, made sense of the outbreak of COVID-19 and describes the events that occurred during the pandemic that influenced their policymaking and implementation process for K-12 public schools. An 8-part conceptual framework was employed to explore how coalition members navigated through the pandemic, their interpretations, and how they made sense of the COVID-19 crisis to create reopening protocols for schools. The coalition was first designed as a policy group to provide recommendations for safely reopening schools in River County, Texas, but quickly transitioned into an advisory group and had no influence on the policy development or implementation process. Findings in this dissertation highlight the challenges the workgroup members experienced while serving on the coalition during the pandemic, which has the potential to provide recommendations on best practices to help other cities and counties be better prepared for a future crisis.