With schools closed due to the ongoing health crisis, teachers everywhere have been inundated with instructions and suggestions on how to adapt to the world of remote learning. But volunteer facilitators, coaches and managers in charge of leading student extracurricular activities have been largely, if not entirely, left out the discussion. Many esports leaders are asking what they can do to manage the activity remotely. Here are a few ideas.

Esports continues to grow at an astounding pace. And I continue to see more districts reach out to me to talk about setting up a league at their schools. One of the first questions that comes up is: How do we arrange competition? Do we join an already-established third-party league; do we join a nonprofit third-party league like North American Scholastic Esports Federation (NASEF); or do we create our own?

While each option has its strengths and weaknesses, I’d like to focus on building your own league as there’s more of a journey to it. Setting up your own esports league has some challenges along the way, but I think the benefits are well worth it.

Only a few years ago, it seemed most educators still needed convincing that video games had any role to play at academic institutions. By now, many educators have come to understand the benefits of esports, but they lack staff with experience in implementing esports programs.

To make matters more complicated, there’s no one “right” way to design an esports initiative. After all, needs vary by size and goals. Find out how other K–12 schools, colleges and universities rolled out their programs, and get inspired to start your own.