After COVID, Where Was the DeBriefing?
Even though my life wasn't personally touched by school closures, I tried to be positive with parents. I reminded them that American kids lived through the 1917 flu pandemic as well as World War II. But time continued to tick by and I became increasingly worried about kids being out of school so long.
In short, I think parents were right. Schools should have reopened sooner.
That said, what was a district to do? So many teachers did not want to be there, there were teachers in so many buildings with HVAC issues, and, what if the teachers just didn't show up?
As well, were parents going to sue districts for reopening too soon? The fear of lawsuits looms large for many districts.
But my question is, where was the debriefing for parents? I'm going to do a deeper dive but, so far, I haven't found a district that sat down with parents and talked about what happened. Sure, districts needed to ramp back up for in-person fast but you can't just shake off what came in that time period.
From the NY Times, a story about what study findings say:
What the Data Says About Pandemic School Closures, Four Years Later
Four years ago this month, schools nationwide began to shut down, igniting one of the most polarizing and partisan debates of the pandemic.
A variety of data — about children’s academic outcomes and about the spread of Covid-19 — has accumulated in the time since. Today, there is broad acknowledgment among many public health and education experts that extended school closures did not significantly stop the spread of Covid, while the academic harms for children have been large and long-lasting.
While poverty and other factors also played a role, remote learning was a key driver of academic declines during the pandemic, research shows — a finding that held true across income levels.
But as experts plan for the next public health emergency, whatever it may be, a growing body of research shows that pandemic school closures came at a steep cost to students.
What happened:
- Test scores dropped - "Such losses can be hard to overcome, without significant interventions. The most recent test scores, from spring 2023, show that students, overall, are not caught up from their pandemic losses, with larger gaps remaining among students that lost the most ground to begin with."
- Hybrid results stayed in the middle - better than remote but not as much as fully in-person.
- Poorer districts - and their students - did worse.
But the combination — poverty and remote learning — was particularly harmful. For each week spent remote, students in poor districts experienced steeper losses in math than peers in richer districts.
That is notable, because poor districts were also more likely to stay remote for longer.
- How the adults in a student's life were doing was also part of it.
Beyond test scores:
At the same time, many schools are seeing more anxiety and behavioral outbursts among students. And chronic absenteeism from school has surged across demographic groups.
Also from the NY Times, an interactive story - See How Your School District is Recovering from the Pandemic.
SPS did better than most districts in Washington State. But compared to say, Bellevue, the district fared worse.
SPS had already created a Strategic Plan that they continued on with even after schools reopened. Should they have done anything differently to support all students?
Parents, do you wish the district would talk about the pandemic and the outcomes they are seeing? Or, was the right thing just to push on?
Comments
-Still Angry
Surprised I haven't seen anything about this school or principal here. Look into it?
So what is the plan, really, at the system wide level?
Or what is the plan outside of the school system? For example, should community colleges and Voc Techs have some type of classes for kids who are way behind academically, but who graduated because the standards were relaxed so much? Should the kids have to pay? With debt? Who would be qualified to teach?
Parent teacher conferences in K5 hopefully help parents learn what is really going on, and what they need to do outside the classroom. But in middle school and high school, conferences have much lower attendance, and again they are not set up to say "here are the gaps, your child is three years behind in reading, the plan is XYZ."
One of the biggest mysteries is "where did the Covid relief money go?" The school district budget books do not explain this. The state does not explain this. Nothing explains it. Did any of the spending do any good? Would the students be at an even lower level if there had not been so much money thrown at Covid relief?
Another big mystery is the absenteeism. I talked with a teacher the other day, on a Weds afternoon during school hours, in a store. She works at a district in south King County (not Highline, and not Seattle). She said she was missing the day because earlier she'd had a doctor's appointment. But she said the increase in absenteeism is not just the children and families being a lot more willing to miss school, it is the teachers being willing to skip as well.
A teacher in another south King County district also said similar comments: families in his district didn't care that much about the academics, they saw the school more or less as daycare, and if/when they don't need day care, (eg, they are off work that day), they figure why send the kid to school? Just keep the child at home.
This is intensely discouraging, because it is really hard to keep momentum going with a sub, and for a child to miss several days then try to catch up is even harder. The analogy is we dug this giant hole, and now instead of climbing out, we're going in deeper. Districts could have the greatest plans in the world, superstar tutoring, extra summer days, weekends, after school programs .... but if the parents don't care enough to get their kid to school, what's the point?
And what is the plan for the kids who do want to learn, is it fair to them to say no ability grouping, no walk to math, you need to stay in your room and teach the kids in your class?
To close, yes I wish the districts would talk about the pandemic, the outcomes, the plans, the partnership of student, parents and school, but I really wonder how many parents would even show up to that type of a meeting, or read anything the districts sent and then do something as a result of that communication. Example: summer math packet, extra reading, take away the phone so the student can read a book.
By the way, SPS results are closer to Mercer Island than they are to Highline or most south King County districts. At Tyee HS in Seatac, just 3 percent of 10th grade students met math standards last year. THREE.
Death Knell
But to answer the question, I wonder how seriously most parents are taking the learning loss. So, my sense is most parents just want the district to push on.
I talked with a teacher the other day from a district outside Seattle (not Highline) who said first, absenteeism of students is way up, and second, absenteeism of teachers has increased. Put these together and it creates an even more difficult learning environment. Another teacher, also non Highline and non Seattle, had made similar comments. I paraphrase: "many parents seem mostly to value the day care aspect of going to school, and are a lot less committed to their kids being in the building unless the parents are at work and need daycare." Now, this again is in south King County. Some parts of Seattle are very different. But look at the increase state wide in absenteeism. It is not just notably higher in south King County, it is higher everywhere.
There needs to be a very different partnership. Parents need to step up. Schools need to tell parents "this is what you need to do." That is very hard because it risks coming across as paternalistic, or other terms. In turn, schools need to say "this is what we're doing. This is what we did. This is what we will be doing." For example, summer math packets with check ins available, so parents can plan around that.
I've tried to make sense of Highline budgets for Covid recovery. The buckets of spending are quite broad, and it is very hard to tell where the money went. I have contacted OSPI but have not gotten much info from them about Covid money. I know some went to short term consumables (PPE), some to building needs (air filtering), a lot to computers and tech, but beyond that, it is kind of a mystery.
A major challenge is: some parents and families do care a lot. But districts want to put everyone in the same classroom, regardless of work ethic, regardless of reading level or of math level. What are families supposed to do who did make remote learning work, who do see school as about learning and not just day care, and who are putting in the time? Should their kids be essentially slowed down? Is their only option to move, home school, or go to a private school?
I was SO disappointed in Seattle Public School’s Covid response. In 2020, the board focused on DEI. I was baffled that more attention wasn’t being geared towards Covid response.
My disappointment didn’t end with SPS. My disappointment extends to state level response- including OSPI.
I expected that Covid would prompt educational reforms- but we got nothing. I expected that each and every student would receive a personal assessment, but we got none of that.
I totally understand not punishing students- and allowing them to graduate, but we are nearly four years out and we get a district with a slim focus.
If I had my way, the next strategic plan would center on serving a population of kids that survived a once in an 100 year pandemic. However, I fully expect the current board to focus on inclusion and DEI.
History tells us that kids that endured the 1918 pandemic didn’t fare well. SPS should focus on history and align the next Strategic Plan to pandemic realities.
F-