Properly distanced and masked students at Harris Elementary School get down to their studies. Educators are worried about the effects of the "COVID slide" and how students will catch up with their learning. (File photo)
Properly distanced and masked students at Harris Elementary School get down to their studies. Educators are worried about the effects of the "COVID slide" and how students will catch up with their learning. (File photo)
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At a glance
Projections suggest major academic impacts from COVID closures after spring of 2020 for students:

–Preliminary “COVID slide” estimates suggested students returned in fall 2020 with roughly 70% of the learning gains in reading relative to a typical school year.

–In mathematics, students showed much smaller learning gains, returning with less than 50% of the learning gains. In some grades, some students were nearly a full year behind what would be observed in normal conditions.

How to combat the COVID slide 

–Make sure all students and families have access to appropriate, engaging mathematics and reading materials, instruction and support during coronavirus closures.

–Addressing the most pressing challenges such as closing the digital divide by providing increased access to the internet and technology.

–School leaders and educators must address more nuanced instructional challenges like differentiation, accessibility and special education needs.

Source: Northwest Evaluation Association
HANCOCK COUNTY — Educators call it the “summer slide”: the loss of learning students suffer each year during the eight-week summer break when children are not in the classroom.

While educators always prepare to get students back on track each fall, the learning lost during the COVID-19 pandemic is a whole new challenge for teachers and students.

County students, who headed back to some form of instruction this week after the two-week holiday break, have not had a consistently normal classroom experience since March, when schools closed in the early days of the pandemic. Virtual studies and hybrid schedules have presented major learning challenges whose long-term effects are a cause of worry to administrators.

Studying data from the Northwest Evaluation Association, a global not-for-profit educational services organization used by school districts to assess students, officials are seeing a decline in learning as a result of the pandemic.

Data retrieved this past fall from NWEA shows students in Southern Hancock schools had as much as a 10% drop in proficiency scores between 2019-20 and 2020-21; as well a 10% to 15% drop in growth scores during the same time.

The drop in learning is particularly affecting students in kindergarten through second grade, said Wes Anderson, the district’s community relations director.

While SH educators have already instituted a number of remedial and intervention programs to attempt to close the gap — such as stipend positions for literacy specialists in each elementary school, for example — the full scope of the lost learning is not yet clear.

“We don’t have a great way to quantify it yet, but we know it’s happening,” Anderson said. “The students have lost retention and achievement, and it’s tripled because of what they lost last spring.”

That chunk of missed in-class learning — it was five months before classrooms re-opened — is going to hurt students one way or another, county administrators and educators believe.

“We have to look at this now proactively, and that’s part of our district trying to get kids into class every day, if we can,” Anderson said. “We know the classroom is where kids learn best.”

Prior to the two-week winter break, students at New Palestine High School had not been in the classroom for in-person instruction for over a month due to COVID-19.

“It may be years before we know how bad this is,” Anderson said. “Students have lost chunks of their academic careers.”

How much learning students lose during school closures varies according to access to remote learning; the quality of remote instruction; home support; and the degree of engagement, experts say.

Greenfield-Central schools conducts interval testing on their students in reading and math on three occasions throughout the school year, Superintendent Harold Olin said.

This fall’s beginning-of-the-year assessment indicated students were already behind when compared to their same-age peers in previous school years.

In fact, NWEA shared data with schools in early fall indicating students have lost quite a bit of ground in mathematics in particular.

“All of that being said, we are not going to make any excuses in Greenfield-Central,” Olin said. “It has always been our job as public educators to embrace our students where they are academically and lead them to be the students they want to be.”

The awareness of lost learning has caused their teachers to dig in, Olin said.

“Classroom teachers are doing a fantastic job of providing opportunities for small group and individualized learning opportunities to reduce and eliminate those learning gaps,” he said.

Eastern Hancock Superintendent Dave Pfaff said there has been some lost learning for students in his district as well. He also cited the NWEA study on pre-COVID vs. COVID student scores, which shows EH students generally have lost ground.

Teachers have noticed students are coming up short in math more so than reading, but Pfaff noted another area where students are missing out: He’s seeing a social, emotional and psychological cost to both students and staff.

“Students have suffered tremendous developmental, emotional and psychological harm in the last nine months, and it’s not over,” Pfaff said. “Kids want and need to be at school.”

Peer contact and the influence of the various adult leaders students come in contact with each day are vital to a student’s growth, Pfaff said. Likewise, school staff members, not just teachers, have paid a heavy price to continue to serve students and their communities through the pandemic.

Pfaff thinks the effects of the “COVID slide” will be felt for a few years.

How do educators plan to help kids catch up? Students who fall too far behind could attend summer school, but he knows even that will not be enough.

“We will have to re-examine how we use our time during the school year in order to make the best use of the time we have with students,” Pfaff said. “So the challenge becomes how can we help them learn more in the same amount of time.”

Officials from the Indiana Department of Education are not blind to the issues facing state schools, communications representative Adam Baker said.

Still, federal and state assessments are happening, including the release of letter grades to all state schools in October. Those were essentially carry-overs from the year before as part of a “hold harmless” provision DOE enacted after problems with the state’s new ILEARN standardized test.

The second administration of ILEARN slated for last spring never took place after schools were shut down. Pfaff thinks no state or federal assessments should be made during the health crisis.

“The state at this point has indicated no interest in altering its assessment plans,” Pfaff said. “Everything else in all of our lives has had to be adjusted, but not state testing.”

Baker said IDOE will do what it can to help districts.

“From working to develop online tools to partnering with stakeholders such as (the Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations) to promote educational resources, we have dedicated ourselves to supporting students and schools from day one,” Baker said.

Still, the educational system was not built to deal with extended shutdowns like those imposed by the pandemic. While teachers, administrators and parents have worked hard to keep learning on track, the efforts are not likely to provide the quality of education delivered in a classroom, and it’s showing.

According to The Associated Press, Virginia’s largest school system recently noticed an 83% increase in individual “F” grades. When the first quarter of the virtual school year ended, Fairfax County found nearly 10,000 students had scored an “F” in at least two classes, and education officials note the scenario is playing out throughout the nation.

Not surprisingly, data from NWEA suggests families with stable financial resources, stable employment, and flexible work-from-home and child-care arrangements are faring better when it comes to school. Children whose parents work in sectors hardest hit by the pandemic are experiencing higher rates of food insecurity, family instability and other shocks from the disruption, none of which is good for learning.

A national study released in June by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. has estimated students who do not receive full-time, in-person instruction until 2021 will lose an average of seven months of learning this school year. Low-income students may fall behind by more than a year, the study said.
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