Chalkbeat

Chalkbeat gets a shout-out on ‘Abbott Elementary’ season three premiere

2024-02-08T16:01:56+00:00

Well, that was cool!

Last night’s season three premiere of “Abbott Elementary” on ABC featured a Chalkbeat shout-out none of us was expecting.

Janine Teagues, played by the show’s creator Quinta Brunson, is telling someone from the district about choosing colors for her classroom: I wanted to go with blue, which inspires focus.

District employee Manny: And calm, which is so important for primary classes. I read about that in Chalkbeat.

Janine: You read Chalkbeat?

Manny: Mhm. Janine: I basically live in the comments section, so.

Our phones immediately lit up from readers across the country. The Chalkbeat staff was, to put it mildly, freaking out in the best way. And we loved seeing responses like this one:

Spot on and so well-deserved. Teachers do read Chalkbeat!! https://t.co/FxC8fEBGUM
— Sara Clough (@Sfclough) February 8, 2024

If you’re coming to Chalkbeat for the first time because you saw us on Abbott, welcome! We’re a nonprofit news organization that reports on schools and education policy in eight locations across the country. We are powered by award-winning journalists who live in the communities we serve and care deeply about education, and by a community of teachers and parents who read our work and tell us what’s happening inside their homes and classrooms. Many teachers like Janine are also members — donors who make it possible for us to stay independent as local news struggles.

How ‘Abbott Elementary’ speaks to the bond between students and teachers: ‘You are making a difference’

What was that story Janine mentioned? There’s no exact match, we did recently write about an Indiana school’s new sensory room with walls painted teal. (We’ve also written about the show and how other Philly teachers felt watching it.)

And about our comments section: We did have a thriving one in our early days, but switched to other ways of connecting with readers a few years back. Janine’s reference makes us think that, like so many teachers, she’s been a fan for a while. Did we mention this is our 10th anniversary year?

We’re grateful that so many of the Janines of Philadelphia, and the rest of the country, are avid Chalkbeat readers. We’re willing to bet that not every Janine in your community is a Chalkbeat newsletter subscriber yet, though. We’d love it if you’d share this with them — they can sign up here — or take a moment to tell us your reaction to last night’s episode.

It’s tough to build school community post-pandemic. Music helps.

2023-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

The gym was packed. Parents, aunties, grandparents, and cousins filled the seats and more stood in the back. As their child’s class came up to perform, they jostled to the front, cell phones in hand, ready to get a good video.

The kids were dressed up in their finest sparkly red dresses or shiny slicked-back hair, with creased pant legs and bowties. All for a little winter concert at an elementary school.

It almost seemed like a night from the before times, pre-pandemic. The students’ voices weren’t always in perfect pitch, and some of them were a little fuzzy on the exact words. But the scene, and the songs, were perfectly beautiful.

It was also a surprising turnout for this school year. I lead a two-school charter network in Denver, and our school community has been a paradox post-pandemic. When we ask for feedback from our families, they ask for more in-person events: movie nights, dad and child dances, parent workshops, festivals. But typically we rely on parent volunteers to help us host these events. This year, when we’ve asked for volunteers to organize these events, almost no one signs up.

At the last moment, a little flurry of people always agree to man the grill, run the popcorn maker, or be on the clean-up crew. But it makes each event feel like a heavier lift when there aren’t quite enough hands, and that makes parents and staff more hesitant to volunteer the next time.

Turnout for most school meetings this year have been sparse, too. Our School Accountability Committee, which is supposed to have as many parents as staff members reviewing our academic data, had only staff at several meetings. We held a parent education night and only three people attended, while seven teachers were ready to share their great curriculum work.

It feels like we are longing for the social events from before the pandemic but we have all changed our boundaries. People have re-organized their work-life balance. They are used to being home more and maybe less used to extending themselves outside their most intimate sphere. Just as so many people are reluctant about going back to the office, we are reluctant to shift back to our previous level of community engagement. It feels like no one wants to leave home after collecting their kids at the end of the day and even fewer want to jump on a Zoom meeting after work.

I can understand it. I feel resistance myself about going to as many evening events as I have in the past, and teachers are more hesitant as well. Maybe we are still exhausted — or depressed, scared, and traumatized — from all we’ve been through, from the pandemic to recent gun violence. It leaves few people, parents or staff, with the energy it takes to organize and volunteer.

It has also been hard to be a parent in this country for a long time. We do so little as a society to support people with young children. Maybe living through these last few years has taken that little bit of extra parents still had to give.

Still, it worries me. Those outside of school time events are where community gets built. It’s where we get to see each other as people, and not just a teacher and a parent.

It all felt different at our winter concert performances, though. We were not trying to educate our families, we were not trying to fundraise, we weren’t even asking them to set up game booths or make cupcakes. We just invited them to hear their children sing.

It was a simple event. Staff set up the chairs and the stage. Teachers shepherded the children from classrooms to the stage and back. Our office team bought trays of cookies, and the tech teacher set up the sound system. I was grateful that staff were willing to do a little bit more that night so that we could all hear the children sing.

Music is a healing force, and children singing together often brings tears to my eyes. It is an expression of innocence and hope wrapped up in nostalgia for our own childhoods. Recent studies have shown that creative expression helps relieve anxiety, stimulates the rewiring of the brain after trauma, and even just listening to music can reduce cortisol production and stress. So it is no accident that these assemblies drew us together in community like nothing else has been able to since the pandemic.

We need the medicine of music to breathe life back into our tired, traumatized parent brains. I think it might be time for a spring concert.

Christine Ferris is the executive director of Highline Academy Charter Schools in Denver. She founded and led Our Community School, a K-8 charter school in Los Angeles, from 2005 to 2013. Ferris has been a consultant for charter schools in Denver, Los Angeles, and nationally.

How to grade schools post-pandemic? States must decide.

2023-02-01T12:00:00+00:00

Earlier this month, Massachusetts officials unveiled a new plan to hold schools accountable for students’ pandemic recovery. The pushback was swift.

Members of the state board of education questioned the pacing of the plan, which gives schools where students fell furthest behind up to four years to return to pre-pandemic academic levels. Worried the plan would widen achievement gaps, they called for more ambitious goals.

“We must do better,” one board member said, noting the generous federal aid schools received to speed students’ recovery.

At the following board meeting, held last week, school district leaders from across the state showed up to defend the plan. They enumerated the challenges students faced during the pandemic, from housing instability to poor mental health, and the staff shortages and other difficulties that continue to plague schools. The state must take those extraordinary circumstances into account, they argued.

“It is important that accountability systems be not only aggressive,” one superintendent said, “but also achievable and compassionate.”

This debate — in essence, whether to ease up on academic expectations or double down — is flaring up across the country as school accountability systems creak back to life after a pandemic pause.

Mandated by federal and state laws, the systems set goals for schools, rate their performance, and direct support to schools identified as struggling. But the pandemic has complicated every step of that process.

What are reasonable goals after student test scores plunged last year to their lowest level in decades? How to acknowledge schools’ dogged efforts to distribute meals and laptops, offer COVID testing, and track down missing students during a public health crisis, while still insisting that they provide students a rigorous education? And what is the right way to target support when so many students need so much help?

As states try to answer those questions, longstanding disagreements over testing students and rating schools have resurfaced — and calls to rethink those practices have grown.

“I do think the status quo is being questioned,” said Chris Domaleski, associate director of the Center for Assessment. “There’s an appetite for lasting changes to accountability.”

Are states asking too much of schools — or not enough?

During the first two years of the pandemic, the federal government gave schools a reprieve from accountability. Now that grace period is over.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Education resumed enforcement of the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, the 2015 law that requires states to identify the lowest performing schools based on test scores and other metrics. The agency allowed states to adjust their accountability systems to account for pandemic disruptions, including missing data from when tests were suspended or scaled back.

One of the most common changes was to recalibrate growth measures, which track how much students improve on tests over time. Due to missing data, some states compared students’ test scores from last year to pre-pandemic, while other states simply scrapped that metric. In some cases, those arcane technical changes made a big difference in school ratings.

In Virginia, which made a number of such changes, 10% of schools received a low rating last fall — only slightly more than before the pandemic despite a major decline in test scores. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin and state education officials said the school rating system, which was established under a Democratic administration, obscured the extent of students’ academic struggles by giving schools too much credit for progress over pass rates.

“This masks the catastrophic learning losses experienced by our most vulnerable students,” said Jillian Balow, Virginia’s superintendent of education, in a statement when the ratings were released.

In Arizona, the number of grade K-8 schools earning As or Bs actually increased last year compared with before the pandemic. Some critics questioned the high ratings when state tests showed that only a third of students were proficient in math last year.

But Kathy Hoffman, the former state superintendent of education who lost her bid for reelection in November, said schools should be recognized for making progress.

“I do think growth is really important for Arizona schools to be striving for,” she said, adding that students improved their test scores more than expected from 2021 to 2022.

In North Carolina, school grades moved in the opposite direction, with more than 500 additional schools earning D or F grades last fall than did so before the pandemic. In that state, student growth counts for just 20% of a school’s annual rating, compared with 50% in Arizona.

“The current accountability model does not do justice to the hard work that teachers and students put in every day in schools across the state,” said Catherine Truitt, North Carolina’s superintendent of education, in a statement when the results were announced.

California removed student growth from its school ratings last year, but plans to bring it back in 2023 and add additional measures of student progress, said Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the state board of education. Because lower-income students tend to have lower test scores, rating schools on student achievement rather than growth punishes schools serving more poor students, she added.

“Comparing their outcomes in school when you haven’t evened out the playing field for them, either in or outside of school, doesn’t tell you much about what the school is contributing,” said Darling-Hammond, who is also an education professor at Stanford University.

States debate what to do with struggling schools

All the hand wringing over school ratings might suggest that they carry dire consequences for schools. But in most cases, they don’t.

Under ESSA, the main upshot for struggling schools is an increase in federal aid and a requirement to create improvement plans. However, many states have used the law’s flexibility to limit how many schools are identified as struggling, according to an analysis of 10 states by the education advocacy group All4Ed. While some states targeted more than half of schools for extra support, other states identified fewer than 5%, the group found.

Some state officials blame limited funding and capacity for the low numbers, said Anne Hyslop, All4Ed’s director of policy development, who co-authored the report.

“A lot of states will say, ‘We don’t want to over-identify schools, but then not be able to give them money and other resources to actually make improvements,’” she said.

Hyslop said states could have “supercharged” their accountability systems last year by funneling some of their federal pandemic aid to struggling schools. However, she saw little evidence of that happening.

It was a “missed opportunity,” she said, to “see this restart of the accountability system as part of the COVID recovery effort.”

In some states, persistently low-rated schools can face harsh interventions, such as state takeovers. But states typically avoid such drastic measures.

Massachusetts law, for example, allows the state to appoint an official to take control of any chronically low-performing school district. However, only three districts are currently under state control, and Boston struck a deal to avoid that fate last year.

This month, state lawmakers introduced a bill to revoke the state’s authority to take over districts. Instead, the state would have to give more money to struggling schools, and districts would create plans to address the “root causes” of schools’ low achievement. The bill would also end the state’s requirement that high schoolers pass an exam to graduate.

“We definitely think it’s time to change the way we go about assessment and accountability in the state,” said Lisa Guisbond, executive director of the advocacy group Citizens for Public Schools.

But critics say that softening accountability would let schools off the hook for catching students up — even as they have an unprecedented amount of funding to aid their recovery efforts.

“We’re not really interested in listening to excuses for why it can’t be possible or giving more grace,” said National Parents Union co-founder Keri Rodrigues, whose children attend Massachusetts schools. “What we’re looking for is urgency.”

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org.

Schools on track to meet COVID relief deadlines as spending surges, experts say

2022-12-20T19:40:00+00:00

Earlier this year, when $122 billion in pandemic aid remained largely untapped, analysts warned that public schools could forfeit some of the windfall unless spending sped up.

But by this fall, spending had kicked into overdrive. In September, schools were using just over $5 billion in pandemic aid per month — more than $1 billion above the monthly amount this spring, according to a recent analysis by Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University.

School officials say they expected spending to accelerate this school year as planned projects got underway. Now, in sharp contrast to earlier warnings, observers say most schools are on track to meet the deadlines and avoid losing any of the coveted federal funds.

“They had to increase their pace — and they did,” said Marguerite Roza, the lab’s director, who earlier this year said schools needed to spend more per month to exhaust their funds by the September 2024 deadline. Her forecast now: “I don’t think there will be any money left over.”

Roza said her concern with schools’ slower spending before was not the risk of missed deadlines, but the danger of students not getting academic and social support quickly enough. The delayed surge in spending could also precipitate a sharp drop off in services and staffing when the money runs out, she added.

The latest projections offer some validation to school district officials who say they have been steadily spending the federal aid even in the face of staff and supply shortages and critics who accused districts of dallying.

The school system in Wayne Township, Indiana, spent all of the first COVID relief package it received by the deadline in September, said Barry Gardner, who oversees the district’s finances. It has also drawn down nearly 80% of the second package, which expires next September.

The money has helped pay for ventilation upgrades, expanded summer school, tutoring, and mental health services, along with nearly 100 new staff positions — though about one-fifth remain unfilled due to hiring challenges, Gardner said.

Meanwhile, the district has been making plans for the final round of federal aid. It has already spent more than a third of the $37 million, and officials are confident they will use the remainder by the September 2024 deadline.

“This is the message that we’ve been saying all along,” Gardner said. “That we’ve been spending these dollars in a strategic fashion based upon the approved timelines.”

Since 2020, Congress has passed three pandemic aid packages for schools that amount to a staggering $190 billion. The vast majority of the money went to school districts, which could use it for a wide range of purposes — from purchasing masks and desk shields to renovating buildings and hiring teachers, tutors, and counselors.

The final funding infusion was the largest and most controversial. At $122 billion, it was bigger than any single investment the federal government had previously made in public schools. Unlike the first two packages, which had bipartisan support, the Democratic majority in Congress passed the final stimulus bill in March 2021 over the objections of Republicans, who called it unaffordable and unnecessary.

By early 2022, reports began to emerge that schools had so far spent just a fraction of the money in the final stimulus package, known as the American Rescue Plan. Schools acknowledged the slower-than-expected spending, citing hiring challenges and supply backlogs. But to critics, the sluggish pace suggested waste and inefficiency.

“While states and school districts sit on billions, students are struggling,” said South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott in an August op-ed. He introduced a bill, backed by other Republicans, that would convert some of the unspent money into scholarships families could spend on tutoring or private school tuition.

Certain facts are not in dispute. Schools spent little of the $122 billion last academic year — only about 15%, according to Edunomics Lab’s estimate — though they continued spending down the earlier aid packages.

Schools also encountered real difficulties hiring personnel and purchasing supplies, which slowed down spending. Those challenges have continued into this year, with 45% of public schools reporting at least one unfilled teaching position and more than 80% reporting supply chain challenges, according to a nationally representative survey conducted in October.

But interpretations of those facts have varied wildly. While critics said it’s taken too long to get money out the door, others consider the criticism unfair.

“I’ve been calling this panic-mongering basically since day one,” said Jess Gartner, who runs Allovue, a school-finance technology firm.

She and others who work with school districts say criticism of their COVID spending misses the mark for several reasons.

First, the data is incomplete. Federal aid trackers do not capture districts’ real-time expenditures due to reporting lags. And expenses that are spread out over time, such as salaries, might not appear until later spending reports.

Second, districts have been drawing down the first two pools of pandemic aid before starting on the third, which schools have until fall 2024 to allocate.

“Any rational human being is going to spend the dollars that expire first,” Gartner said.

Also, as a condition of the stimulus money, Congress required states and school districts to consult community members and submit spending plans. The plans were not all approved until late 2021 — well into the 2021-22 school year and just as districts were starting to budget for the following fiscal year. Then schools still had to secure vendors, get additional approval for construction projects, and follow elaborate procurement rules.

“You don’t snap a finger and do that in a week,” said Dennis Roche, co-founder of Burbio, a data service that tracks school spending. “It takes time.”

Now, the final aid money is budgeted and long-planned programs are up and running.

For instance, one urban district launched a large-scale tutoring program this fall after nearly a year of planning and finding dozens of vendors, said Jonathan Travers, managing partner of the consulting firm Education Resource Strategies.

“Anecdotally, I have a sense that in a number of districts new initiatives that were in procurement, that were in the planning stage for a long time,” he said, “this fall got off the ground.”

While spending has sped up, it remains more of a marathon than a sprint for many school systems. That includes the one in Paterson, New Jersey, which received nearly $175 million in pandemic aid.

Supply chain issues have forced the district to plan far in advance, with some items that were ordered in May only arriving this month, said Richard Matthews, the business administrator. Other major expenditures that have been in the works, such as new HVAC units and a $14 million custodial contract, should commence next year.

Despite the complexities, Paterson has spent all of its round one funds and nearly 80% of its round two allotment, which helped fund summer and after-school programs, mental health services, and hiring bonuses. The district has also drawn down about 30% of its final aid package — nearly two years ahead of the deadline, Matthews said.

“We’re in pretty good shape,” he said.

Meanwhile, New Jersey lawmakers have questioned the pace of schools’ spending. But officials like Matthews say their top concern is putting the money to good use before it’s gone.

“Our challenge is to make sure not just that we spend it,” he said, “but we spend it wisely.”

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org.

Update: This article has been updated to include Marguerite Roza’s assessment of the potential consequences of schools’ pace of pandemic aid spending.

The Comeback: Memphis students and teachers share stories of resilience after pandemic

2022-11-14T22:46:06+00:00

Shreya Ganesh had been struggling with motivation as a Memphis high school freshman when one day, the district superintendent tweeted that all students were getting a half day off.

It was spring 2020, right before spring break and right as the COVID pandemic was beginning to take the nation and world hostage. Memphis-Shelby County Schools would eventually announce that in-person learning was over for the school year.

“And I didn’t even know what to do with myself,” said Shreya, now a senior at White Station High School, at a Chalkbeat and New Memphis-hosted storytelling night. “OK, I thought, this is just a really, really long spring break.”

Shreya said that the pandemic disruption and online learning, while incredibly challenging, helped her take a mental break from a taxing school schedule and forced her to ask herself, “What do I really want to do?” The time she spent doing schoolwork alongside her sister, a college student also learning from home, heavily influenced new passions and goals. And Shreya said she developed more intentional friendships, even if she couldn’t see her peers in person. After a year of online learning, she returned to in-person classes as a junior.

“My first day of junior year, I felt like I was finally stepping into the shoes I’d been making for the last two years,” Shreya said, adding that she finally got to connect with friends she had made during online learning, and that her anxiety around tests and college had plummeted during the pandemic. “I’m really proud of how I grew during all of this. This is my comeback story.”

Right before the school year began, Chalkbeat Tennessee partnered with New Memphis for an evening of stories from students and educators. New Memphis also announced its news class of Educators of Excellence.

You can watch the stories, including Shreya’s, in full below. Special thanks to additional event partners, Spillit, and the Daily Memphian.

Storytellers hit on the theme of “The Comeback,” which is what the last school year was supposed to be as students returned to classrooms after months of remote or hybrid learning, disconnection, and uncertainty. And for many schools, it was a comeback year for a while, as schools returned to in-person and vaccines were widely available. But as Shreya’s story illustrates, students and teachers are forever changed — in some good and in many incredibly challenging ways.

Watch Shreya’s story in full below, as well as stories from four other Memphis educators and students.

Shreya Ganesh, senior at White Station High School and Bank of America student leader

Curley Harris, dean of students at Promise Academy Spring Hill

Natalie Nixon, senior at Houston High School and student leader with BRIDGES

Athumuni (Arthur) Niyokwizigigwa, sophomore at Central High School and student leader with the Refugee Empowerment Program

Josh Czupryk, director of academic operations at University Schools

Caroline Bauman is the community engagement manager at Chalkbeat.

Detroit district struggles to solve its problem with math learning loss

2022-09-08T19:09:45+00:00

In a summer-school classroom at Detroit’s Foreign Language Immersion and Cultural Studies School, Aladdin Posey and his third-grade classmates were given a math problem to solve: Organize the digits in the number “36,892” into their respective place values — ones, tens, hundreds, and so forth.

Aladdin glanced at his seat partner’s paper, then hurriedly changed the numbers on his own table, before instructor Natalege Sims stopped him.

“I don’t want you to change it to what she put … ,” Sims said. “Because mistakes are proof that you’re — what?”

“Trying!” the seven-student math class responded in unison.

Over at Detroit Public Schools Community District headquarters, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti has a tough math problem to solve, too: Across the district, student math performance, which was already alarmingly low before the pandemic, has gotten even worse since then.

“A lot of the attention has been on literacy as far as the pandemic is concerned, but the actual impact of the pandemic was seen largely in math more so than literacy,” Vitti said in a July school board meeting. The trend has been mirrored nationwide.

Sims’ summer class was one of many pockets of support across the district for students who need the most help, made possible by the $500-per-student in federal COVID relief funds that individual schools in the district received. The lesson used problem packets, multicolored place-value coins and other materials from Curriculum Associates’ Focus on Mathematics program.

But for all the money and trying, district officials are still laboring without a clear formula for how best to tackle the problem. While there’s growing consensus on the benefits of one-on-one and small-group tutoring for literacy education, math experts and educators continue to debate the most effective solutions to the more recent learning loss and the longstanding insufficiencies that have plagued math education in Detroit and across the country.

Intensive tutoring is one near-term solution some experts have proposed. But DPSCD hasn’t been able to find enough vendors or people available to provide tutoring services at the scale it needs. That has left officials scrambling to come up with a comprehensive, district-wide approach to math intervention.

Left unchecked, the math learning loss could have grave long-term implications, experts say. Children who miss out on quality K-12 math education risk failing out of beginner-level math and science courses in higher education and may lack the kind of quantitative literacy needed to decipher life-or-death information, such as medical risks.

How online learning during the pandemic undermined math learning

At the end of the 2020-21 school year, 26% of DPSCD students who took the end-of-year iReady assessment for reading were scoring three or more grades below the standard — a 1.6-percentage point increase from 2018-19 school year.

But the blow to math learning over that same period was greater: At the end of 2020-21, 24% of students who took the test scored three or more grades below the math grade standard — a 5.8-percentage-point increase from before the pandemic.

On Michigan’s high-stakes standardized exam, the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress, math performance was similarly troubling last school year. The percentage of students in grades 3-7 who were proficient on the exam was 6.2%, according to results released Sept. 1. That’s down from pre-pandemic levels of nearly 14% in 2018-19.

Detroit isn’t struggling alone. A handful of national studies from Curriculum Associates and the education research group NWEA indicate that since the pandemic, more of America’s K-12 students are scoring two or more grade levels below the standard in math than in reading.

In Detroit, Vitti attributed the gap to the fact that “foundational principles of math” were particularly difficult to teach and learn online.

Outside experts say there’s something to this. Teaching math well involves being able to physically circulate the room and see how the students are taking in the content by observing what they’re expressing on their faces and on paper, said Kevin Dykema, president-elect of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The switch to virtual learning prevented teachers from being able to do that.

Sims remembers how, in December 2021, when DPSCD switched to online school for three Fridays of the month, teaching math to her third-grade students at Bates Academy became trickier.

Sims said she had gotten used to observing their body language and inviting them to share their work on the whiteboard to track their learning. Being online meant she suddenly had to rely on online platforms like Schoology to gather work from students. And they had to do without “manipulatives,” or tangible objects like place-value coins or popsicle sticks used to visualize math concepts.

A lot of her third-graders passed up the online platforms and stuck with old-fashioned pencil-and-paper work. Students would do their work on a piece of paper and hold it up to their laptop camera or take a picture of their work with their phone and send it in, Sims said.

Some experts say the stress of the pandemic worsened students’ existing math anxiety, causing them to feel tense and distracted in remote class.

Determining which students need intervention and deciphering how students are communicating their math needs are two of the trickiest parts of remote teaching, said Tamala Wiley, director of business development for Teaching Lab, a nonprofit organization specializing in teacher professional learning.

Detroit struggles to find tutoring vendors

Acknowledging the profound impact of the pandemic on education, the federal government appropriated $190 billion in COVID relief funds to America’s schools throughout 2020 and 2021, but left it largely to states and district leaders to figure out how to spend it in the interest of student success. Detroit received nearly $1.3 billion of these funds.

For many districts, including Detroit, the spending plans have involved offering intensive tutoring to help students recover from learning loss. Some states, such as Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee, launched their own statewide tutoring programs for reading and math. Michigan did not, so the Detroit district has worked primarily with outside vendors.

The school board recently voted to renew a contract with Beyond Basics, a literacy nonprofit, to provide one-on-one reading intervention to over a thousand of the district’s K-12 students. The initial contract, valued at $9 million to $12.62 million, was paid for largely by COVID relief funds and money DPSCD received after settling the federal “right to read” lawsuit.

There has been no commitment yet on that scale for math intervention. It’s not for lack of trying.

More than a year ago, the district put out a request for proposals notifying 22 math tutoring services of the district’s need for Tier 2 and Tier 3 math intervention for more than 1,000 students beginning fall 2021. Tier 2 intervention involves teacher-led small group support, and Tier 3 intervention involves one-on-one support.

Ultimately, the district didn’t find a vendor that could handle the job.

“We did not believe that the vendors who applied to do so had the ability to scale across multiple schools and provide direct math intervention to students,” Vitti said. “The vendors may have had products for intervention, but we were looking for the product and people to provide that intervention, as we did with literacy.”

Experts find the lack of math tutors in Detroit unsurprising, given similar shortages nationwide. People qualified in math education are opting for higher-paying teaching jobs over tutoring jobs, said Dykema, from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Tony Hawk, DPSCD’s executive director of K-12 mathematics, identified math and science as “critical shortage areas” for qualified personnel to hire as teachers or tutors.

Without the resources for a district-wide initiative, the district is targeting math intervention at individual schools, which can use a mix of school-based Title 1 funding, COVID relief funding, and general fund discretionary dollars to arrange math tutoring.

Summer math student Jacob Hill works through math problems in Curriculum Associates’ Focus on Mathematics problem packets.

Following requirements outlined by the Michigan Department of Education, the district analyzes school-specific data to determine which schools should receive more support, said Leenet Campbell-Williams, the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

Just last month, the school board approved a $319,500 contract with Math Corps, a nonprofit tutoring group housed at Wayne State University, to provide Tier 2 and Tier 3 support for students at Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School.

Select K-8 schools get math tutoring services from City Year, a volunteer-based AmeriCorps program, and use the Focus on Math instructional resources from Curriculum Associates.

In Aladdin’s summer school class, Sims uses the Focus on Math multicolored place-value coins and other handheld tools to help students grasp concepts.

“That way when students say they’re ‘carrying the one,’ they’re really carrying it,” Sims said.

Meanwhile, the district is looking for longer-term solutions. After struggling to find outside support, DPSCD plans to build up its internal resources, investing in academic interventionists, peer educators, and its current teachers to offer math intervention across the district, Hawk said.

Dykema says his organization has seen the same strategy of investing in classroom teachers adopted in other urban districts, such as Baltimore, Washington D.C., and the Tampa area.

The long-term focus will benefit students long after the COVID dollars run out, he said.

After the pandemic, a call to overhaul math education

While Detroit struggles with remedying math learning loss from the pandemic, it’s also confronting a decades-long trend of underachievement in mathematics. And that trend stretches well beyond Detroit.

Across the country, leaders in math education are trying to direct the current conversation about pandemic recovery toward reforms that will address the longstanding difficulties that educators face in engaging students with math.

The concern around pandemic-related learning loss doesn’t begin to reflect what education leaders have been dealing with for years in terms of how to support student learning in math, said Kevin Dykema, president-elect of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Some experts say that too often, students are learning how to regurgitate math concepts, but lack an awareness of real-world applications. Schools are teaching students how to perform well on math assessments, they say, rather than how to understand and apply math concepts.

This approach deprives students of the skills to knowledgeably apply the concepts they’ve memorized to real-world scenarios, Dykema said. So students soon become convinced that they’ll never use what they’re learning in math class.

Returning to a pre-pandemic norm is simply not good enough, Dykema said. Math education, he said, is due for a wholesale rethinking.

“Math education should not look like the way it did 20 years ago, because society has changed … math education needs to change,” Dykema said.

For one thing, he said, “the teacher should no longer be at the top of the room talking to students.”

By encouraging student-to-student discourse and de-emphasizing the need for students to memorize calculations as they once did before calculators were widely available, Dykema believes math education can evolve to serve 2022’s K-12 students.

William Schmidt, a university distinguished professor at Michigan State University and director of the Center for the Study of Curriculum Policy, said structural reform needs to come from the root of all math education: textbooks.

In a study of 23 math textbooks across 19 countries, Schmidt found that fewer than 1% of the problems in the books dealt with higher-order applications — that is, problems that asked students to apply mathematical reasoning to real-world matters. One eighth-grade math textbook in the U.S. contained only seven such problems.

Making up for this gap, Schmidt said, “is not the parents’ responsibility. It’s not the teachers’ responsibility. It’s the textbooks.”

The current state of math education, Schmidt said, is jeopardizing American students’ quantitative literacy at a time when institutions around the world are generating enormous amounts of quantitative data and need people who can analyze them.

Schmidt said he worries for the livelihood of students who memorize their way through K-12 math classes. He found that the risks of poor quantitative literacy flared during the pandemic as the public misunderstood or misinterpreted statistics about infection rates and vaccines.

He and other educators say that beyond the learning loss, the pandemic has drawn attention to the country’s decades-long struggle with getting students excited about math. And now schools have an opportunity to rethink the ways math is taught.

“Maybe the best way to bring those kids back from the pandemic is to bring them back through the world, and through growing understanding,” Schmidt said. “Don’t bring them back by making them do more of those computations, but rather through showing them how math is important to them. Give them a reason to want to come back.”

— Grace Tucker

Grace Tucker is a reporting intern at Chalkbeat Detroit. Reach her at gtucker@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit schools reopen amid optimism about getting over pandemic challenges

2022-08-30T16:22:32+00:00

Not even an hour into the new school year at Mark Twain School for Scholars, fourth grader Alexander Vinson was already creating abstract art.

“I’m going to start blending the colors,” Alexander said as he used a brush and red, blue, and yellow watercolor paint to fill in triangles and squares. But as he looked at his colorful creation, he began to worry. The colors had started to bleed together, and he thought he’d messed up.

“I love it,” his teacher, Jessica Gunter, told him, praising the vibrant orange shapes he had created. “That’s why it’s abstract. We talked about blending ... once the paper is wet, sometimes the colors get intertwined, and that’s OK. It gives us an expression.”

Students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District returned to class this week amid optimism that after more than two challenging years of pandemic learning, the 2022-23 school year would be a return to normal.

“I feel like they’re just so ready to be back here,” said Gunter, who has taught at Mark Twain for four years. “Art gives them a chance to express their feelings ... express themselves.”

Alexander, 9, was excited enough to be back in the classroom that he “woke up at 5 a.m.” just to be ready for the first day of school.

Across from him, fellow fourth grader Savannah Boyd-Roxanne said she likes school and is happy to tackle “challenging” subjects like math. Both students said they’re looking forward to doing addition and fractions.

Laurelyn Williams teaches third grade math during the first day of school at Mark Twain School for Scholars in Detroit on Aug. 29, 2022.

District and school leaders are hoping to sustain that level of enthusiasm as they confront the challenges of returning to pre-pandemic normalcy — the same kind of challenges schools across the state and nation have encountered. Enrollment is down. Chronic absenteeism has increased. Students are less engaged. The marginal academic improvements Detroit students had made before the pandemic have disappeared, and far more students are now struggling in key subjects such as math and reading.

“Our focus this year is student achievement, student achievement, student achievement,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said on a visit to the Mark Twain school Monday. “Underneath that is trying to address chronic absenteeism and improving enrollment.”

The district has lost roughly 3,000 students since the pandemic began, but Vitti is “optimistic” the district will see enrollment gains this year. Already officials have noticed an uptick in kindergarten and first grade students, he said, most likely due to parents feeling more comfortable sending their children to in-person classes.

“Obviously, we want to get to where we were before the pandemic hit in March 2020,” when the district was seeing chronic absenteeism fall and enrollment increase, Vitti said. But at this point, “we just want to see improvement.”

The district is recovering from two years that were disrupted by periods of online learning and COVID precautions such as indoor mask wearing, social distancing, and weekly COVID testing. Now, those protocols are no longer required.

“Without the distraction of COVID this year,” Vitti said, the district should be better positioned to offer students the academic and behavioral support they need to see the growth educators and families have been hoping for.

From left, Alexander Vinson, 9, Bryant Williams, 8, DJ Paton, 9, and Jesus Quinones, 9, joke around while making their way to their next class during the first day of school at Mark Twain School for Scholars in Detroit on Aug. 29, 2022.

In front of Mark Twain Monday morning, principal Sheila Langford greeted students and families as they walked up to the building, sharing in the cheerfulness of the day by waving a blue pom pom.

“I feel like I always have high expectations no matter what,” Langford said. “I just want the children to learn a lot and enjoy learning and being actively engaged in their lessons.”

The small school enrolls 185 students, down slightly from before the pandemic. To bring students and families back into the building, Langford and her staff have actively done door-to-door canvassing and community events, tactics the district has adopted as part of its back-to-school enrollment push.

As part of its effort to keep students engaged in the classroom, the school has students fill out a survey to determine what their interests are and how the school can better address those wants. The school also is renovating its science lab to make it available to middle school and upper elementary students during the coming year, Langford said. Last year, it partnered with the Detroit School of Arts to offer students digital art lessons.

Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti talks with second graders during the first day of school at Mark Twain School for Scholars in Detroit on Aug. 29, 2022.

Inside Mark Twain, Shannon Fawaz’s second grade students warmly greeted Vitti and school board President Angelique Peterson-Mayberry as they visited their classroom Monday.

“Who’s happy to be in school today?” Peterson-Mayberry asked.

“Me!” students responded, as several hands shot up toward the ceiling.

The superintendent and school board president hovered around the students as they got to work on a “Find a Friend” worksheet, a simple exercise Fawaz started the day with to get the students to share their interests and hobbies with one another. Students talked among themselves about their favorite video games or their love of playing soccer.

“It’s so nice to see the kids and feel their energy,” said Fawaz. “To be behind the screen was so difficult ... there were long days trying to make that work.”

Fawaz’s hope: for her students to have a complete school year and “to grow socially, emotionally, and academically.”

“Being with them in person, you can really find out what their needs are and better reach them, and they get to know you better,” she said. “It’s a personal touch.”

Later on, Fawaz set aside time to introduce class expectations for her second grade students. Next to Fawaz’s desk is a chart with each student’s name on it and a collection of green, yellow and red cards.

The different card colors, she said, serve as a system of warnings and are useful to help students recognize when they may be breaking the class’s shared ground rules, such as “stay on task,” “don’t talk out of turn,” and “use manners.” If the students can manage to stay on the green for the week, Fawaz will treat them with cupcakes or ice cream.

As the morning wore on, a couple students began to chat loudly. To remind them of the ground rules, Fawaz called on Dalylah Clark, 8, to walk over and point at the chart.

“Let’s say there’s a time you make a mistake,” Fawaz told her class. “It’s not the end of the world, as long as you grow from it and you change your behavior.”

Several teachers at Mark Twain said they felt the last school year ended on a good note and they’re looking forward to building on it.

Debra Adams, an English and social studies teacher, is stressing relationship building, something she feels has been lost in the last couple of school years.

Her fourth and fifth grade students will have the opportunity to discuss and reflect with their peers on their class lessons and reading activities in small groups. Student desks are arranged in groups of four or five, rather than spread out in rows facing the board — as they were last year to maintain social distancing.

“I never went through this type of experience as a student or a child,” Adams said. “I just want to make sure that they’re comfortable. This is their classroom.”

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

How can NYC help students aspiring to attend college? Recent grads have ideas

2022-08-22T18:12:12+00:00

One college counselor for 500 high school seniors. Lack of communication between school leaders and teachers. And inadequate mental health support.

These were some of the issues that have made high school seniors’ road to college difficult during the pandemic.

High school graduates across the U.S. have lost interest in pursuing higher education. The likelihood of high school graduates pursuing a four-year degree dropped from 71% to 51% in the last two years, according to a report earlier this year from the nonprofit ECMC Group. Increased stress and anxiety among students has led to a strong aversion to being in the classroom and is one possible reason behind the rise of chronic absenteeism in NYC public schools.

Some students who struggled with stress and anxiety this year ended up having difficulty completing the coursework they needed to graduate.

After two years of students transitioning between remote and in person learning, some New York students are calling for schools to develop better structures, communication, and support for their graduating seniors who are headed to higher education.

As the Class of 2023 gets ready for its senior year, here’s what three past graduates say schools can do differently.

Milena Vilez, freshman at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Manhattan

Milena Vilez grew up in Ecuador until she was nine years old, when she moved to the U. S. Vilez said she had greater access to educational resources and opportunities in the U.S. than in Ecuador. But she didn’t anticipate how hard her senior year would be.

The college application process at her school was like a “rollercoaster,” said Vilez, who graduated in 2021 from Aviation Career and Technical High School in Queens.

“I was lost in the whole process and had to seek help,” she said.

Her school had a graduating class of 500 seniors, but only one college counselor to seek help from. Vilez joined one-hour Zoom meetings with the counselor — along with hundreds of other students who also had questions. So there was no guarantee that her questions would be answered.

At home, she helped her parents take care of her younger brother who struggled with his online classes. She also cooked for her family while attending her virtual classes. Being on the computer almost all day without social interaction or physical activity, made it “harder to de-stress,” Vilez said.

She said she would have benefited from mental health resources, but they were not provided to students until the end of the year, and information about the services were not shared unless requested.

A group outside of school gave her crucial help when deciding on her focus in higher education. Vilez has been able to nurture her passion for studying political science thanks to YVote, a youth organization that focuses on inspiring young voters to become civically educated and engaged.

One key piece of advice from Vilez to high schools: Ensure that each student can rely on — and get access to — the school’s college resources, and provide mental health resources for students early and often.

Lucas Rosenberg, freshman at Fashion Institute of Technology, Manhattan

As a senior last year at Brooklyn High School of the Arts, Rosenberg had a very “chaotic” experience.

After being online every day for the past few years, Rosenberg started having painful and frequent migraines that led him to seek help from a neurologist.

“I was so isolated and lonely during the pandemic,” said Rosenberg. “My health was definitely at its lowest.”

Rosenberg felt comfortable applying to colleges, because he said it was similar to the application process for middle schools. If it weren’t for that experience, he would have faced more challenges, he said. Still, being a senior was very difficult.

School administrators put a lot of pressure on teachers who then passed it on students, said Rosenberg. And teachers’ attention was split between those who were excited to return to the classroom and others who wanted to continue online learning, even while they were in person.

“Nobody knew what was going on, what next week would be like, who to contact for support … just uncontrolled chaos the whole time,” said Rosenberg. “If you went to the dean to talk about it, he would just be like, ‘I don’t know. This is just how their class is.’ I feel like I was hearing that from everyone: ‘I don’t know, just figure something out.’”

At the same time, “the administration was panicking because grades were low and attendance was low. Suddenly not as many people were graduating [as] were supposed to be,” said Rosenberg.

Teachers expressed their aggression and frustration at students who were not performing well, instead of having sympathy for struggling students, said Rosenberg. Although he successfully graduated on time, it was discouraging for him to see that lack of care and empathy.

Rosenberg’s key advice to high schools: Communicate with teachers so they can provide better help for their students, and maintain organization so that teachers and students don’t feel lost.

Binyu Wang, freshman at Baruch College, Manhattan

Most of what Binyu Wang learned regarding the college application process was from her own research and conversations with friends.

Like Vilez, getting involved in an external organization helped Wang navigate last year’s college application process more than her teachers and guidance counselors did.

Some English teachers offered to edit students’ personal essays, but ended up being “too busy” from their overwhelming classroom workloads to actually help, said Wang. And she struggled to receive help with other parts of her college application at school. So Wang sought help outside of her school.

She joined Bottom Line NYC, an organization dedicated to helping high school seniors from under-resourced communities earn a college degree, for help with her personal statement and college application.

One key piece of advice Wang has for high schools: Integrate teachers’ discussions of — and advice about — college resources with students throughout the school year.

“I expected our regular teachers to give us more support,” Wang said. “I felt like they should have talked more about it, because one of my teachers did go into talking about paying loans and all of that, but it was just one teacher.”

Elena Johnson is Chalkbeat’s 2022 Community Engagement and Listening Intern.

The Comeback: An evening of stories from Memphis educators and students

2022-08-16T19:54:02+00:00

Time: Aug. 24, 6-8:30 p.m. CT

Location: 409 S Main St, Memphis, TN 38103

A new school year is starting following what was meant to be a comeback year for America’s schools — a return to classrooms and rebuilding of communities after months of remote or hybrid learning, disconnection, and uncertainty.

And for many schools, it was a comeback year, at least for a while. Schools fully reopened for in-person learning. Vaccines were available for teens and would soon be for children over 5. Districts mapped out how to spend an unprecedented amount of federal COVID relief money.

But the buildings that swung open their doors to students in the fall of 2021 were changed — as were the students and educators who filled them.

Join New Memphis, Chalkbeat Tennessee, and Spillit for an evening of stories from students and educators that speak to the theme “The Comeback,” on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 6-8:30 p.m. at 409 S. Main Street in Memphis. New Memphis will also announce its new class of Educators of Excellence. Special thanks to our editorial partner for this event, The Daily Memphian.

Doors open at 6 p.m., and light refreshments and drinks will be provided. This event is free to attend, but RSVP so we know you are coming. Celebrate the start of a new school year with us by listening to these powerful stories.

Storytellers include:

Omolola Ajayi, seventh grade teacher at Wooddale Middle School
Shreya Ganesh, senior at White Station High School and Bank of America student leader
Athumuni (Arthur) Niyokwizigigwa, sophomore at Central High School and student leader with the Refugee Empowerment Program
Curley Harris, dean of students at Promise Academy Spring Hill
Natalie Nixon, senior at Houston High School and student leader with BRIDGES
Josh Czupryk, director of academic operations at University Schools

Technology, Skyline rollout dominate Chicago Public Schools’ federal relief vendor spending

2022-08-11T15:59:21+00:00

Technology companies and curriculum consultants received nearly half of the federal stimulus money Chicago Public Schools has spent so far on outside vendors, according to purchase order data obtained by Chalkbeat.

Almost a quarter went to five companies helping the district roll out Skyline, a new curriculum schools can choose to adopt and one of former CEO Janice Jackson’s signature initiatives. Nearly a fifth of the spending went to CDW and Apple, the district’s main computer vendors.

The amounts are still a small fraction of the $2.5 billion Chicago schools got from the federal government’s two latest stimulus packages for schools. The $156.6 million spent on almost 1,000 outside vendors so far accounts for about 6% of the funding from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, or ESSER — an unprecedented infusion of federal dollars aimed at helping students bounce back from the pandemic’s massive academic and mental health fallout.

Chicago has so far spent the bulk of its COVID relief money on salaries and benefits, mostly for positions that existed before the pandemic hit. The district is an outlier, particularly among high-poverty districts, in how much of its COVID relief dollars has covered staffing costs: Out of about $871.9 million in spending the district reported to the state in early July, more than 85% went to pay and benefits — compared to 27% on average for other Illinois districts. Chicago officials have said this spending has allowed the district to retain employees even as it lost enrollment.

The data, which includes some open purchase orders that have not yet been paid out, covers only spending on district-run campuses. The district has passed on about $38.5 million to charter and contract schools as required by law, but it was unable to provide more detailed data on how they spent the money.

The district also said it recently reclassified some vendor expenses previously paid with other dollars to cover them with COVID relief funds, so they are not included in the purchase order data it provided earlier this summer.

It’s hard to put Chicago’s COVID relief spending on outside vendors into national context because relatively little detailed data from other districts is available, said Bree Dusseault of the nonprofit Center on Reinventing Public Education.

“We want to see districts invest in at least something new and different to disrupt an inequitable school system, which wasn’t designed to recover well,” Dusseault said. “They should be investing in new approaches.”

In Chicago, a large chunk of the money is going to longstanding vendors or to initiatives that were already in the works when the pandemic hit, such as the Skyline curriculum. The district has also brought in new partners to provide student mental health support and other services, including a collaboration with Lurie Children’s Hospital to expand behavioral health teams in schools. The data indicates the hospital has gotten a little more than $250,000.

Dusseault stressed the importance of using the money to support and keep staff, many of whom are leaving after two difficult years of pandemic disruption. She said unveiling a high-quality curriculum could be a powerful tool to help schools bounce back from the pandemic’s academic damage, as long as it is coupled with teacher training and ongoing support.

The district said in a statement that it works to spend the federal dollars “thoughtfully and deliberately.”

All in all, about 20 large vendors account for the bulk of the spending, or more than $105 million, with schools across the city engaging other companies and organizations on a much smaller scale, sometimes to provide arts and enrichment activities for students. In addition to technology and Skyline, COVID-related expenses – for masks and school care room attendants – also figure prominently in the district’s outside federal relief spending.

Here are the top 10 vendors that have gotten COVID relief money from Chicago Public Schools so far:

(Can’t see the list? View the graphic directly.)

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

What is going on with NYC’s public school enrollment? We explain.

2022-08-09T22:19:26+00:00

New York City’s fight over school budget cuts has dominated the news. But at the heart of that debate is declining student enrollment.

Overall, K-12 enrollment has dropped by 9.5% since the pandemic began. Officials are expecting 30,000 fewer K-12 students to be on the rolls this fall compared to last year.

In this most recent school year, three-quarters of schools saw fewer students, a Chalkbeat analysis previously found. Enrollment of Black and white students dropped by 7.5% each, while it dropped by 5% for Asian American students and 4.5% for Latino students.

Enrollment numbers have been declining steadily since the 2015-16 school year – before the steep drops during the pandemic, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office, or IBO.

But there’s also little evidence that families are fleeing traditional public schools for charters or private schools.

Student enrollment has big implications for public schools. Projected declines have already impacted school funding this year. And fewer students could mean tough decisions about school closures and mergers, which education officials have not yet discussed.

Here’s an overview of what is happening with enrollment in New York City:

How does NYC’s enrollment drop compare to the rest of the country?

Enrollment in public schools nationwide dropped by 1.2 million students, or about 2%, between the fall of 2019 and the fall of 2020, according to the Return to Learn Tracker, which collects state level data. (This figure does not include prekindergarten).

That tracker shows an additional 91,000 students did not show up to public schools in the fall of 2021. That would put the total drop in enrollment at 1.27 million children nationwide since the pandemic started.

Compared to the national numbers, New York City’s declines are striking and likely have led to the state’s dubious distinction: With 6% fewer students in schools statewide since the pandemic began, New York has seen the biggest declines of any state, according to the tracker.

Enrollment is not dipping evenly across all grades.

To understand why enrollment may be dropping, it’s first important to know which grades are seeing fewer students.

In the 2020-21 school year, most grades in the city’s traditional public schools saw enrollment declines, except for eighth, 10th, 11th and 12th, according to the IBO. The most steep drop was in pre-K for 4-year-olds and kindergarten.

Then, last school year, every grade saw fewer students except the city’s free preschool program for 3-year-olds, which more than doubled as seats have expanded. The biggest decreases were in third grade, followed by sixth grade. First and fifth grades were next. In turn, some of the smallest declines were among pre-K for 4-year-olds, kindergarten, and high school grades except for tenth grade.

However, when comparing to pre-COVID, the largest enrollment drops last year were in pre-K for 4-year-olds, followed by second grade, then kindergarten, third grade and first grade. Nationwide, kindergarten enrollment dipped following the start of the pandemic, but districts began reporting some rebounds this past school year.

Enrollment in New York City’s pre-K and elementary grades ranged between 82% and 88.5% of what they were before the pandemic, the IBO found. Starting in seventh grade through senior year of high school, enrollment ranged between 89% to 99% of what it was pre-pandemic, with the highest levels in the high school years.

So, while enrollment has dipped across every grade since 2019, changes are more pronounced among early grades, despite the availability of free preschool in New York City.

Are students leaving the school system, or are parents choosing not to enroll their children?

The answer is probably both.

Last year, a team of researchers estimated that, after the first year of the pandemic, about a quarter of the nation’s enrollment loss was linked to schools that didn’t offer in-person learning. Remote learning policies specifically dissuaded families of younger children, while it had no significant impact on older students.

A Chalkbeat and Associated Press analysis also found that enrollment among white students dipped more in states where most students were learning virtually.

That could help explain some of the drop in New York City during the 2020-21 school year, when schools were not yet open full time.

“Parents demonstrated they didn’t want kids at that age sitting in front of a computer,” said Thomas Dee, a professor in Stanford’s Graduate School of Education who was part of the research team. He also noted that families wanted a safe in-person option. That could have meant families home-schooled or delayed enrolling their children in preschool or kindergarten.

So what accounts for another drop in enrollment this past school year, when buildings were open full time?

Parents again may have been delaying the start of school for preschool and kindergarten-age children, Dee said. Or parents may have felt more comfortable moving younger children to a new school. Some families might have moved because of the city’s rising cost of living.

City officials have previously linked enrollment declines, in part, to declining birth rates.

A Chalkbeat analysis found that the greatest drop in enrollment happened in schools with the smallest share of low-income students. But, the second biggest drop happened in schools where between three-quarters to all students were poor. Enrollment among low-income students fell nearly 7% this year, more than double that of students who are not considered low-income.

With the rise of remote work, it’s also possible that families are moving to a new place — perhaps to be closer to family or live somewhere more affordable.

Contrary to some theories, there’s no evidence that families are fleeing public schools in droves or for charters and private schools. While the city’s enrollment dropped by about 100,000 students since 2019 — not counting 3K — overall enrollment in city charter schools has grown by just over 10,000 students, or by 7.8%, since the pandemic started. And over that same time period, the city’s private schools actually saw a 3.6% drop in pre-K-12 enrollment, according to state data.

Dee said it’s also possible that more families are home-schooling, and not all of them have registered with the state. Homeschooling nearly doubled, to 14,000 students in New York City, with the largest increases in districts with higher shares of students living in poverty.

Demographic changes, Dee noted, may also play a big role. New York State had some of the largest population declines last year, particularly among school-age children, he said.

“No social behavior has only one cause, and I think as more data become available, we are starting to realize the broader trends that influence the character of enrollment decline and flight from places like New York City,” he said.

What can districts do to build up enrollment?

Mayor Eric Adams and schools Chancellor David Banks have raised alarms about the city’s enrollment numbers and have promised to entice families to choose public schools.

Asked how the administration is planning to do that, a spokesperson pointed to various initiatives the city has rolled out, including rethinking literacy instruction and programs for students with dyslexia, expanding gifted and talented programs, piloting a new Asian American and Pacific Islander curriculum and including parents in the hiring of superintendents, which had a bumpy rollout.

“Chancellor Banks, his leadership team, and every district superintendent is focused on reversing dropping enrollment in our public schools,” Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the education department, wrote in a statement. “This work is informed by listening to families and school communities as well as putting in place policies that will ensure our public schools are the destination of choice for all of our students and families.”

There are a few things that parents typically focus on when it comes to choosing schools for their children, Dee said.

First, parents are attracted to school quality. For many families, that can mean ensuring that schools have high-quality curriculum, well-trained and effective teachers, and often, smaller class sizes, which Dee noted can be a pricey endeavor.

Recent budget cuts due to declining enrollment will likely result in higher class sizes. State lawmakers passed a bill to reduce class sizes in the city’s public schools, but the Adams administration has opposed it, and Gov. Kathy Hochul has yet to sign it.

Families also care that classrooms are “welcoming, inclusive, supportive spaces” for students, Dee said.

From his research, Dee found that parents of young children wanted safe in-person instruction, so he suggested improving COVID mitigations at schools. That includes ventilation and filtration. The city has been shedding safety measures, such as universal masking and social distancing, and city officials have not yet released their safety plans for this fall.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan school mental health program on track to expand with $50 million funding boost

2022-08-09T11:00:00+00:00

The last time administrator Kristina Hansen intervened in a school fight, she didn’t have to say much.

One of the students already knew what he should have done differently.

“That would have been a perfect time to practice my breathing, but I didn’t,” the student told her after a brief shoving match with another boy in the cafeteria at Bark River-Harris Junior High School in the Upper Peninsula. “I blew my lid.”

He had forgotten to use the tools he learned in TRAILS, a program his school adopted last year to help students manage emotions and make good decisions. With more exposure to the program and more practice using its techniques, he’ll be able to calm himself before his behavior escalates, said Hansen, who was hired last year as the Bark River-Harris School District’s student success coordinator. She runs programs to support students academically and behaviorally including TRAILS, which stands for Transforming Research Into Action to Improve the Lives of Students.

Developed a decade ago at the University of Michigan, the program now is in about 700 schools and could soon be in a lot more thanks to a nearly tenfold boost in state funding.

The state school aid budget signed into law last month provides for $50 million in funding over the next four years. That’s a big jump from last year’s overlapping state appropriation of $5.4 million over three years.

“The beautiful thing about the last two years’ worth of budgets is that the state has acknowledged that not only are children’s mental health challenges profound in the state, in the country, but that the Legislature has to be a part of the solution,” state Superintendent Michael Rice said.

The additional funding comes as schools struggle to find enough resources to help students recover from grief, loss, social isolation, trauma, and other mental health effects of the pandemic. School leaders across the country are reporting more classroom disruptions, student fights, and physical attacks that they attribute to lingering effects of the pandemic. Misbehavior was a defining characteristic that complicated efforts to get children back on track academically after two years of disjointed learning.

The boost for TRAILS is just one way the state Legislature is trying to address the problem in Michigan. The 2022-23 budget also creates a new $150 million program for mental health grants and provides $25 million for school-based health centers — up from $11 million last year. Many school districts also are tapping federal COVID relief funds to bring mental health programs to their students.

Elizabeth Koschmann, TRAILS founder and executive director, said the new funding will make a big difference in the number of students the program reaches over the next four years.

She couldn’t provide a total operating budget because TRAILS is funded on a project-by-project basis from numerous sources, including federal grants, private donations, and Medicaid reimbursements for its work in high-poverty areas.

TRAILS provides resources, training, and consulting to school staff members at all levels, from support staff through administrators. In some schools, only one or two teachers have gone through the training, but the program works best when everyone participates.

“What’s important is that we not delegate mental health to a single individual or a couple individuals in a school,” Rice said.

At Bark River-Harris, every staff member and all 725 students in the district have been exposed to the program’s first tier, which provides 15 hours’ worth of lessons teachers can deliver to their classes to introduce them to mindfulness and self-care practices.

Other tiers of the TRAILS program offer training in suicide risk management and facilitating small group sessions for students who need extra support.

Hansen said all of her teachers find ways to make time for the TRAILS curriculum, even if it takes time from academics. That’s true in other districts, too.

“We’re not hearing from (teachers) that it’s interfering with academic content delivery, because they need this content, too,” Koschmann said. “They’re saying their kids, almost across the board, are one to two years behind socially and developmentally from where they should be. … They’re saying they need an anchoring program to bolster basic skills.”

Nationally, spending on such social and emotional learning programs grew almost 50% between 2019 and 2021, according to one report.

While teachers are on board, some parents are skeptical of TRAILS’s focus on social and emotional learning, Koschmann said. Some conservatives say they believe SEL programs indoctrinate children with liberal ideas about gender identity and the lingering effects of slavery on modern institutions, neither of which is part of TRAILS or other programs. Others say schools should focus on academics, not social and emotional learning, which they believe to be parents’ job.

“They don’t want a classroom teacher teaching values to a child because that’s a family’s personal decision and they want to have control over that,” Koschmann said of the critics. “We don’t want to be teaching values to your child either. We want to equip your child with the tools that will help them manage really difficult emotions like disappointment, rejection, anxiety, worry, sadness, and fear so they can engage more fully in their classroom and can become better citizens in terms of how they handle feeling dysregulated, upset, or worried.”

None of that is political, she said.

“If a kid is showing a behavioral difficulty in a classroom but really wants to be behaving in a compliant way, our curriculum equips them with tools to help them manage their behavior more effectively,” Koschmann said.

That’s what Hansen saw happen in the Bark River-Harris cafeteria when the student realized he could have used a breathing technique to calm himself.

“You could almost see the lightbulb go off,” Hansen remembers.

Another student had a different kind of breakthrough that Hansen also attributes to TRAILS. A withdrawn high school student who wasn’t participating in class or socializing with friends suddenly became more engaged three-quarters of the way through the school year. He told her that listening to classmates talk during TRAILS lessons made him realize that he wasn’t the only one struggling with anxiety.

“Here was a kid floating along under the radar, and just by having it be a more acceptable practice to talk about feelings and struggles,” he was able to feel a greater sense of belonging that allowed him to participate more, Hansen said.

Hansen said a common lexicon is essential to the program’s success at Bark River-Harris. Everyone in the district speaks the same language and knows the same behavioral strategies.

When a child closes their eyes for a few moments in class, other students understand that they’re trying to calm their anxiety using a visualization tool, deep breathing, or another TRAILS strategy, Hansen said. If a food services worker asks a distressed student to name and rate the intensity of the emotion they’re feeling, they know how to do it because they’ve practiced using a feelings thermometer, she said.

Koschmann wants every school to be like that, and says the additional state funding will help a lot. Her team is still discussing the best ways to use it.

“We’re going to have to be really smart to make sure we can adequately staff our team to provide services at a high level but don’t set ourselves up for a fiscal cliff at the end of the funding period,” she said. “We can’t just hire, hire, hire and not have a long-term plan.”

Still, she said, there’s an urgency to train more teachers quickly.

“Schools need the support immediately,” she said. “They can’t wait. The demand for student mental health services, training for staff, materials for staff, and consultations is unbelievable.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Why schools are still struggling to hire bus drivers, custodians, tutors

2022-08-04T11:00:00+00:00

Javon May has tried radio ads. He’s planted yard signs. He’s made the rounds at community centers.

Still, on his quest to find new bus drivers for the Houston school district, he sometimes comes up short. That’s because he’s up against stiff competition. Other local districts and big delivery companies, like Amazon, need drivers, too.

But this summer he has a new tool at his disposal: a $2,000 hiring bonus for bus drivers who can start by the first day of school.

“We had to do something, because we were losing out,” said May, who recruits support staff for the district. The bonus has helped, but May is still pounding the pavement. “We really don’t stop looking for bus drivers. That’s always my No. 1 need.”

Schools have struggled to fill a number of lower-paid positions during the pandemic, including bus drivers. Principals don’t expect that to change in the new school year, a federal survey of nearly 860 school leaders released Thursday found.

About 6 in 10 principals said this June that they expected their vacant transportation staff roles to be “very difficult” to fill in the 2022-23 school year. Nearly half said the same about custodians. And around 4 in 10 said tutors would be very difficult to find.

Those school leaders also were most likely to report that they had multiple vacancies for bus drivers and custodians — meaning those roles were both in high demand and hard to staff.

Another survey released last month by the RAND Corporation found that nearly 6 in 10 districts said they were still trying to increase their number of bus drivers, while a third already had. That survey was based on responses from nearly 300 district and charter network leaders compiled from late February to early April.

“We suspect districts are still likely experiencing shortages,” the researchers wrote, “because of competition with other employers for low-wage workers.” Licensing requirements and worker health concerns could also be a factor, they added.

Districts have already tried many tactics to fill support staff roles. Three in 10 of the districts RAND surveyed raised pay or benefits for bus drivers last school year, while more than a quarter asked other staff to drive a bus. Nearly 3 in 10 districts tapped other school staff to perform cafeteria duties.

Districts, like Houston, are also trying hefty stipends and bonuses, often funded by federal COVID relief dollars.

Burbio, a private company that has been tracking school budgets and fall plans, found that in recent weeks there’s been a “marked increase in the size and duration” of incentive payments being used to attract school staff. A Pennsylvania district that serves 8,500 students is offering a $4,000 signing bonus for bus drivers, Burbio noted, on top of paying $25 to $30 an hour. Jefferson County schools in Kentucky are giving bus drivers an extra $6 an hour in incentive pay.

Clark County, Nevada, one of the largest districts in the country, reported that it had hired more than 100 bus drivers after it hiked starting pay to nearly $23 an hour, up from just over $15 an hour. The district is also spending millions of dollars on retention bonuses: Bus drivers, custodians, and food service workers who stick with the district for the year will get $4,500.

May, in Houston, has found that the district’s existing custodial staff are key recruiters for new custodians, so he relies heavily on word of mouth to fill those roles. The city has a large Hispanic immigrant workforce that wants benefits and job stability, so that position isn’t a hard sell.

But bus drivers remain a challenge. May’s goal was to hire 100 new drivers this summer. Since the district announced the $2,000 hiring bonus, May has changed up his online job postings so the bonus is splashed across the top of the ad.

He’s also been reaching out to driver candidates who didn’t go through with the licensing process in the past to see if the $2,000 will entice them to try again.

So far, 95 new drivers will get that bonus, and May is hoping to get over his 100-hire goal. He’s waiting to hear back from several dozen candidates he made offers to after a job fair last weekend.

“Right now, $2,000 is something that will stop people and make them think a second longer,” May said. “It’s going to pay off for us in the long run.” Families will “know that their kids are getting picked up in the morning on time, they’re getting to school on time, and they’re not missing breakfast.”

Last year, bus driver shortages had big consequences for families.

In New Jersey, hundreds of students were left without transportation to school for several weeks — which hit students with disabilities especially hard. Thousands of students with disabilities were stranded without transportation last fall in Chicago. Six months into the school year, the district was still working to assign bus routes to 1,000 general education students. This year, Chicago is raising bus driver pay to $20 an hour to stay competitive.

“I don’t want to be losing because our rates are so much lower,” the district’s CEO, Pedro Martinez, said recently.

As the school year approaches, schools are also looking to fill teacher vacancies. Special education teachers are a particular concern.

The June federal survey found that nearly 9 in 10 school leaders were more concerned about teacher and staff burnout last school year, compared with prior years.

So far, teacher turnover during the pandemic has been the same or a little above pre-pandemic levels — though the full picture of what happened last school year and this summer is still emerging. The federal survey found about 4 in 10 school leaders were more concerned about teachers and staff leaving their roles than in the past.

The RAND report suggests that expanded hiring during the pandemic is a big contributor to the teacher staffing crunch. Researchers found that more than three-quarters of the schools they surveyed had increased their teaching staff, which included substitutes, above pre-pandemic levels.

“In short, we believe it is districts’ increase in number of staff that they seek to employ rather than an exodus from teaching that is straining the teacher labor market,” the researchers wrote.

Kalyn Belsha is a national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

IPS reports jump in share of freshmen who are on track to graduate

2022-07-27T21:07:06+00:00

Almost three-quarters of freshmen attending Indianapolis Public Schools’ four district-run high schools are on track to graduate, according to data presented Tuesday.

That rate — which represents the share of 9th graders who’ve earned one-quarter of the credits they need to graduate with no more than one failed course — is a double-digit increase over last year, and it bucks national trends that show a decline in the number of freshmen who are expected to graduate.

Across all four district high schools, 71% of freshmen were on track to graduate at the end of the 2021-22 school year, compared to 59% at the end of 2020-2021.

Some of the biggest gains happened at Crispus Attucks and George Washington high schools, which each reported an increase of 20 percentage points for on-track rates compared to last year. Around 77% of Crispus Attucks freshmen and 75% of George Washington freshmen were on track to graduate in the most recent data.

The district credited a series of new policies for the gains, including new teams of freshmen and sophomore teachers who could intervene when students were struggling, extra in-class and out-of-class support, as well as the district’s new grading policy implemented in 2020, which sets the minimum grade a student can receive at 50%.

Warren Morgan, the district’s chief academics officer, said the district calculates an on-track rate in order to get a sense of students’ ability to graduate before they reach the critical final years of high school.

This year’s statewide graduation rates will be available in the fall. In 2021, IPS had a 76% graduation rate.

“We’re providing multiple opportunities for students to succeed,” Morgan said in a call with reporters Tuesday.

In a district blog post published July 11, officials put the freshman on-track rates at 84%. However, the district said that rate was for rate after the first semester of the 2021-22 school year only, not the entire year. The 71% figure released Tuesday covers the entire 2021-22 school year.

The on-track data was one of several district academic updates that officials will present to the Board of Commissioners at a Thursday meeting.

The officials’ presentation shows the district has cut its failure rate in half in the last year, with around 10% of students failing a course at the end of the fourth marking period in 2022.

The district also reported erasing its pandemic drops in the English/language arts portion of the state test — known as ILEARN — in 2022.

Around 22% of students were proficient in English/language arts in 2022 — the same rate as in 2019 — compared to 19% in 2021.

Math proficiency at the district rose slightly but remained below pre-pandemic rates, at 20%.

However, the growth has been uneven among student groups. White students’ scores’ have recovered more quickly than scores for Black students or Hispanic students, Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said.

“We know we started at a place where our students were not demonstrating the achievement we wanted them to,” Johnson said. “Overall we are really excited that IPS has made forward motion.”

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Masks are now optional for Detroit district students

2022-07-25T21:35:48+00:00

Masks have come off for some students attending summer school in the Detroit district, and will continue to be optional for the coming school year.

The district’s mask mandate, in place since schools reopened in September 2020, lifted earlier this month after the June 30 expiration of an agreement the district had with the teachers union requiring masks.

The summer school session that began July 11 marked the first time since the start of the pandemic that students have been able to attend school without masks.

At a school board finance committee meeting Friday, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti indicated the masking option will continue once the school year begins in late August.

“It is voluntary until the CDC, state or local health departments mandate masks for indoor or outdoor use,” Vitti said, responding to a question from a parent who asked whether the district would continue some COVID protocols.

Last week, when First lady Jill Biden and U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona visited summer classes at Detroit’s Schulze Academy for Technology and Arts, many of the students attending summer school were maskless.

Of the 14 students in Camp Dinner Table’s cooking class, three were wearing masks. Down the hall, two of the six students in Adrienne Holloway’s English class were masked.

The mandate is lifting as the BA.5 omicron subvariant has prompted a surge in COVID cases, and caused some school districts across the nation to institute temporary mask requirements. As districts head into their fourth school year in the pandemic, recurring waves of COVID cases have prompted debate over what protocols are necessary to keep students and staff safe.

Flint Community Schools, which start on Aug. 3, sent back-to-school letters to parents and guardians Thursday, initially announcing that masks would be temporarily required indoors. Within several hours of the announcement, the district reversed its decision and said the district would only recommend masks be worn.

The CDC recommends indoor masking in communities that have high case rates of COVID.

Aug. 29 is the first day of school for students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, and in conjunction with voluntary masking, the district will scale back its COVID safety protocols this coming school year.

Students and staff will no longer be universally tested for COVID every week, and the district will reduce testing to a randomized pool of 10% to 20% of the district’s population. The school district, however, plans to continue to provide vaccination sites in some schools.

Parent Ebony Hudson, whose daughter attends the Moses Field Center, backs the lifting of the mandate.

“I don’t think it should be mandated unless the numbers go up,” she said.

Terrence Martin, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, said union members are “fine with” voluntary masking at the moment.

“People who want to continue to wear masks have the right to do so and those who want to exercise the option to not wear masks are doing that,” Martin said. “The main thing is making sure that teachers and staff are safe and remain safe.”

Going into the fall, he added, the teachers union is hoping to see the district provide a benchmark for COVID cases which would clarify what metrics, such as case positivity rates, would prompt the return of a mask mandate.

Vitti said during Friday’s finance committee meeting the district will continue to provide personal protection equipment to students and staff heading into the new school year regardless of whether a mask requirement is implemented. The district also will offer air purifiers or fans for classroom teachers who request them, he added.

Chalkbeat Detroit reporting intern Grace Tucker contributed to this story.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

First lady Jill Biden, U.S. Education Secretary Cardona visit Detroit summer school site

2022-07-21T21:20:05+00:00

“Don’t be nervous. You’re going to do what we do every day,” sixth grade teacher Adrienne Holloway assured her summer school students as they prepared for an English lesson on figurative language.

Except on this day, their six-person class at Detroit’s Schulze Academy for Technology and Arts would be joined by some new faces: a swarm of press, a huddle of security personnel, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and first lady Jill Biden.

Holloway’s was one of three classrooms at Schulze Academy that served as a showcase Thursday for efforts to combat pandemic learning loss and boost student confidence, and a stop on Cardona and Biden’s tour of summer learning programs funded by the American Rescue Plan, the last of three major federal COVID relief measures.

The Detroit Public Schools Community District was part of a national pattern of learning loss during the pandemic, as students struggled with online learning and other disruptions beginning in March 2020. More Detroit students ended the school year three or more grade levels below standards in reading and math, compared with pre-pandemic years, according to district data shared at a July 12 board meeting.

The American Rescue Plan, which President Joe Biden signed in March 2021, granted $122 billion to the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund to help schools stay open, address pandemic learning loss, and support mental health. It followed two earlier COVID relief laws passed under the Trump administration that also provided tens of billions of dollars to support education.

Summer programs are playing a big part in the effort to help students catch up. Of the $3.7 billion in ESSER funds Michigan received under the ARP, $1 billion is reserved for summer programs, the White House Press Office said. Schulze Academy is one of 19 in-person learning sites hosting K-8 students as part of the district’s Summer Learning Experiences program, which is paid for with ESSER funds.

The summer learning supported through ARP funds means “we can look around and we can look at these programs and see just how far we’ve come since that March two years ago,” when the pandemic forced schools to shut their doors, the first lady said. “And we’re recovering every single day.”

First lady Jill Biden speaks Thursday during a visit to Detroit’s Schulze Academy for Technology and Arts to promote the importance of summer learning. Behind her, (from left to right) are Schulze Academy Principal Angela Kemp, Detroit Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, and U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.

The Detroit district, which received over $800 million in ESSER funds under the ARP, spent $10 million to expand Summer Learning Experiences in 2021 and $11 million to expand this summer’s programming, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said. As a result, enrollment for this summer’s programs has doubled to 8,000 students, according to the White House.

The district has long wanted to develop its summer services, Vitti said, “but inequitable local and state funding and limited federal funding to meet the needs of our district prevented it from happening.”

After observing Holloway’s English lesson, Biden and Cardona made their way to two classrooms featuring enrichment programming from local organizations: a hands-on photography lesson hosted by Detroit-based after-school program BluCar and a cooking lesson led by Camp Dinner Table educator Yolanda Scarborough.

In each classroom, facilitators from BluCar and Camp Dinner Table briefed the observers on their program mission before opening up for questions from Biden and Cardona. Asking the students how they felt after learning hands-on skills, the pair were able to highlight how programs like Schulze Academy’s summer school fostered academic and emotional growth in students.

“For me, not only as an educator, but as a father, I love what I saw today,” Cardona said. “I love the fact that American Rescue Plan dollars are providing opportunities for students…Yes, they’re learning to cook. Yes, they’re learning photography. And they feel good about themselves.”

Alison Parham, parent to three Schulze Academy students, also spoke to the positive impact of Detroit’s summer programming. She said, “while my students are here, I’m able to work, which is just amazing in itself right there … The class, the opportunities, the money, everything just makes (the program) more valuable.”

In addition to academic recovery programs, Vitti said, the district will invest a major part of its ESSER funds to install or update air conditioning systems in most district schools within five years. That will enable the district to host summer school across the entire city rather than just the 19 sites used this summer, he said.

Cardona and the first lady planned to continue their tour in Georgia despite news that President Biden tested positive for COVID early Thursday morning. “I tested negative this morning and will be adhering to CDC guidelines,” Biden said upon her arrival to Schulze Academy. She remained masked for the entire press event.

Grace Tucker is Chalkbeat Detroit’s newest reporting intern. Reach her at gtucker@chalkbeat.org.

The state of learning loss: 7 takeaways from the latest data

2022-07-19T04:01:00+00:00

American students are slowly starting to regain academic ground lost during the pandemic, according to nationwide and state testing data compiled by Chalkbeat.

In the last year, students in younger grades have recovered between 15% and 35% of the learning they had lost, according to data released Tuesday by the testing group NWEA.

That’s the good news, particularly after a tumultuous school year that featured frequent staffing shortages, behavioral challenges, and student absences.

The bad news is that students — particularly low-income, Black, and Hispanic students — remain far behind where they would be if not for the pandemic. Recovery has been anemic or nonexistent in middle school, NWEA finds.

“At least the bleeding appears to have stopped, and we see some evidence that we’re closing those gaps ever so minimally,” said Karyn Lewis, an NWEA researcher. But at this pace, she said, it will take years for students to fully recover. “That timeline is pretty alarming.”

In addition to the latest NWEA results, Chalkbeat reviewed a host of academic data released by states and testing companies this spring and summer. Here’s what it all tells us about how American students are faring.

1. Schools and students have begun digging out of the learning loss hole — but they still have a long way to go.

In the first two years of pandemic-affected schooling, students made slower progress on math and reading tests than usual. The gap between where students are and where they likely would be if not for the pandemic is often referred to as “learning loss.”

Last spring, NWEA found that the average student had fallen 3 to 6 percentile points in reading and 8 to 12 points in math, depending on the grade. Now, NWEA is back with updated results, using data from over 8 million students.

In math, students in younger grades actually made slightly more progress last school year than in a typical pre-pandemic year. In reading, students made up ground last summer and then made normal progress during the school year.

Overall, younger students in the last year have made up roughly a quarter of their lost learning. For instance, students who were in second grade when the pandemic first hit in 2020 had fallen 10 percentile points behind in math by the spring of third grade. This spring, as they were completing fourth grade, the gap had shrunk to 7 points.

Results looked similar on a separate exam, the i-Ready, in preliminary findings shared with Chalkbeat. In second grade math, for example, 52% of students were on grade level at the end of last year, up from 49% the year before but far short of the pre-pandemic benchmark of 61%.

Another analysis from the company Amplify found that 48% of first graders in the middle of last school year were on track in early reading. That’s up from 44% from the year before, but still less than the 58% before the pandemic.

Recently released state test results from Florida, Indiana, Idaho, Tennessee, and Texas have also generally shown partial academic bouncebacks in 2022.

“We do see some good news here in terms of the upticks,” said Kristen Huff, vice president of assessment and research at Curriculum Associates, which produces the i-Ready. “But overall the students are still falling behind pre-pandemic performance.”

2. Older students may be recovering more slowly.

On the NWEA exams, students in seventh and eighth grade recovered almost none of the learning they lost. In fact, eighth graders fell further behind in math this year.

Results from other tests have varied, with some showing more progress for older students.

If older students have struggled to catch up, that’s especially concerning, since they have less time left in school.

“That should be the focus of the conversation: what are we going to do for kids in eighth grade or going into high school and they seem to be basically spinning their wheels?” said Vladimir Kogan, an education researcher at Ohio State University.

3. Gaps by race and poverty level are still worse than before the pandemic.

Gaps in test scores by student race and family income were already large before the pandemic. By 2021, they’d grown even larger.

The latest data from NWEA shows that in reading, high-poverty schools did make faster progress than low-poverty ones last school year, closing the gap ever so slightly. In math, though, progress was comparable in both types of schools, meaning the larger-than-usual gap hadn’t budged.

“We still see these really significant and staggering gaps overall,” said Lewis.

4. Learning loss recovery efforts may be paying off, though it’s impossible to say what exactly is working.

Schools across the country have been adding support to help students catch up. For instance, Woodland Hills, a high-poverty district outside Pittsburgh, has expanded summer and after school programming and bought a new online curriculum. Elementary schools have also added time for students to work in small groups on skills where they’re still beyond. Middle schools have doubled time for math classes.

“We’re seeing scholars starting to catch up,” said Eddie Wilson, assistant to the superintendent in the district. “It is very nascent.”

Still, students are far behind where they’d normally be. “We’ve got to move more quickly than we are right now,” Wilson said.

Many school districts still have COVID relief funds to use on learning loss recovery. That means there’s still time to add and expand that help, although the funding will dry up in a couple of years.

“Whether this creates a generation of kids who will never catch up or whether most of them do depends on what we do in the future,” said Paul Hill, who has reviewed evidence of learning loss for the Center on Reinventing Public Education.

One hurdle is that evidence of which recovery efforts have proven successful is limited. That makes it hard to figure which programs to expand and which to scrap.

“It was a really challenging year,” said Lewis. “That we see improvement at all, suggests to me that we are doing something right in helping kids catch up. I can’t say what that something is.”

5. There are likely lingering effects of remote schooling.

The latest research doesn’t distinguish between students who attended school virtually for a lengthy period and those who attended school in person since the fall of 2020. But prior studies, using data through spring of 2021, found that remote students fell further behind.

Because the gaps were so large and the academic comeback to date has been so modest, there’s a good chance that those students are still further behind.

Woodland Hills didn’t return for any in-person instruction until late March of 2021. Wilson says that although he supported this approach at the time, the district and its students are still grappling with its consequences.

“Now we know we do have to remediate 3,000 students because we chose to keep our students’ health as our priority,” he said. “If I had to go back and redo it, I would want to come back from virtual instruction a lot earlier than we did.”

6. These test scores probably do matter.

Research shows that test scores predict — not perfectly, but with some accuracy — whether students will finish high school, succeed in college, and earn a good living. At a national level, they predict economic growth. Studies of prior school disruptions have shown that test scores fall, and then high school and college completion falls, too.

That’s all to say that learning loss, if it persists, could end up being a serious problem both for individual students and the country as a whole.

7. The data we have is imperfect, though we’ll get better information soon.

The NWEA data only includes schools that opt in to take the exam, and those schools may not be perfectly representative of other places. Many states have not released their own test results, including large ones like California and New York, where many students were virtual for much of the 2020-21 school year.

But we’ll get better data soon. In the middle of last school year, the federal government administered exams to a national sample of fourth and eighth grade students. Those results are set to be released in the fall.

Matt Barnum is a national reporter covering education policy, politics, and research. Contact him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ TCAP scores return to near pre-pandemic levels, but gaps persist

2022-07-06T22:34:38+00:00

Nearly 17% of Memphis students in grades 3-12 performed at or above grade-level expectations in math and English on state standardized tests in 2022 — a sign that the district has recovered some ground from the steep academic declines caused by the pandemic.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ latest scores under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, also known as TCAP, show an overall proficiency increase of about 6 percentage points from last year and a near return to pre-pandemic levels.

The district-level results, released to the public Wednesday by the Tennessee Department of Education, largely mirror statewide scores, which showed improved proficiency across all subjects and grades last school year. But the results also underscored that Tennessee’s most vulnerable student groups — such as children with disabilities, those from low-income families, and students of color — continue to lag behind their peers academically.

MSCS officials are calling the gains in the latest batch of scores “good news.” They touted near total recovery in reading at all grade levels, including the district’s strongest high school English scores in five years, after a strong emphasis on literacy.

The participation rate in 2022 TCAP testing was about 97% across the Memphis district, roughly comparable to last year’s 94% rate.

A year earlier, when the majority of MSCS’ more than 100,000 students had been learning online, the district’s overall proficiency rate slid to just over 10%, reflecting the impact of the learning loss during the height of the pandemic.

During a press conference Wednesday morning at Southwind Elementary, Superintendent Joris Ray described as “unprecedented” the challenges, disruptions, and trauma that children, educators, and families endured throughout the global health crisis.

Amid those challenges, he added, “Our school board and our academic team had an unprecedented vision. Our students, teachers, and parents showed unprecedented resilience. And Memphis-Shelby County Schools made an unprecedented comeback.”

Ray trumpeted the district’s investments of hundreds of millions of federal COVID relief dollars in a variety of academic strategies — such as increasing access to tutoring, adding teachers assistants to lower the student-to-adult ratio in K-2 classrooms, and providing year-round professional development.

And Ray heralded the district’s educators, who he said persevered on the front lines of a difficult year despite being underpaid and often undervalued. He commended other employees who keep the district’s more than 200 schools operating, from school principals and administrators to custodians, nutrition staff, and nurses.

But on the TCAP results, Ray and fellow administrators acknowledged that they have a lot of work ahead to get proficiency rates where they should be.

Only about 21% of MSCS students in grades 3-12 met or exceeded grade-level expectations for English in the latest school year — up about 7 percentage points from last year, and about level with the 2019 score. (The state didn’t administer TCAPs in 2020.) And only about 13% of MSCS students in grades 3-12 met or exceeded grade-level expectations for math in 2022, up from 7% in 2021, but not quite back to the 2019 rate of 23%.

MSCS also saw small gains in social studies and science, with proficiency rates of nearly 22% and about 19%, respectively. In 2021, nearly 15% of students met or exceeded grade-level expectations for the subjects.

“We’re trending up; we have to celebrate our successes,” Ray said, adding there’s “still miles to go before we sleep.”

The latest scores come as Tennessee’s largest school district faces heightened scrutiny in the community. Citing poor academic performance, two education advocacy organizations, Memphis Lift and Whitehaven Empowerment Zone, have called on Ray to resign and urged the state to audit the district’s finances.

“We don’t want to go into another school year and get the same results,” Sarah Carpenter, executive director of Memphis Lift, told a gathering of community activists, parents, and school board candidates last month. “Our babies are smart. Our children can read. It’s something not being done from the top down.”

Ray and school board members have called the accusations “political antics.”

“This superintendent, this school board will never let doubters, disbelievers, distractors derail us from our determination,” Ray said.

School board Chair Michelle McKissack also appeared to hit back at Ray’s detractors, noting that he had been superintendent for only about a year when the pandemic began.

“He made the tough choice to put community health first,” McKissack said of Ray’s decision to keep learning online for most of the 2020-21 school year. “As a board … we supported that. We took a lot of heat for it, but I know with everything in me that it was the right decision.”

Heading into the next school year, Angela Whitelaw, deputy superintendent of schools and academic support, said the district plans to continue its focus on students who live in poverty and face heightened barriers to academic success. Nearly 60% of MSCS students are considered economically disadvantaged by the state.

The latest TCAP scores show that for grades 3-12, only about 15% of low-income MSCS students are considered proficient in English, 8% are proficient in math, and 13% are proficient in science — about 5 to 7 percentage points below the rates for all students in each subject.

The gap is wider in social studies: About 14% of low-income students in grades 3-12 meet grade-level expectations, compared with about 22% overall.

To close those gaps, Whitelaw said the district will continue strategies it adopted this year to boost recovery, many of which Ray introduced during his state of the district address. They include increasing small group instruction, expanding before- and after-school tutoring; offering more honors and Advanced Placement courses; and expanding the district’s CLUE program for talented and gifted students.

The district is also working on ways to better support teachers, said Amie Marsh, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

Marsh said the district is increasing educators’ access to professional development and coaching. And under the district’s latest $2.1 billion budget, MSCS teachers will receive a 2% raise and $1,500 retention bonuses during the coming school year.

“As we move into year two of this, we’ve put some very strong tools in place,” Marsh said of the pandemic recovery effort. “We really want to make sure moving forward that we’re supporting our teachers and pushing our students to even greater heights.”

But improving student achievement at MSCS in the years to come, Ray said, will take more than the district’s efforts, many of which are funded by temporary federal COVID relief aid. He called for more community support — from parents taking time to read to their children, to increased financial support from the state and the county.

Ray referenced the district’s $55 million request this spring to the Shelby County Commission to help address hundreds of millions of dollars of deferred school maintenance and aging school buildings. Ultimately, commissioners granted MSCS less than half that amount, forcing district officials to put several proposed projects on hold — including the construction of a new high school in Memphis’ Frayser neighborhood.

“It’s going to take more than just us,” Ray said. “We want to build new schools, but we need funds to do it.”

Correction: July 6, 2022: A previous version of this story gave incorrect proficiency rates for low-income students in English, math, science, and social studies.

Samantha West is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, where she covers K-12 education in Memphis. Connect with Samantha at swest@chalkbeat.org. Kaitlyn Radde is a data reporting intern at Chalkbeat. Connect with Kaitlyn at kradde@chalkbeat.org.

Pandemic effect: More fights and class disruptions, new data show

2022-07-06T18:42:28+00:00

About 1 in 3 school leaders noticed an uptick in student fights or physical attacks this past school year that they believed were brought on by the pandemic and its lingering effects, new federal data show.

In addition, more than half of school leaders reported an increase in classroom disruptions from student misconduct for the same reason.

The data, gathered in May from surveys of nearly 850 public school leaders, mostly principals, is evidence that many schools did see tensions rise this past year as students nationwide returned to fully in-person learning. For many educators, the behavior challenges were a defining feature of the school year — and complicated efforts to rebuild school communities and get students back on track academically.

Still, the responses were decidedly mixed. A sizable share of principals reported no change in these types of behavior. About 4 in 10 school leaders said the number of student fights remained about the same as in a typical year prior to the pandemic, while just under a third of school leaders saw about the same levels of classroom disruptions.

Educators say that some upticks were to be expected, as many students were dealing with heightened stress, isolation, and mental health needs this past year. Grief still permeates many students’ lives, too: An estimated 200,000 children and teens in the U.S. have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID since the pandemic began.

“We knew kids were going to be carrying just ridiculous amounts of stress and trauma,” said Katy DeFerrari, the assistant superintendent of climate and culture for Jefferson County schools in Kentucky. “I don’t necessarily think that it was all manifesting in acting out in the classroom or aggressive behaviors. Kids were just generally trying to adjust back to school. I think they did that better than everyone thought they were going to do.”

The new national survey results are bolstered by behavior and discipline data obtained by Chalkbeat from 19 of the nation’s 30 largest school districts through open records requests and a review of publicly available documents.

The district data diverges, too. Several large districts reported an increase in student fights this past year, though the size varied from a significant spike to a small uptick.

Duval County schools in Florida, for example, reported a 47% increase in infractions for fighting compared with the 2018-19 school year — the last that was unaffected by the pandemic. In North Carolina, Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools saw student fights increase by 26% over the same time period. In Texas’ Northside school district, fights were up by 20%. In Florida’s Hillsborough County and Polk County, student fights increased by 17% this past year, compared with the year before the pandemic. (In Polk County’s case, that was with a month of school still to go.) Meanwhile, DeKalb County schools in Georgia saw about a 7% increase in fights over that same time.

But other districts saw fewer student fights. As of late April, Dallas and Houston schools had each seen a sharp 62% decline in fights compared with the 2018-19 school year. With two months of school left, student fights were down by more than half in Texas’ Cypress-Fairbanks school district over that same period. And student fights were down 42% over that time in Jefferson County, Kentucky, with a month of school to go.

In New York City, the nation’s largest school district, student altercations and fights were down 27% compared with the 2018-19 school year, with a month of school to go, officials said. Still, some schools struggled.

Robert Effinger, who teaches 10th grade history at a Bronx high school, said his school saw an increase in physical and verbal fights, though physical confrontations became less frequent as the year progressed. He thinks much of the early conflict stemmed from students trying to establish their place and social circles at the school after they were apart for so long.

In his eyes, a rise in students cutting class or arriving late was an even bigger issue. And there were other disruptions, too, like students yelling across a classroom. A big driver of that behavior, Effinger said, is that some students were struggling with their work.

“They don’t want to embarrass themselves, so they’ll act out,” he said. “That’s happened a decent amount this year.”

And though his school added a counselor this year, students often went without the mental health help they needed. “I referred a few students to counseling and there are no counseling slots,” Effinger said. “It’s like, what do we do?”

Ashley Lourenco, a rising 10th grader, estimated there were five fights this past year at her magnet high school in Newark, New Jersey, where altercations are typically rare. There was only one the prior year that she could recall. She also noticed students made jokes on social media that could be interpreted as threats, and her classmates seemed more on edge when they returned from remote learning.

“People are super stressed,” she said. “Mental health is a pretty prevalent issue among people I know.”

More comprehensive national data released last week shows that schools grew safer in many ways in the decade before the pandemic’s arrival, with students experiencing fewer incidents of crime and violence — except school shootings — between 2009 and 2019. Those figures fell further in 2020 as many students learned from home.

As some schools saw fights and disorder rise again this past year, they responded in different ways.

Some turned to removing students from school more frequently. Out-of-school suspensions in Northside schools were up by 15% this past school year, compared with the 2018-19 school year. Over the same period, out-of-school suspensions rose by 9% in Hillsborough County.

Elsewhere, suspensions fell despite an uptick in student misbehavior. Duval County, for example, issued 500 fewer suspensions this past school year compared with the 2018-19 school year, a drop of about 2%.

Suspensions were falling nationwide well before the pandemic began, as states and districts passed policies limiting their usage. Research has shown that Black students, especially, are disproportionately suspended from school, and that suspensions can lower students’ test scores and reduce their chances of graduating.

As an alternative, many schools turned to less punitive forms of discipline, such as having students talk out conflicts or attend counseling. Those strategies have been tested during the pandemic and educators in some places have called for a return to more punitive forms of discipline.

Still, many districts continue to adhere to those practices.

DeFerrari, the Jefferson County official, said her district placed a greater emphasis this past year on making sure schools weren’t using suspension as a punishment when student misbehavior stemmed from trauma or because an adult had contributed to the situation with their own reaction.

The district also hired more behavior analysts who can be dispatched to schools to help figure out what’s causing a student to act out. The team grew from three to 10 last year, and will number 16 in the coming school year.

The district’s suspension rate dipped, and as of late April, officials had given out just under 15,000 suspensions, compared with just over 20,000 during the 2018-19 school year.

It’s about “really helping schools and administrators understand kids are not going to be able to interact with you if they are upset until they’re calmed down and de-escalated,” DeFerrari said. “If you can eliminate those small headaches — that is what gets people into trouble — then you eliminate problems.”

Kalyn Belsha is a national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman, Patrick Wall, and Matt Barnum contributed reporting.

Schools are spending millions on new virtual tutoring. Is it working?

2022-06-29T11:00:00+00:00

Superintendent Scott Muri knew his students needed extra help with math and reading. But before he could launch a tutoring program, he needed tutors.

This was no small challenge in a district that already faced a staff shortage. Shortly before the pandemic began, one in five classrooms didn’t have a permanent teacher.

“I didn’t need just five or 10 tutors, I needed hundreds,” said Muri, who leads Ector County schools, a district of some 32,000 students in West Texas. “Virtual was our only option.”

So, with federal COVID relief dollars in hand, Ector County joined many other U.S. school districts in an informal nationwide experiment. Could virtual tutoring be a credible replacement for in-person help? And could it fill gaps for students who, in a brutal irony, had lost ground when school was fully online?

The district spent more than $5 million last year to find out, paying for tutors to work one-on-one with 6,000 students virtually during the school day. Officials are still analyzing the results. Muri says students who got a lot of help outpaced their peers academically, but schools will make adjustments next year, especially for younger students.

“It is something that we will continue, hopefully in perpetuity,” Muri said.

Elsewhere, some schools turning to virtual tutoring have struggled to get students to participate, particularly the students who need the most support. Communication between tutors and teachers can be spotty, and the scheduling logistics are complex. The setup has frustrated some students, especially those who only got text- or chat-based help.

Most critically, the academic impact of pandemic-era virtual tutoring is still largely unknown. Still, it’s an unprecedented expansion of academic support, with more and more companies looking to become part of districts’ recovery plans — and a more permanent fixture in schools.

“We know that tutoring works, and we’ve seen different models that are effective, but there is still a lot of disagreement about how to get that done,” said Janice Jackson, the former Chicago schools chief who now chairs the board of Accelerate, a nonprofit focused on tutoring strategies. “We have a lot of tutoring companies in the ed tech space that are offering things that are more economical. But the jury is still out on their effectiveness.”

Many school districts are spending millions on virtual tutoring, particularly to help students with math and reading.

What it looks like

This school year marked the first time that many school districts attempted virtual tutoring on a large scale. Fueling this growth: Schools have billions in federal relief dollars, and must spend a chunk of that money helping students who fell behind academically.

An entire industry has cropped up in response, which now includes some longtime players and several companies that have pivoted from offering expensive private tutoring.

Their services can be divided into two main categories. The first is “on-demand” tutoring, which operates like homework help and matches students with a new tutor each time they log on.

The company Paper, for example, has students upload pictures of their work or type questions into a chat box. Students can type and talk to tutors over Tutor.com, and they can see and hear tutors through TutorMe. Those two companies allow students to “favorite” a tutor, but that tutor may not be available when the student needs help the next time.

The other approach pairs students with one tutor for multiple virtual sessions each week. It’s similar to the kind of “high-dosage” help that’s been shown to deliver strong results in person.

The small handful of studies that have looked at virtual tutoring during the pandemic saw promising results from this variety. But offerings vary, so it’s tough to say how many students are getting that kind, said Matthew Kraft, an associate professor of education at Brown University who’s studying tutoring initiatives.

“It’s way premature to start saying: ‘Oh, it’s working here, it’s not working there,’” Kraft said. “I would be hard-pressed to name very many districts who would raise their hand and say: ‘Yeah, ours is just knocking it out of the park, we’ve got it figured out.’”

That’s left district leaders to sort through pitches for all kinds of virtual tutoring products. Brenda Lewis, an assistant superintendent for Grand Forks schools in North Dakota, has seen how much the quality can vary. She worked with a team to vet a half-dozen virtual tutoring providers before landing on Littera Education, which connects students and tutors on live video.

“It’s overwhelming at first,” Lewis said. Some companies “are really amazing and have the data to back it up, and others aren’t.”

Ten-year-old Alisma Meyer was among the first to try out the reading tutoring.

On a recent Wednesday morning at her elementary school, the rising fifth-grader scooted her chair close to a laptop and waited for her tutor’s face to appear. After they said hi, Alisma read aloud “Sleepy Barker,” a book about a dog awakened by noises in the night. Then Alisma’s tutor, Amanda Erdman, a former elementary school teacher, asked what Alisma noticed.

“I’ve improved at reading faster,” Alisma said.

“You have improved with reading faster and more fluently,” Erdman agreed. “What is something that you think you still need to work on as a reader that you think we can work on together?”

“Sometimes I need to work on longer words,” Alisma replied.

Then Erdman guided Alisma through an exercise in identifying letter sounds. Listening nearby, the school’s instructional coach could tell Alisma recognized more vowel groups than earlier in the year. Alisma saw progress, too, noticing that her hands no longer shake when she reads in front of her classmates.

“It’ll teach you stuff but it’s also fun,” Alisma said of virtual tutoring. “It’s kind of the premise of school.”

Some districts have found that younger students don’t like text-based virtual tutoring and prefer to be able to see and hear their tutor over video.

Who’s really getting help?

Alisma’s experience with virtual tutoring is what schools are aiming for. But it doesn’t always go that smoothly, and the offerings have raised questions about access and engagement — concerns that dogged schools when classes were remote during the pandemic.

When the school board in Palm Beach County, Florida debated renewing a $1.1 million contract with Paper in May, board member Debra L. Robinson pointed out that there had been a “huge disparity in usage.” Schools with higher poverty rates were using the on-demand tutoring less. (A district official said they’d worked to let more parents, teachers, and students know about the service, and the board reupped the contract for another $2.9 million.)

Participation in virtual tutoring has been relatively low in Akron, Ohio since the district launched its service in January. The district bought 5,000 virtual tutoring hours from TutorMe for just under $133,000, but after six months, students had used only 500 tutoring hours. All middle and high schoolers had access to the tutoring, but just about one in 11 students used it.

Marcie Ebright, a digital learning specialist for the district, said it was challenging to roll out a new service mid-year, but she hopes that more students will use the tutoring after the district promotes it this fall. Staff also will be analyzing which students used the service “so that we can more actively target the audiences that may need it,” Ebright said.

“Our early adopters are always going to be those kids that are seeking out that extra support to do better at school,” she said. If “we don’t really see the numbers increasing, and kids aren’t really taking advantage of it like we had hoped, then it might be something that we retire.”

In Hillsborough County, Florida, which also has a contract with Paper for just under $2.7 million, board member Karen Perez worried the service wouldn’t be as helpful for the many students without a computer or reliable internet at home. (Officials said they could provide laptops or the student could visit a library.)

Perez, who learned English as a second language, also had concerns that the limited interaction over text-based chat would be frustrating for English learners.

“For me, the population who is unable to access those services are the ones who usually need it the most,” she said. “If you’re looking at the tutoring but not putting the supports in place for the students to move forward and progress, then you’re just basically setting up the students to fail.”

Researchers who study tutoring have similar concerns. Susanna Loeb, a professor of education who directs the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, says virtual tutoring is likely most effective when students are getting that help during the school day at regularly scheduled sessions.

“Once the students aren’t in school, it’s not that the interaction isn’t effective when it’s there, it’s that it’s difficult to get students to show up, particularly the students who are most disengaged with school,” Loeb said. “Student opt-in just is not an equalizing approach.”

For their part, companies that offer on-demand virtual tutoring say there are benefits to their model.

Phil Cutler, the CEO of Paper, said many students like being able to work with a tutor at a time that fits their schedule, and districts like paying a fixed price for an unlimited number of tutoring hours. “Every student has access and they can use it as much or as little as they want to,” he said, likening it to an “all-you-can-eat” option.

And some point out that districts are free to work with multiple companies to address students’ needs.

“We’re not going to be the best thing for every student, but we are going to be able to impact a large number of your students,” said Ryan Patenaude, the executive vice president of FEV Tutor, which provides text-based virtual tutoring to several large districts, including Ector County. “It can’t be a one-size-fits-all model.”

Researchers think virtual tutoring is likely to be most effective when it happens during the school day at regularly scheduled sessions.

Will schools rely on virtual tutoring long term?

Virtual tutoring companies see this moment as an opportunity to become a more permanent offering. For the right price, many think — or at least hope — that schools will pay for virtual tutoring long after federal COVID relief dollars run out.

“It’s going to set expectations that are part of schools going forward,” said Anthony Salcito, who oversees virtual tutoring work at school districts for Varsity Tutors. “How do we think about being a partner to schools long-term, not just in this window right now?”

There’s a big incentive to get this right. Mississippi, for example, signed a nearly $10.8 million contract with Paper to provide on-demand tutoring to more than 100 districts across the state over the next two and a half years. Boston Public Schools will spend $5 million on Paper’s services over three years.

Prince George’s County schools in Maryland is spending $1.5 million for 10 months of TutorMe, while Wichita schools in Kansas is spending $2.5 million for a year of elementary school math tutoring from Varsity Tutors.

Schools are still trying to figure out how to get the best results for that money.

Denver Public Schools paid the company Cignition just under $700,000 this past school year to virtually tutor 880 students in math for at least 90 minutes a week. When staff interviewed students about their experience, they found elementary schoolers liked it more than older students — who sometimes got frustrated when they had to attend tutoring instead of a fun elective class.

Now, the district will only offer virtual tutoring to elementary and middle school students, while ninth graders will get in-person tutoring. And after some students complained about distracting setups at school, the district hired a coordinator who will ensure students have a quiet place to work.

The main thing to improve is collaboration between tutors and teachers, said Principal Laura Munro, who had 30 fourth and fifth graders participate this year and praised the program as engaging.

“How can we use the data from each session that kids are in to drive any adjustments in the classroom?” she said.

In Ector County, Principal Jessica Redman is looking forward to younger students being paired with tutors over video next year, after many of her elementary schoolers had a hard time with text-based tutoring. She’s also eager to get her hands on data that illustrates what exactly the effect of virtual tutoring was.

“It’s hard to know what the one factor was that helps the most,” Redman said. “We just did everything we could to get kids caught up.”

Kalyn Belsha is a national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

‘Where did it all go?’: Four NYC high school seniors reflect and look ahead

2022-06-27T17:18:56+00:00

When the pandemic gripped New York City in March 2020, high school sophomores had no idea that their remaining two years would look nothing like they had imagined.

Many of those sophomores are graduating now, having navigated school closures and two unusual years marked with grief and isolation. City officials celebrated the full reopening of public schools last fall, but the year was not nearly as normal as anyone had hoped.

“It’s been weird because I don’t really feel like part of the school — like, I kinda had to remember where everything was again as a senior,” said 18-year-old Alexandra Cruz, who graduated this month from Millennium Brooklyn High School. “I think it would have felt like more of a community if I had been there for the full four years.”

Like students in other grades, some seniors worried about contracting COVID and infecting high-risk relatives at home, especially as a winter surge emptied schools for weeks in December and January. But on top of the anxiety of being around peers for the first time since the pandemic hit, seniors also had to decide on what came after high school.

For many others in the Class of 2022, returning to the building was a boon. It meant seeing their friends and teachers again and learning in a classroom instead of through a screen. And for some, it was why they made it to graduation.

We spoke to four high school seniors who graduated this month about their experiences and what they plan to do next.

Zhenghao Lin was anxious about a full return to school amid the pandemic, but now he says it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. He is looking forward to college and making new friends.

ZHENGHAO LIN, 18, FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT HIGH SCHOOL, BROOKLYN

Zhenghao Lin felt overwhelmed the moment he stepped into the crowded hallways of his school in September, his first time back since March 2020.

Fearing he would contract COVID, Zhenghao, one of about 3,000 students, wore a face shield over his mask. He was afraid to touch door handles or stand too close when talking with others. He worried his peers would judge him for feeling nervous. He feared he might be subjected to racist bullying as he had in the past, because of rising anti-Asian hate crimes.

“I was not really able to, like, learn things that first few months because I felt constantly distracted,” said Zhenghao, who was diagnosed with anxiety disorder in 2020.

The pace of instruction also frustrated him because it felt slower than his virtual classes from the previous year. Students rarely asked questions during virtual learning, but they frequently raised their hands in person.

School staffers often stopped him in the hallway to ask how he was. He would say he’s not OK.

They would refer him to a counselor, who typically had a packed schedule. Zhenghao, however, was already seeing a therapist in private practice. Those twice weekly sessions helped him turn a corner in March, when the city dropped the school mask mandate.

Zhenghao continued wearing his mask, but he found that seeing his classmates’ faces and working with them in groups helped him connect with them and read their facial expressions, which were friendlier than he’d expected. To his surprise, he didn’t experience any racist bullying or comments, which he credited to advocacy campaigns across the city raising awareness about anti-Asian hate crimes.

Through therapy, he began to understand that he was at low risk of becoming severely ill from COVID, having been fully vaccinated without any high-risk conditions.

Zhenghao stopped striving for 100’s in every class, he said, and allowed himself to miss some assignments. He also dropped his AP Chinese and physics classes. He didn’t need them to graduate, and he found them too stressful and difficult.

As Zhenghao gets ready to attend a small liberal arts college in Vermont in the fall, he already has an idea for his future career: He’s planning to become a therapist.

Kekeli Amekudzi, a Brooklyn Tech senior, had to balance in-person learning and taking care of her mother, who was diagnosed with cancer during her freshman year.

KEKELI AMEKUDZI, 18, BROOKLYN TECH HIGH SCHOOL

Kekeli Amekudzi missed 30 days of school this year.

Most of those days she was taking care of her mother, who was diagnosed with cancer before Kekeli’s freshman year and took a turn for the worse last year.

“There’s just, like, so many responsibilities that I have to take care of,” Kekeli said.

The city considers Kekeli someone who was “chronically absent,” for missing at least 10% of school days. More than a third of students citywide were on track to have missed at least a month of school this year.

During remote learning, Kekeli could help her mother get to doctor’s appointments and work on schoolwork from the waiting room. She had more time to cook and clean.

Returning to school this year meant Kekeli could see her friends more regularly, but it was challenging to balance in-person learning with responsibilities at home. Being inside the 6,000-student high school, the nation’s largest, also brought concerns about reinfecting her mother, who’d already had COVID while in the hospital.

Kekeli’s teachers met with her to catch her up on assignments, and some deadlines were extended. She found it helpful to vent to a teacher during office hours about the stress of school or her mom’s illness.

A sense of normalcy continued to feel out of grasp.

Kekeli plans on studying environmental science and international law at Emory University in Georgia.

COVID cases began rising in December and exploded in January with the omicron surge, causing stress and absences among students and teachers, prompting students to organize a walkout at Brooklyn Tech. Less than three-quarters of students were at Brooklyn Tech on the Friday after winter break ended, according to data compiled by PRESS NYC, a group advocating for stronger COVID protections in school.

Her extracurricular activities, such as the debate team, remained virtual. Field trips for her favorite environmental science courses were paused until the spring.

Kekeli received some help while applying to college, but she had to navigate some details on her own, such as figuring out what financial forms she needed.

She is planning to attend Emory University in Georgia, where she wants to major in environmental science and international law. She’s considering a gap semester to help her mother transition to a home health aide.

She feels that she and her peers made it through one of the hardest times in New York City’s history. She has tried to take action, participating in climate marches, protests over gun violence, and abortion rights — making friends along the way.

But Kekeli is still grappling with a sense of loss that many graduating seniors feel.

“When we came in freshman year, we came in with so many expectations with, like, what our final year would be, and so many events were getting canceled or postponed or just weren’t done because of COVID,” Kekeli said. “There’s just been this sense of like, where did it all go?”

Abrahan Castro German, 19, is a graduating senior from English Language Learners and International Support Preparatory Academy in the Bronx. He spent much of his time in high school grieving the deaths of family members.

ABRAHAN CASTRO GERMAN, 19, ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS AND INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT PREPARATORY ACADEMY, THE BRONX

Abrahan Castro German spent the previous school year mourning the loss of a beloved uncle, who died of COVID in his home country, the Dominican Republic.

Abrahan, who immigrated to the Bronx in February 2019 and is learning English, navigated that grief alongside remote school, which he described as “very difficult” because it was hard to get extra help from teachers.

So he felt both happy and nervous to be returning this past fall to his Bronx high school, ELLIS Prep, which serves under-credited, over-age students who are new to the United States.

But halfway through this school year, he suffered a new blow. On New Year’s Day, Abrahan’s older brother died in a motorcycle accident back home.

School staff and his friends noticed that the normally bubbly, well-liked teen — known by one counselor as “The Mayor” — was quiet. Sometimes he asked to leave for the day, but staff wouldn’t let him, he said. He stopped doing much of his homework.

He missed his mother and grandmother, who are in the Dominican Republic, and would stay up at night looking at photos of his brother and uncle on his cell phone.

“I’m thinking about what feeling my brother went through in the accident, what feeling my mother went through when she lose my brother,” Abrahan said.

Teachers and guidance counselors saw his grades dipping in every subject and urged him to keep up. They worried he was falling off track to graduate.

He visited guidance counselors daily explaining how he was physically in the classroom, but his mind was on his family.

At one point, a counselor told Abrahan that his brother would have wanted him to graduate. He said he wanted to give up, but the counselor replied, “You need to try, and you can.”

Abrahan said he began feeling like himself again around March. He credited ELLIS staff and his friends for helping him work through his grief, as well as family back home who encouraged him to stay on track. He began catching up on school work. He decided that he needed “to wake up” and think about his future.

As the school year wrapped up, Abrahan was still seeing his counselors every day. Pulling a C-average, he was accepted to Guttman Community College in Manhattan. Abrahan plans to take a course over the summer to improve his English, according to a counselor.

Abrahan said he’s nervous about Guttman, especially seeing new students and new teachers, and leaving his ELLIS family behind.

But he feels driven to stay on track and “try – for my future, for my brother’s son, for my mom.”

Alexandra Cruz, a senior at Millennium Brooklyn High School, struggled with severe anxiety and keeping up with her academics during the chaotic school year.

ALEXANDRA CRUZ, 18, MILLENNIUM BROOKLYN HIGH SCHOOL

A year and a half of remote learning was bad for Alexandra Cruz’s mental health. But returning to school full time proved to be just as difficult.

Alexandra, who said she has severe social anxiety, was nervous to see hundreds of other students again, at a school where just 17% of students are Hispanic like her.

While the year started off OK, it took a turn during the winter’s omicron surge. Many peers were out sick. On the Monday before winter break, just under half of the school’s students came to school, according to data compiled by PRESS NYC. Alexandra stayed home that week as a precaution.

She struggled to make up a week’s worth of old assignments and keep up with new ones.

Her grades were slipping, and she was pulling all-nighters to keep up with what felt like mounds of homework, longing for the flexibility and leniency of remote learning. It was also tough to stay engaged in class while her friends were out sick.

“It was just so hard for me — I just didn’t have anyone to talk to,” she said.

She felt teachers weren’t checking in enough to find out why students were struggling to keep up. Seventy-three percent of the school’s teaching staff is white, Alexandra pointed out, which also felt alienating. Sometimes, she just wanted “a nice Hispanic woman” as a teacher who could relate to her.

Alexandra found some solace in her weekly meetings with a school guidance counselor, where she could drop in and “vent” if she felt too overwhelmed during class.

She began worrying about college in April while also studying for her AP exams. She’d narrowed down her choices to SUNY Oneonta and Clark University in Massachusetts, but COVID rules prevented visitors from seeing the dorms at Clark, so she couldn’t “get the full picture.”

By May, when school calmed down, she had come to a realization after months of dealing with her social anxiety: It’s OK that she’s not friends with many of her classmates.

“I feel like a weight has been lifted off,” Alexandra said. “All these people in my class — I can’t connect with these people. I already have my friends. I’m just sort of looking forward to the future.”

Alexandra decided on Clark University. She chose a school outside of the city in order to get a fresh start somewhere new.

“I’m going to try to join clubs with people of color so I can talk to people who I can connect with,” Alexandra said. “It makes me nervous, obviously, but I’m excited.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

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NYC’s push for restorative justice was put to the test this school year

2022-06-24T20:47:55+00:00

Martin Urbach began a recent morning by meeting with the parents of a student who threw a book out of a fourth floor window, nearly hitting a woman pushing a stroller.

Not long after, Urbach, the restorative justice coordinator at Manhattan’s Harvest Collegiate High School, dispensed advice to a distraught student who camped out in his office instead of going to class. That afternoon, he was off to lead a mediation with a group of boys who had been displaying behaviors more common to middle schoolers, including pulling each other’s pants down during a recent field trip.

“This is the hardest school year I’ve ever experienced,” Urbach said. “I think all of us in a way [have] forgotten what it means to be in community. It’s like 500 people who are traumatized and are starved for connection.”

Harvest is one of hundreds of schools across New York City that have embraced restorative justice, a philosophy rooted in giving students and staff space to share their feelings and talk through conflicts instead of resorting to more punitive measures like suspensions.

Many school leaders leaned on those tools this year, the first since March 2020 requiring the return of all students — many of them bearing deep emotional and academic scars. Some students were withdrawn and depressed while others acted out as they reacclimated to in-person classes. But even schools that prided themselves on using restorative justice to address students’ needs struggled to pick up where they left off before the pandemic.

On some campuses, including Harvest, leaders continued to emphasize restorative justice by devoting more staff resources to it, restarting student-led mediation, and giving students regular opportunities to reflect on everything from their anxieties about grades to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

A recent ‘healing circle’ at Harvest gives students a chance to reflect on the recent mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

But other school leaders struggled with how to address disruptive behavior when programming like mentorship or advisory programs had atrophied, sometimes backsliding to more punitive forms of discipline.

“Things have been more challenging this year by several orders of magnitude,” said Tala Manassah, the deputy executive director at the Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility, which helps implement restorative justice programming at hundreds of schools, including in New York City. “The pain that kids are coming to school with I think is unprecedented.”

City officials appear to be doubling down on restorative justice thanks to an influx of federal dollars, more than tripling funding over a three-year period to $21.6 million next fiscal year, according to the Independent Budget Office.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio promoted those efforts, alongside reforms to the discipline code, as a way to address disproportionate suspension rates among Black students and those with disabilities. Suspensions have fallen by more than half over the last decade, but those moves were controversial, as some educators said the reduction in suspensions without wider buy-in and training in alternative approaches created more chaotic classrooms on some campuses.

The current administration’s plans are less clear. The restorative justice funding remains in the budget and schools Chancellor David Banks recently said he does not favor zero tolerance approaches. But education department officials declined interview requests and did not respond to written questions about their plans, including whether they’re moving forward with expanding restorative justice programming to all middle and high schools.

“My sense is there is a continued commitment to this work,” Manassah said. “But the devil is always in the details.”

‘It feels like it’s not working’

Before the pandemic, Lyons Community School Principal Taeko Onishi worked hard to set a welcoming tone, greeting students outside the school’s main entrance with hugs and high fives. She was also an early adopter of restorative practices, building those tools for more than a decade.

But much of that work felt like it evaporated this school year.

“There’s a lack of trust that’s different than anything I’ve seen in years — it manifests in fights,” Onishi said. “It’s like we weren’t there for them for so long, and now we have to rebuild that.”

Onishi pointed to a series of interlocking problems. Students returned with acute mental health needs after the pandemic hit many of their families hard. Some were rattled by violence in their neighborhoods, including one student who was recently shot in the ankle off campus and has stayed home ever since out of fear of commuting. A more significant chunk of students had never attended the 6-12 grade school in person when they arrived this year, meaning there were fewer students who were used to the school’s norms and could act as role models.

The school also focused less on restorative justice during the last two years, such as training students to mediate conflicts, since most students were learning from home and staff were stretched thin.

Principal Onishi, pictured here in 2017, works to create a welcoming environment at Lyons Community School, and was an early proponent of restorative practices.

“It used to feel like [students] would come and talk to you and let you calm them down — or they’d be willing to do a mediation,” Onishi said. Now even minor issues spiraled out of control, and students were less likely to intervene with friends as they had previously.

“The smallest slight can set it off,” Onishi said. “It’s like, ‘Why did you punch them in the face?’ and it’s like, ‘Because they looked at me.’”

That sense of instability created pressure on the school’s leadership. Parents became more worried about their children’s safety in the building, which in turn made them “believe less in the possibility of reconciliation,” Onishi said.

Staff support for restorative justice approaches frayed too. Responding to a growing number of fights felt like whac-a-mole while teachers were stretched thin and burned out, especially during coronavirus surges that left them scrambling to cover their colleagues’ lessons.

Despite her commitment to deploying alternatives to suspensions, Onishi has been quicker to issue them this year, a move she feels conflicted about.

“You need to keep your school safe, right?” she said. “It’s definitely not a long-term solution. But it’s a short-term solution, and so you do it. You need time to recover from whatever happened.”

Overall, principals across the city did not lean more heavily on suspensions. Schools issued 16% fewer suspensions during the first half of the academic year compared to the same period in 2019. And reports of fights dropped 27% through May of this year compared with the 2018-19 school year, an education department spokesperson said. More serious infractions declined 10%.

Still, those statistics may mask significant variations between schools, and several experts and educators said they’ve seen more disruptive behavior. There has also been an increase in weapons confiscated at schools, including firearms, though some of the increase is likely related to bringing items like pepper spray for safety when they’re off campus, students have said.

Despite relying more on suspensions this year, Onishi said the experience only made her more committed to restorative programs.

The school refilled its youth advocate positions, adult staff who implement restorative practices. They are redoubling efforts to train students as mediators. And the school is giving extra help to teachers who struggled when some students resisted participating in advisory groups, one of their key methods of building relationships.

“If you don’t have systems like restorative justice in place, you can’t even try to fix some of these problems,” Onishi said.

“It feels like it’s not working,” she added. But the breakdown in school climate this year without it “proves how essential it is.”

‘They’re just quieter’

On a recent morning, a group of ninth graders at Harvest Collegiate High School filed into a room outfitted with pink and blue bean bag chairs, a couch, and a circular table. One by one, they shared their feelings about soon-to-be-released report cards, passing around a stuffed yellow fabric donut to indicate when it was a student’s turn to talk.

Some students reported feelings of anxiety, with one girl saying she hoped to hide the results from her parents. Another student chimed in that he was “not as stressed because I made a lot of progress since last year” — a comment that drew snaps of approval from many of the 18 other assembled students. Students were later paired with classmates who had large numbers of missing assignments to help figure out which ones to prioritize.

These “circle” conversations — which the school held more than 200 times this year — represent one of the strategies to help students build relationships with each other and feel connected to the school.

“Circle” conversations allow students to share their feelings or work out conflicts.

At Harvest, this year’s biggest struggle wasn’t fighting. The more pervasive issue: Students were withdrawn, glued to their phones or wandering the hallways instead of heading to class.

“Students are talking to each other less — they’re just quieter, period,” said Kate Burch, the school’s principal. “Their little bodies have just absorbed so much fear.”

Finding the ability to concentrate again in the classroom has been hard after spending much of the past two years at home, said Amber Colon, a 10th grader student who co-led the restorative circle conversation about report cards. She’s not surprised that students are spending more time on their phones during class this year.

“Not that many people were socializing over Zoom — you were just staring at a phone the whole time,” Colon said. “When I sit down for so long, I get really antsy. With Zoom, I could walk around my house.”

Urbach, the school’s restorative justice coordinator, is working on several of these fronts at once. A former music teacher at Harvest, this year was his first focusing almost exclusively on restorative justice work. The school’s previous restorative justice coordinator died of COVID in 2020 after a year-long medical leave.

Urbach’s days this year were often a whirlwind, arranging mediations, pairing students with similar interests to spark friendships, or even dispensing instant noodles to students who don’t like the cafeteria food. He also teaches a separate class focused on restorative justice principles.

But even at a school committed to it, restorative justice can be hard to balance with other needs. Working out a conflict between a group of students can require hours of circles held over weeks or months. Because time during the school day is limited, students often miss class to participate in them, a greater challenge after three consecutive school years of intense academic disruption. At the same time, staff are burned out, stretched thin, and “everybody’s stamina for conflict resolution is just lower,” Urbach said.

On a recent afternoon, Urbach shuttled from classroom to classroom to assemble a restorative circle for the group of ninth grade boys who struggled with immature behaviors this year. One teacher was more than willing to send the student out because he was being disruptive that day. But when Urbach poked his head into a different classroom looking for another student, the teacher waved Urbach away because the student had missed too many classes this year.

“That’s a tension, and that’s a tension that’s not going away,” Urbach said, adding that he tries not to pull students out of classes they’re struggling in and often holds circles during lunch or other free periods to be less disruptive.

Urbach leads a lesson where students reviewed the city’s discipline code and suggested restorative alternatives to specific infractions.

The research on how restorative justice affects student learning is limited. A randomized study from Pittsburgh found that while the effort accelerated a decline in suspensions, it also led to a decline in math scores, particularly among Black students. The study couldn’t prove what led to the decline in scores, and there are likely several contributing factors. One possibility is that restorative justice diverts some time that would otherwise be spent on academics.

Urbach sees the school’s approach to restorative justice as a key part of making students want to come to school, especially as rates of chronic absenteeism are on track to rise citywide. He was also more accommodating than usual of students who resisted going to class, a big challenge this year.

In one recent example, Urbach allowed a student suffering from depression — and whose mother was fine with her staying home — to camp out in his office. The student, one of the school’s strongest academically, was asking for advice about whether she should transfer elsewhere. He worried forcing her to go to class would prompt her to not show up to school at all.

“I 100% will keep a young person inside the school under adult supervision rather than watching Netflix” at home, he said.

Urbach acknowledged that the school’s approach to students who resist going to class is a work in progress, an issue staff are talking about how to address next school year. They’re also considering how to keep students off their phones during the day, as there is no consistent policy.

But he also pointed to the small everyday ways the school can make students feel valued.

On a recent afternoon, a student lugged a Playstation to school and surreptitiously hooked it up to a smartboard during lunch. Even though the school already has an after-school Nintendo club, Urbach’s solution was to find someone to supervise the lunch video game session rather than telling the student to stop.

“I think sometimes that’s all students want,” Urbach said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan summer school is going big — again. Here’s what parents need to know.

2022-06-22T20:55:52+00:00

Michigan students looking to have fun and catch up on missed learning this summer have many more choices than usual.

Districts have once again beefed up their summer programming, from credit recovery to camps focused on robotics and sports.

Fueled by federal COVID relief aid, the expanded summer school options come at the right time for students struggling with the academic impact of the pandemic. Many parents and students are looking for extra study time and opportunities to make up credits.

School districts planned to spend $179 million in COVID aid on summer programming over several years, according to budget proposals filed with the state in December. That’s on top of the smaller summer programs that most Michigan districts were offering before the pandemic.

What can parents expect from their districts this year?

In many cases, districts plan to keep the expanded summer programs they began offering last year, when most of the COVID relief dollars became available.

Many districts are still accepting registrations, and some will allow students to sign up after programming has started. Attendance generally isn’t mandatory, and most programs — with the exception of some enrichment camps — are free.

Here are examples of how some Michigan school districts are using their federal COVID funds for summer programming:

The Detroit Public Schools Community District will again offer its robust Summer Learning Experiences program this year.

Summer school in Detroit will run from July 11 to Aug. 4. It includes academic enrichment classes, STEM courses and recreational activities for students. The program will be conducted in person for most students, while students who currently attend DPSCD Virtual School will be allowed to take their classes online.

Some districts are using their share of COVID relief dollars to move away from summer programs that look like school, and offering extra learning time to as many students as possible.

Ypsilanti Public Schools rebranded its summer offerings Grizzly Learning Camp, rather than summer school. The camp features robotics and sports instruction, as well as credit recovery classes for students who need them. The district planned to spend $1.5 million in federal funds on the camp, which runs through August.

Grand Rapids Public Schools has more than 3,100 signed up for summer programs — about 20% of its total enrollment. That’s about the same number as last summer, but 2-1/2 times as many as pre-pandemic summers. The district is spending about $2.5 million on summer school, thanks to an influx of federal COVID relief money, compared with just under $1 million before the pandemic.

Fun is part of the curriculum. Students might, for example, play educational games on PlayStations, record podcasts about community heroes, or practice photojournalism, said Mel Atkins, district director of community and student affairs.

“We’re trying to disguise learning, so it doesn’t look like the school year,” Atkins said. “We’re not advocating for desks in rows. We’re looking for hands-on activities out in the community.”

The district is also offering online learning programs for children in kindergarten through 8th grade.

Other districts are narrowing their focus on students who need the most academic help.

Kalamazoo Public Schools’ summer school enrollment shrank from 2,500 last summer to 800 this year. That was by design, said Superintendent Rita Raichoudhuri, who wanted to focus on children identified by teachers as struggling the most.

“Last summer everyone needed extra support, because everyone was transitioning back into brick-and-mortar schools after being virtual for 18 months,” Raichoudhuri said. “The need was higher, and we needed the summer months to ease the transition. We were really glad we made that decision.”

Many smaller school communities are also offering more summer programming. Joseph K. Lumsden Bahweting Anishnabe Academy, a charter school in the Upper Peninsula with an emphasis on Anishinaabe culture and tradition, is enrolling more than one-third of its 630 students in an expanded academic summer school. The program will include field trips and two free meals a day. Activities will focus on environmental science and indigenous games and crafts, among other subjects. All students are eligible to participate.

Koby Levin is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering K-12 schools and early childhood education. Contact Koby at klevin@chalkbeat.org.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

The process of closing a classroom is always bittersweet. This year felt different.

2022-06-22T17:00:00+00:00

As I stand in my empty classroom, desks cleaned out, trash bags full of unwanted workbooks and crumpled papers, loose markers, and glue sticks, I am saddled with not only closing and moving classrooms but also with the gravity of the year.

The process of closing a classroom is always bittersweet. But this year, the landscape is different. In my own desk, I find folded KN95 and surgical masks tangled with paper clips, pens, and partially used pages of stickers. The worst, though, are the leftover adhesive marks on the front and sides of each student’s desk, which secured plexiglass barriers around each child. Those desk shields, cracking and smeared by the end of the year with spit, snot, and sometimes (because it’s third grade) glue or permanent marker, were slowly discarded through the spring. Yet the strips that held them in place, sticky and stubborn, remain attached. Getting them off requires more than a little elbow grease.

Sonnee Thiel

It’s like that with teaching. Teaching is physical. Anyone who has ever supervised playground duty, absorbed a punch or slap breaking up a fight, toted multiple bags each day in and out of a building knows the wear and tear on your body. Over time, it shows up in the 20 extra pounds, the worry lines, the gray hair, and the additional medicine you now take to stave off anxiety, pain, and sickness.

But this year, it seemed, we were all sick. Even as we socially distanced, double-masked, and sanitized our hands, so many of us had COVID, the flu, colds, sinus infections, and depression — or some combination thereof.

When teachers were sick, classrooms were combined. We took in students from other classrooms or grades for days or weeks at a time. We lost our specialist teachers as they had to cover other classrooms. We lost our lunch hours and planning time. We struggled and did our best. We were told it wasn’t enough.

My classroom looks like every other year I’ve closed the door in June. But this year leaving, I am the most tired.

Elbow grease is important, but as I’m scrubbing at these adhesive strips I realize (as the adage goes) that I’m working “harder,” not “smarter.” I discover that if I saturate them first with adhesive remover and wait, the glue will break apart and begin to slide off. So I pour the adhesive solution over the sticky spots, taking in that over-lemony scent and watching the slick solution slide over the surfaces my students have written upon, fallen asleep on, and cried into.

While the solution sits, I cart more boxes down the hall. That way I’m not just waiting; I’m working. Teaching is about constantly making time. Teaching is waking up early Saturday morning to finish the work of lesson planning and grading before the rest of the household is up and the TV is on, and the demands of the family take precedence. It’s sacrificing Sundays to put in grades. It’s chatting about upcoming lessons with your colleagues while folding laundry, scrubbing bathroom sinks, and mopping floors. It’s staying late to move desks because your seating chart just isn’t working, to call families, and to rummage through your science kit for the right materials for tomorrow’s lesson.

Once the adhesive strips are soaked, they slide off easily with just a fingernail (though having a putty knife helps). That way, you don’t have to use your fingers, which I had been doing until a red wound appeared on my right index finger. The wound stung with chemicals as I scrubbed.

That’s a reality too. Teachers are wounded. We have absorbed the pain and trauma of our students. We are reeling with our own private heartaches. We come to school sleepless and groggy from the demands of our lives at home. In the minutes before we greet our students we make calls to hospitals, set doctor’s appointments, and check in on loved ones.

We have suffered and prayed and hoped and felt the deep desperation of the past two years. And we are under attack from politicians, parents, and policies. We exist in a literal and figurative landscape of violence.

Once those adhesive strips are off, I stack the desks, draw the shades, and turn off the lights. I take a last look around the room. It looks like every other year I’ve closed the door in June. But this year leaving, I am the most tired.

Sonnee Thiel lives and teaches in the St. Louis area. She finds inspiration in the strength, tenacity, and friendship of her colleagues.

‘Ignore the negativity’: 16 Chicago valedictorians on finishing high school in the COVID era

2022-06-21T15:03:49+00:00

The class of 2022 started high school when no one even knew what COVID-19 was. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit and shuttered Chicago Public Schools classrooms for more than a year.

Even after schools reopened for full-time in-person learning this year, Chicago had a few stops and starts when the omicron variant hit and a dispute between the district and its teachers union over COVID safety protocols shut down classes for five days.

The 16 high school valedictorians you’ll meet below were sophomores when schools throughout Illinois shut down to prevent the spread of COVID-19. After 18 months of virtual classes and hybrid learning, they were able to go back in-person for their senior year – allowing them to reconnect with friends and teachers, go to prom, and graduate in person with their peers.

In a statement to Chalkbeat Chicago, CPS chief Pedro Martinez advised each student to “keep an open mind about what you want to accomplish in the future.”

“Some of you may already have an ideal college and dream career in mind, and that’s great,” Martinez said. “But if you’re less certain about the future, don’t let that bother you. The key is to keep seeking out the peers and mentors who will challenge and guide you.”

The class of 2022 valedictorians have had to adjust to remote learning, take jobs to support their families, and mourn the deaths of loved ones. But they are also looking ahead – to plans that include attending colleges and universities such as Harvard University, DePaul University, Pomona College, and Iowa State University.

Here, in their own words, the students describe how they got through these turbulent times and offer advice to their first-year selves.

Responses from students have been edited for length and clarity.

What challenges did you face while going to school during the coronavirus pandemic? How did it change you?

Valeria Ramirez, Peace and Education Coalition High School, is undecided.

“One of the challenges I faced while attending school during the pandemic was getting used to being on my own for the most part. I, also, had to learn how to manage time better so that I would turn in my work on time but overall I think it made me more responsible and punctual.”

Aja Halbert, Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy, will attend Vanderbilt University this fall.

“One huge challenge I faced was a higher workload from my cleaning job causing me to have to work before and after school during the pandemic. I would work at 4 a.m., go to school, then work at 9 p.m., after school to help support my family. I wasn’t really sure I could maintain straight A’s with this crazy work schedule, but I proved myself wrong.”

Jessica Correa (third from the left), valedictorian of Ogden International High School enjoying prom with friends.

Jessica Correa, Ogden International School of Chicago, will attend DePaul University in the fall.

“The main challenges that I have faced were with procrastination, motivation, and self-care. At the beginning, it was really hard for me to find my purpose and a reason as to why I was doing the International Baccalaureate program and my post-secondary plans. However, by learning more about myself, speaking to others, and trying to be honest with myself, this has allowed me to learn and gain new perspectives on what I should do.”

Brooklyn Hammond, Walter H. Dyett School of the Arts, plans on majoring in computer science in the fall.

“One of the biggest challenges I faced during the pandemic was the constant feeling of making myself get up for classes. It’s a bit different when you leave the house and actually go into school because your parents drive you or you’re going to miss the bus. But, when you’re at home you get to wake up right before your first class and you’re drowsy than usual.

You have control over if you want to open your device or not. It changed me a lot. I used to wake up as soon as my class started, which made me very sleepy. It became hard to learn because I’m a visual and hands-on learner. After a while, I got used to listening to what my teachers had to say and taking notes helped me visualize and remember more.”

Yafae Cotton, Michele Clark Magnet High School, will attend Pomona College in the fall.

“Senior year has been the hardest year of my life. Leading into my senior year Anjay, my cousin who was more like a brother, and my sister Nya got into a car crash — Nya survived but tragically Anjay didn’t make it. This felt unreal because we grew up together. We did everything together. I was lost.

But football season was coming around the corner and that was the only thing that brought me some comfort because Anjay and I grew up playing together. It was one way I felt connected to him.

However, one day during the session I was injured and it resulted in me having a dislocated and fractured right elbow. At this point, I couldn’t go to school or do one of the things I love. My grades were slipping. At the time I had Ds and F’s. After a long talk with my family, they reassured me that I was going to be ok and I thought back to Anjay and knew that he wouldn’t want me to be this way. I also knew that nobody was coming to save me and that I had to still accomplish my goals.”

Who would you like to thank for helping you to become valedictorian for your high school? How did they help you?

Makayla Merrell, Al Raby High School, will attend Loyola University in the fall.

“My mentor and advisor. My mentor helped me become the woman I am today. My advisor helped me academically.”

Daniel Kocot, valedictorian of Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center.

Daniel Kocot, Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center, will attend Harvard University and major in electrical engineering.

“I would like to thank my twin sister, Olivia Kocot. She has stuck by my side through all of my silliness over the years and has been my strongest support system during times when I questioned myself. Early on, she had her mind set on academics while I played video games practically 24/7. She pointed me in the right direction whether it was by providing her feedback on my 1st grade cursive or testing my math skills with multiplication times table practice sets.”

Thomas Haran, Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, will attend Iowa State University to study engineering.

“My peers and friends were a joy to be around and provided group experiences for education. The faculty and staff were always friendly and open to conversation, and they demonstrated immense interest in what I was doing. My teachers were my main pathway to learning, and they provided me with challenging, engaging, curriculums while introducing me to many facets of the world of greater education. They helped keep my desire to learn alive. The people that also helped to keep my desire to learn and grow alive, as well as the people who started this desire, were my parents. I cannot thank them enough.”

Arelly Arellano, Prosser Career Academy, will attend the University of Notre Dame.

“I want to thank my counselors. There were times where I wanted to give up and had self-doubt. There were times where I felt that there were other students that deserved that spot and they made me realize that I have worked so hard and that I deserve to be recognized for my commitment.”

Jelila Adedoyin Surakat, South Shore International College Prep, will attend the University of Southern California in the fall.

“I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to my academic and emotional progress. From my daycare teachers to my elementary and high school teachers and administration. I would like to thank you for your care and belief in my potential. I would like to send a special thank you to Sergeant Logan, Captain Rover, 王老师, Ms. Randall-Jones, Ms. Curtis, Mrs. Mathis, and Mrs. Flatt for their support, belief, and contribution to who I am today and my life beyond high school. My friends Keni, Oluwapelumi, Oluwalosetemi, Destiny, and Chanel deserve a huge thank you for being my emotional support throughout my four years. Last but certainly not least, I want to thank my mommy and daddy for being my biggest cheerleaders, source of motivation, and supportive of all my dreams. I promise to make everyone proud.”

What advice would you give to your freshman self?

Devan King, Morgan Park High School, will attend Middlebury College and hopes to major in political science.

“Do not give in to the peer pressure and the voice in your mind. Fight through all of the adversity that you will face and knock it out.”

Jane Miller, valedictorian of Lincoln Park High School.

Jane Miller, Lincoln Park High School, will attend Emory University in the fall to study environmental science.

“I would give advice to find the things that make me happy. The only way that I was able to succeed in high school was by maintaining a balance between my academics and the things that brought me joy, my friends, family, and sports.”

Karen Menez, Kelvyn Park High School, will attend the University of Michigan to study nursing.

“The advice that I would give my freshman self would be to make sure to stay organized. Although my freshman self stayed on track and accomplished a lot of things for her first year, she still stressed over the deadlines and schedules that come with high school. Organization can take you a long way, regardless of meeting deadlines. My freshman year, I could have avoided doing essays and assignments last minute. With this advice I would probably have more time to invest in relationships, such as my friends and family.”

Amy Villaseñor, Carl Schurz High School, is undecided but would like to study psychology or environmental science.

“Put more value into your time with people you care about and your happiness. Happiness is important to have a healthy life. Sometimes you can spare some study time for family time, because in the end what you really hold on to are the good memories you shared with others. Those warm memories can help you when you’re going through a rough time. “

Ali Khan, valedictorian of Stephen T. Mather High School.

Ali Khan, Stephen T. Mather High School, will attend Harvard University in the fall.

“Focus on your objectives and do not let the name of your school deter you. Ignore the negativity and prove to others — but most importantly yourself — that you CAN and WILL get through it!”

Fatima Mendoza, John Hancock College Preparatory, will attend Harvard University in the fall.

“I would remind my freshman self that she is just as capable of reaching her dreams as anyone else is. I would let her know that as long as she is doing her best, she is doing enough.”

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education, and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Early results from this spring’s state test suggest Chicago students are still struggling

2022-06-16T11:00:00+00:00

Chicago teachers and principals got an early look at Illinois state test results in recent weeks — and what they saw was sobering.

According to the preliminary, unofficial scores obtained by Chalkbeat, 15% of the district’s third through eighth graders who took the test this spring met state standards in math, and a fifth of students met standards in English language arts. Meanwhile, roughly a third of students in both reading and math scored near the bottom on the test.

The data has not been verified by the state, which will allow districts to submit corrections over the summer and release the numbers publicly this fall. Chicago Public Schools, which along with other districts shared the scores with school leaders in late May to help plan instruction for the fall, said it cannot yet provide data on the number and demographics of students who took the test this spring. Though testing conditions were more typical than in 2021, when school was virtual for most, the lack of participation data makes comparisons to previous years problematic.

Still, amid a dearth of districtwide metrics capturing where Chicago students stand academically post-COVID, the data offers a rare window into a reality district leaders have acknowledged: This was much less of a recovery year than they hoped it would be, when dealing with heightened student mental health needs, staffing shortages, and coronavirus surges sometimes overshadowed academics. In 2018-19, the year before the pandemic disrupted learning, almost a quarter of Chicago Public Schools students met or exceeded expectations in math, and 28% met or exceeded standards in language arts.

“This data is not exactly a surprise, but it starts to quantify what everyone’s been talking about in a way that’s reliably linked to mastery of state learning standards,” said Paul Zavitkovsky, an assessment specialist at the Center for Urban Education Leadership at the University of Illinois Chicago.

A spokeswoman for ISBE said the agency has not yet received the data from Pearson, the test provider, making results “very, very preliminary.” Districts can submit data corrections to the agency during a window in July and August — “a crucial step for ensuring data accuracy,” the spokeswoman said.

Chicago officials also cautioned that these results are still unofficial and could yet change and declined to comment on them. They noted about 14,000 student records, which account for almost 10% of students eligible to take the test, were not included in the districtwide results because they were missing information such as a student ID or a test score. A CPS employee shared the districtwide numbers with Chalkbeat.

Some experts Chalkbeat spoke with said it’s fairly unlikely that the outcomes will change significantly as a result of the state’s verification process, particularly for a large district such as Chicago. However, some also stressed the lack of data on who took the test this spring — especially in light of enrollment declines and other pandemic-era disruption — makes comparisons to previous years unreliable.

Teachers unions and some parent groups in Chicago and statewide have sharply criticized the practice of administering standardized tests amid the pandemic, especially in 2021. They argue that the exams have added to the burden on students and educators without offering meaningful information about how students are doing.

Outgoing Chicago Teachers Union president Jesse Sharkey said he remains skeptical of the tests’ value.

“Who really benefits from ranking and sorting schoolchildren, when our students have been through extraordinary trauma and desperately need counselors, social workers, art teachers, special education teachers, teaching assistants, afterschool programs, and more?” Sharkey said in a statement.

Chicago has vowed to step up academic interventions

The preliminary test scores for Chicago Public Schools show the percentage of students meeting standards declining markedly across grades in both math and reading since before the pandemic. The portion of students who scored in the lowest of five categories — “did not yet meet expectations” — increased to about a third of students in both English language arts and math.

The setbacks on the test are especially pronounced for grades three, four, and five, notes Zavitkovsky. That’s troubling, he said, because those grades are a crucial time for mastering foundational skills before students enter middle school, with its emphasis on more complex subject matter.

“The implication here is that without deep instructional interventions at the middle school level that have been very difficult to achieve under the best of conditions, the likelihood of learning recovery for kids now entering the middle school years is pretty low,” he said.

In Chicago, district officials have said that the challenges of responding to two COVID surges this school year got in the way of tackling academic recovery in earnest. They plan to step up such efforts in the coming school year, including by staffing more interventionists — educators who work with struggling students one-on-one or in small groups — and investing in professional development. The district is putting more dollars in an in-house tutoring program that confronted hiring challenges in 2021-22.

Typically, nearly all students in grades 3-8 take state tests, which were canceled nationwide in 2020. Zavitkovsky did not put much stock in Illinois’s 2020-21 results, when about 68% of eligible students statewide took the assessment — a group that was disproportionately white. Overall in Chicago, 16% of students who took the test last year met standards in math and 21% did in reading.

However, he said with students across the state back learning in person full-time, this spring’s results are a more valid measure of the pandemic’s damage and offer districts some insights on where to focus their recovery efforts.

Zavitkovsky said the data cleanup over the summer largely involves correcting student demographic data and accounting for transfers that can affect individual campus results. But he said districtwide results coming directly from the testing provider should be fairly reliable.

Elaine Allensworth of the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research said while she would not rule out future changes to Chicago’s preliminary scores, those changes are usually small.

She noted another potential factor in the score declines: changes to the district’s accountability process. Both educator and campus evaluations are on hold as the district rethinks how it measures both, and with less pressure to perform well, scores tend to slip somewhat.

Derek Briggs, who leads the Center for Assessment, Design, Research and Evaluation at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said he, too, believes it would be unlikely for the districtwide results to shift significantly, thanks to an approach called “pre-equating” that allows for reporting results quickly with a higher level of confidence.

However, he said the absence of data on test participation means this spring’s numbers are now lacking crucial context. Not only is data on the portion of eligible students who took the test missing, but it’s also unknown whether the cohorts of students who took the test in 2018-19 are still around. And with massive pandemic-era enrollment losses in urban districts such as Chicago, the test-takers of this spring are likely a smaller, different group.

“We expected COVID to have a negative effect on learning,” Briggs said. “But these scores might not accurately capture that because we don’t know if we are comparing apples to apples.”

Nationally, there is some evidence that this past spring saw a return to more normal participation and testing procedures, at a time when nearly every school in the country was open for in-person learning. But in Chicago, there is no solid data, and quarantines for students who tested positive for COVID and unvaccinated close contacts might have added a wild card.

Early results helped school leaders plan

Some district leaders and others have complained for some time that they receive results from the IAR, which the state considered replacing but decided to keep this year, too late during the year to make them relevant to efforts to strengthen instruction. This spring, Pearson gave districts early access to the preliminary results.

Chicago Public Schools turned over the preliminary scores to principals May 31. The district’s office of teaching and learning also hosted workshops for school staff on making use of the scores in instruction.

“This is the fastest release of preliminary data in recent memory by the Illinois State Board of Education of the Illinois Assessment of Readiness testing results,” the district said in a statement. “The early release of preliminary IAR results will allow the district and school teams to begin an early plan for academic support in the coming school year.”

One principal, who spoke with Chalkbeat anonymously without authorization to discuss the scores, said the early release of the data was extremely helpful. Educator teams at various grade levels pored over scores for their grades and for individual students, rallying around plans to address gaps when school resumes in late August.

For example, the English language arts test revealed that some students’ struggles with writing — what that principal described as one of the legacies of learning remotely — were hampering their learning. Teachers made a plan to step up work on those skills in the fall.

“It was really worthwhile to have this information and share it with teachers so they can make adjustments in the fall,” the principal said.

Still, this principal said it was discouraging to see the districtwide results, which the principal said suggest the district did not do enough this school year to help students catch up academically. Students urgently need added instruction, especially in reading, but staffing shortages, including an ongoing dearth of trained tutors, and educators too exhausted and burned out to take on after-school work are getting in the way.

“I worry about the long-term effects,” the principal said.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Denver expands its summer school with federal COVID funding

2022-06-15T18:31:09+00:00

Just before lunchtime on a summer Tuesday at Munroe Elementary, six just-graduated kindergarteners headed outside clutching sticks of sidewalk chalk. But the 5- and 6-year-olds weren’t there to draw. Instead, the sidewalk chalk was part of a math lesson on estimation.

“Okay, amores, rápido, one, two, three, eyes on me!” said teacher Olga Marulanda.

The students’ task was to write their names in chalk on the blacktop, count the letters, and write the number. They had just spent several minutes inside estimating how many pieces of chalk were in the box. One girl guessed 50. Another guessed 100. A boy guessed 100,000.

To get at the real number — 48 — Marulanda had the students count the chalk sticks aloud.

“Uno,” they said in unison as she plucked a peach-colored stick from the box. “Dos, tres…”

The rising first-graders are among the youngest participants in Denver Public Schools’ summer program, which started this week. About 2,600 students entering first through fifth grades will spend the next six weeks at 15 elementary schools across the city, doing math and reading lessons and science-related enrichment activities for eight hours a day.

Called Summer Connections, the program is like a super-sized version of past summer offerings, which were shorter and more narrowly focused on helping young students learn to read. But after two years of pandemic-related disruptions, educators pushed to expand the program as a way to help students gain academic ground.

The district is spending about $5 million of its $205 million in federal COVID relief funds on it this year, said Brittany Miller, the district’s senior director of expanded academic learning.

“We know that by expanding the day and including the enrichments we have, we’re going to be able to support attendance and bring the joy into it so kids will want to come,” said Bridgett Bird, the senior manager of expanded academic learning.

Teacher Olga Marulanda leads her students in counting sticks of chalk Tuesday. The students had guessed how many were in the box.

Though Summer Connections is open to all Denver elementary students, Bird and Miller said the district targeted outreach to families whose children experienced greater disruptions to their learning during the pandemic. That includes students with disabilities, students learning English as a second language, students from low-income families, and students of color, whose families were more likely to choose virtual learning during the first year of the pandemic.

The district used a cascading communications approach, first sending emails about the program to families at schools serving students with the highest needs, Miller said. Every few weeks, the district added more schools to the list, eventually filling most of the 3,000 available spots. The program is free and bus transportation is provided.

The demographics of the enrolled students closely mirror the demographics of the 90,000-student district. Half of the 2,600 Summer Connections students are Hispanic or Latino, 17% are Black, 24% are white, and 4% are Asian. About 38% of students are multilingual learners, including the rising first graders in Marulanda’s class.

Marulanda typically teaches preschool at Munroe Elementary in southwest Denver, and she previously taught several of the students in her summer class. To staff Summer Connections, the district hired more than 500 teachers, principals, secretaries, and other staff.

Based on feedback from educators, many of whom are burned out after two and a half years of pandemic teaching, Miller said the district split the summer gig into two three-week sessions, allowing educators to teach one or both. To help retain early career teachers, the district is offering those who have between zero and two years of experience the opportunity to teach summer school alongside a more experienced mentor teacher.

The summer classes are intentionally small — 15 students or fewer — to give teachers and students more time working one-on-one. In a class of rising third graders at Munroe, mentor teacher Karlyn Franchini taught five students about open and closed syllables while co-teacher Taylor Cole, who’s newer to the role, checked to see if they understood.

“Is it open or closed?” Cole asked a pair of boys who were sorting one-syllable words like “scan” and “pet” into two columns, opening and closing her fist to visualize the concept.

Rising fifth graders make structures out of toothpicks and marshmallows during a career exploration unit Tuesday.

Across the hall, rising fifth graders were building structures out of marshmallows and toothpicks as part of “genius time,” the hour set aside each day for science-based enrichments.

Genius time is one way summer school feels different from regular school, Bird and Miller said. It’s also part of an effort to re-envision curriculum as the district tries to accelerate student learning post-pandemic, they said. Because science is fun, and it’s possible to practice literacy and math while doing it, educators built the science units first and then tied other subjects to them.

“We’re ideally empowering our educators to think differently about what’s possible,” Miller said.

So far, the students seem to appreciate the effort. At the end of genius time, the rising fifth graders were asked to write a reflection on their favorite part of the lesson.

“How do you spell ‘marshmallow?’” one girl called out.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee’s TCAP test scores show improvement

2022-06-15T00:43:32+00:00

Tennessee’s second set of test scores from the pandemic era improved across all subjects and grades, largely returning to pre-COVID levels.

But historically underserved student populations — including children with disabilities, those from low-income families, and students of color — continue to lag behind their peers.

State-level results released Tuesday showed an overall increase in proficiency since 2021, when the first pandemic scores followed national trends and declined across all subjects and grades for public school students in grades 3-11.

The latest scores start Tennessee on a new trajectory for improvement based on standardized tests under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, also known as TCAP.

The results have been highly anticipated nationally after Tennessee invested early in summer learning camps and high-dosage tutoring to try to accelerate learning after a third straight school year of COVID-related disruptions.

Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn said those investments played a large role in children’s academic recovery, and she commended the hard work of local school leaders and educators.

“Our districts have been working really hard to ensure that all of our students are able to grow and to improve coming out of what has been a very challenging three years,” Schwinn said during a Tuesday morning call with reporters.

But Schwinn also acknowledged that Tennessee student achievement is not where she wants it to be. Just 30% of Tennessee students met or exceeded grade-level expectations in math this school year, according to Tuesday’s data, compared with about 25% during the 2020-21 school year. And about 36% of students were considered proficient in English language arts — a 7-percentage-point rise from last year.

“I think we all want what’s best for our students,” Schwinn said, “and so it is going to take all of us working together to continue to see the growth and improvement that we want for our students, for our schools, and for our communities.”

The release of statewide data under testing vendor Pearson came about six weeks earlier than in recent years, and follows a minor snag in mid-May that affected part of the preliminary test score data shared with districts.

Schwinn said she is “very confident” in the data released Tuesday, noting that Pearson corrected the scoring error last month within days, and that fewer than 5% of third-grade English language arts exams were affected.

District-level data, which is being reviewed by district leaders, is expected to be released in early July.

Schools across the state also saw slight improvement in science, with about 40% of students at or above grade level achievement. That’s a 2-percentage-point improvement from last year.

Social studies scores, meanwhile, continued to shoot up — as they have since 2017 — with 38% of high school students and 43% of middle schoolers meeting or exceeding expectations this year, compared with 33% and 36%, respectively, last year.

Schwinn pointed out the persistent academic disparities for students of color, children from low-income families, those with disabilities, and those learning to speak English, compared with their white peers.

In math, only 8% of students with disabilities, 21% of Hispanic students, 13% of Black students and 14% of students from low-income families met or exceeded grade level expectations. English language arts was the same story, with 8% of students with disabilities, a quarter of Hispanic students, 20% of Black students and 19% of economically disadvantaged students considered proficient.

English language learners made the slimmest gains of any student demographic group this year. Just 15% of ELL students were considered on grade level in both math and English language arts this year — not much of an improvement from 13% and 12%, respectively, in 2020-21.

Every other demographic group improved modestly in math and English language arts, according to the state.

In 2019, before the pandemic hit, Tennessee students had improved in nearly every math subject, older students showed gains in English, and more than half the schools improved in most subjects.

That progress came to an abrupt halt when COVID arrived. State standardized testing was canceled for the 2019-20 school year. Last year, tests showed significant declines across all grade levels and subjects — especially in Tennessee’s two largest districts in Memphis and Nashville, which serve the state’s most diverse populations and spent the most time with remote learning as a COVID safety precaution.

In response to those results, Gov. Bill Lee’s administration took aggressive steps to accelerate learning, starting with its push to keep instruction in person.

Lt. Gov. Randy McNally said this year’s results make it clear that “children learn best in the classroom.”

Summer learning programs, another state initiative to combat learning loss, are now in their second year under Tennessee’s accelerated learning law passed during a special legislative session in early 2021. A statewide tutoring program also launched, while new requirements for third-grade retention will kick in with the upcoming school year.

Schwinn said Tuesday that the state plans to continue encouraging these interventions in districts. She noted that she was surprised — and excited — to see larger-than-expected improvements in English language arts.

Most national research and experts, Schwinn said, had expected that students’ math skills would recover faster than English language arts. But in Tennessee, the opposite was true, and Schwinn credits the state’s focus on early literacy.

The results show that “even when things are challenging, when you focus and invest critically in a couple of core areas that we believe are going to be pivotal for student success, we will see growth in outcomes,” Schwinn said.

Samantha West is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, where she covers K-12 education in Memphis. Connect with Samantha at swest@chalkbeat.org.

At one high-needs Chicago high school, the class that bore the brunt of COVID’s toll graduates

2022-06-13T21:48:39+00:00

Gerlia Baker and Keshawn Arnold sat side by side in a high school auditorium on Chicago’s Southwest Side — she in a white robe with the gold salutatorian stole draped around her shoulders, he in the gleaming blue robe most of the Richards Career Academy’s 40 soon-to-be graduates wore.

The two cousins were members of the high school class that felt the brunt of COVID’s upheaval – a disruption that brought them closer even as it wrenched their academic trajectories wider apart.

“Keeping it real: You have been cheated,” Richards principal Ellen Kennedy told them and their classmates from the stage. “This pandemic robbed you of so many of the high school experiences you so richly deserve.”

Since the second half of their sophomore year, the outbreak has tested public schools across the country: It shuttered campuses and abruptly shifted learning online. It left families grappling with illness, death, and economic hardship. It ushered in crippling staff shortages and quarantines.

For Gerlia, Keshawn, and countless teens like them, those cascading challenges sank GPAs. They upended school athletic seasons. They sapped motivation and brought on depression. They also opened up reserves of strength and determination that at times surprised them.

The past nine months were supposed to help students bounce back in time for graduation, but a sense of normalcy has remained elusive for them and their small school in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, where half of the students are Black and half are Latino.

As Gerlia and Keshawn, both 18, stood on the cusp of their post-high school lives, they knew the pandemic had also put its stamp on their next steps. It would, they suspected, reverberate well past the moment when they walked out of the aging Richards building for the very last time.

That evening on stage, under a white, blue, and gold balloon arch that spelled out 2022, Kennedy nodded to that reality. But she also urged them to refuse to let COVID define them.

“Fate took your high school career in a direction we did not expect,” she said. “Don’t let that consume you. The past is the past.”

Chalkbeat Chicago followed Gerlia, Keshawn, and the Richards high school community throughout the school year, to learn about efforts to reengage students and navigate the challenges of another pandemic year. The graduation at Tilden High School, the first traditional ceremony in three years, was yet another marker of both the obstacles and triumphs of the COVID era for students in Chicago and around the nation.

The graduation ceremony at Tilden was the first traditional ceremony Richards students had for three years.

Graduation festivities return at Richards

Earlier that evening, Gerlia and Keshawn waited outside Tilden’s auditorium for the start of the ceremony. They were at the head of one of two lines of students gearing up to file inside, where families waited.

In the hallway, robes swished gently on restless bodies, almost drowned out by animated chatter in English and Spanish. Caps featured an explosion of color: plastic flowers and butterflies, the green, white, and red stripes of the Mexican flag, the Nike check mark symbol with the words, “Just Did It.”

Gerlia’s cap was trimmed with white fur. She stood still and poised, glancing at her phone with studied indifference, tuning out the excitement and fidgeting around her. Keshawn’s cap read “021 Free Black.” He was his usual high-energy, jocular self: bouncing on the balls of his feet, chatting with friends, pacing to the back of the line, donning a pair of sunglasses and taking them off, calling out to the school’s dean of students and basketball coach Corbin Leeks.

“Keshawn, get over here — stop playin’,” Gerlia said sternly, barely glancing up from her phone.

“You guys ready on this side?” asked a staffer wearing one of Richards’ custom “The tassel was worth the hassle” shirts.

“Hey, we need, like, five more minutes,” Keshawn called back. “We’re too nervous.”

Education leaders and experts are just beginning to capture the pandemic’s toll on the country’s public school students: Graduation rates dipped in at least 20 states. (In Chicago, the on-time graduation rate slipped slightly while the five-year rate hit a record high.) National test score studies suggest slowing academic growth and widening racial and income disparities. Attendance this fall lagged pre-pandemic rates markedly, hovering around 83% on average in Chicago high schools.

Of the 45 Richards seniors who started in the fall, one moved, one dropped out, one transferred to an alternative high school and two will take another crack at finishing up over the summer.

But numbers can’t quite capture the ways in which Gerlia and Keshawn struggled — or how each dug deep for a resilience they didn’t know they had.

Gerlia juggled school with captaining the basketball team, caring for four younger siblings, serving as a student rep on the local school council, and working a job at Wendy’s that had her closing out the store at 1:30 a.m. several times a week. Still, she stayed focused on her goal of becoming a valedictorian and landing at the right college.

Earlier this spring, fatigue set in prematurely, and Gerlia lapsed briefly into the flat, unmotivated state that she knew from the previous year of remote learning. She got her mojo back by the end of the spring, and though another student — Deysi Coronel, the captain of the soccer team — narrowly edged her out for valedictorian, she felt she had finished her high school career strong.

Keshawn, on the other hand, returned in the fall shaky after largely disconnecting from school the previous spring. As with many other teens at Richards and other schools, his efforts to get back on track were sometimes hampered by spotty attendance and behavioral issues. A basketball standout, he had a tough season, landing on the bench more often than ever before after clashing with Leeks. But, with occasional pep talks from Gerlia, he made it to the finish line.

For Richards, end-of-the-school year events helped reclaim some normalcy. After a two-year hiatus, prom was back at a downtown hotel. The school also held once again its traditional senior luncheon.

In the spring of 2020, Richards held drive-through graduation ceremonies in a parking lot. Last year, it hosted six mini-graduations, gathering up to a dozen seniors to confer their diplomas hurriedly while most family members waited outside.

This year, with the return to Tilden’s auditorium, Kennedy said the day before graduation, “We’re back to regular-ish end of year events.”

Now, as the ceremony was about to begin, Gerlia and Keshawn stood at the head of their line, the sound of “Pomp and Circumstance” inside the auditorium rising in anticipation. The cousins exchanged a final glance and plunged into the joyous, raucous mass of family members, who snapped photos, bounced fussy babies, leaned against walkers, cheered, and called out the graduates’ names.

The graduating seniors strode slowly toward the stage decorated in the Richards’ blue and white colors.

Family members cheer on their loved ones as they graduate from Richards, celebrating their students’ milestone achievement following the chaos of a global pandemic.

The pandemic changed students’ take on college

After Kennedy’s opening remarks, Leeks, the dean of students, called Gerlia, “a natural leader,” to the stage to give her salutatorian speech.

“Go ahead, queen!” a woman screamed from the crowd as Gerlia stood and strode confidently to the stage.

Gerlia spoke about the setbacks the last two-and-half years had brought: Remote learning tested her and her classmates. The loss of her grandmother to cancer damaged her support system irreparably.

She thanked God and the staff at Richards for looking out for her along the way.

“We lost half of sophomore year and all of junior year,” she told her classmates. “We are still adjusting to being back, but I am grateful we have each other. I feel we are the best senior class to ever graduate from Richards.”

She said she was especially proud of Keshawn for “getting back on track to graduation.”

“Congratulations, class of 2022,” she said “You made it.”

At times this spring, Gerlia has been haunted by the question, “What if the pandemic never happened?”

She likely would have ventured farther for college, perhaps at one of the HBCUs teachers and family members have been talking up – and perhaps on an athletic scholarship, if the virus had not upended her later sports seasons.

But the turmoil made her crave the safety of home and feel a responsibility to be closer if her mother needs help. She is headed to Western Illinois University to study journalism. A visitor from the school earlier this spring convinced her it was the right fit, with its wide range of majors and lots of student clubs and activities.

“Students are really involved at that school, and that’s the kind of place I want to be,” Gerlia said the day before the graduation ceremony. “Richards is the same way. Richards is still coming with me.”

Her thoughts about the summer revolve around paying for college: The university gave her a scholarship, but it doesn’t cover tuition and other expenses in full. She is trying to land more hours at Wendy’s over the summer. At college, she plans to juggle a work-study position and an off-campus job.

Forty Richards seniors received their diplomas as this academic year comes to a close.

Keshawn is still unsure about his fall plans, but he’s eyeing Kennedy-King College in the City Colleges of Chicago network. Without the pandemic, Keshawn — a promising sophomore on the cusp of COVID — says he would have been in a stronger position, with a higher GPA and a better track record in basketball. But while the outbreak dealt a blow to college attendance, particularly for Black and Latino boys, Keshawn says it left him determined to go.

“If the pandemic didn’t happen, I don’t know if I’d have gone to college,” he said. “But I missed out on a year of school, and I want to make up for that.”

His major? “I’ll let it come to me when I get there,” he said. “I’m just going with the flow.” He plans to work at FedEx and play basketball this summer.

But first, both Gerlia and Keshawn are taking time to simply savor making it to graduation day.

On stage at Tilden High School, Yeridiath Bejar, a Richards counselor, took the podium to confer the diplomas.

“Let’s get started,” she said. “Vamos!”

Keshawn was third to stride across the stage, giving himself a clap as he advanced toward Kennedy. He towered over the principal as they paused for a photo with his diploma. Gerlia did a little dance when she took the stage, then pranced toward Kennedy to catch up.

After all 40 seniors had crossed the stage, the new graduates turned to face their families. Kennedy instructed them to move their tassels from right to left.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Kennedy said, as applause and cheers from the stands swallowed up her voice. “I now present to you the class of 2022.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

What questions should we ask Memphis school board candidates? Help us develop Chalkbeat’s voter guide.

2022-06-13T20:49:51+00:00

Four seats on the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board will be up for grabs in less than two months, and Chalkbeat Tennessee wants to help voters across the city make an informed choice.

The winners of the Aug. 4 election will sit on the board that sets policies, approves spending, and has the power to hire, evaluate, and fire the superintendent of Tennessee’s largest school district. We want to hear what questions you have for the candidates and what you think they should prioritize if they win.

In all, 12 Memphians are competing for seats representing districts 1, 6, 8, and 9. In District 8, Amber Huett-Garcia is the only candidate on the ballot, after longtime school board member Bill Orgel decided just before the filing deadline not to run for reelection.

To let us know what questions and issues you want school board candidates to tackle in Chalkbeat’s 2022 voter guide and our school board candidate forum, fill out the form below by Friday, June 24.

The candidate forum will place on the evening of Thursday, July 21. Sign up for our newsletter to receive more information on the event. And special thanks to our candidate forum co-hosts: Memphis Lift, MICAH, MICAH Youth Council, Memphis Education Fund, CHOICE, Stand for Children, Urban Child Institute, Refugee Empowerment Program, and Center for Transforming Communities.

If you are having trouble viewing this form, go here.

Cardona urges support for educators as rocky year comes to a close

2022-06-09T19:07:05+00:00

The nation’s education secretary said it’s time to boost teacher pay and add new kinds of support for educators struggling after two and a half pandemic school years.

“We need to prioritize education, not just when schools are closing, but when they’re open, and we need to level up and raise the bar,” said Miguel Cardona in a speech Thursday. “I’m using the bully pulpit to say, the last few years I’ve been fearing and fighting COVID. The next two years, I’m going to be fearing and fighting complacency.”

Cardona spoke to an audience of educators in New York City, where he pushed his vision for “supporting and uplifting” teachers in the midst of “enormous challenges.”

He called for action, saying increasing teacher salaries is key to increasing retention.

“We could talk all we want about supporting teachers, we could show up with coffee and donuts in May on Teacher Appreciation Week,” he said. “But how we show that we value them is by our wallets.”

As of 2019, the average teacher salary was $63,645, a figure that has barely budged in decades. On average, teachers make about 20% less than other college graduates, with an even wider gap in 25 states. The typical starting salary is $41,770. (These numbers don’t include health care and retirement benefits, though, which are often better for teachers than private sector workers.)

The secretary touted the Biden administration’s latest federal budget proposal, which included $350 million for programs meant to improve teacher recruitment and retention, $132 million to improve teacher preparation, and $20 million to increase teacher diversity. The budget proposal also seeks to add $19 billion in Title I funding, which could help schools pay teachers more.

But Cardona’s speech belied an awkward reality: he has little power to enact his vision. There is no indication that such investments will be approved by Congress. Biden’s first budget was dramatically scaled back by lawmakers, and this year’s proposal could face a similar fate.

Ultimately, teacher salaries are based mostly on state and local decisions, which Cardona has little ability to influence.

On Thursday, Cardona linked pay with another challenge facing schools: convincing teachers to stay in the classroom after the challenges of the pandemic.

“Out of crisis, there’s opportunity,” Cardona said. “So let’s use this moment of disruption, not to build it back the way it was. That’s not good enough.”

He encouraged districts and states to use federal COVID relief dollars for pay increases or bonuses — and some already have — though those funds are temporary and dwindling.

So far, there’s been no indication of a substantial increase in the number of teachers leaving the classroom during the pandemic. Teacher turnover was slightly up in some states going into this school year, but that followed unusually low turnover the year before.

Teachers usually leave during the summer, so it’s too soon to say whether quit rates will increase after this year. A number of school districts have reported a sharp uptick in teachers leaving mid-year, and surveys suggest that teacher stress remains high.

In addition to teacher pay, Cardona said that the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, teacher residencies, and guided leadership and mentorship programs could be tools for ensuring teachers are well prepared and incentivized to stay.

“We need to have resources, training, and make sure that our educators are supported in this process,” Cardona said. “As we support the whole child, we must also support the whole educator.”

Missing support: Students, psychologists say existing mental health resources aren’t enough

2022-06-09T17:47:38+00:00

When there was no distinguishing line between home and school while classes were virtual during the pandemic, Brittyn Benjamin-Kelley felt like her life was “going nowhere.”

“It was partially a self-discovery process because I had to figure out what I like to do on my own,” said Benjamin-Kelley, a senior at Cass Technical High School in Detroit. “But it was still a hard journey to have to go through by myself.”

Edi Wolde from Aurora, Colorado, described a similar feeling.

“It’s not fun being alone with your thoughts, especially if they’re negative,” she said.

They were among several students from across the U.S. who reflected on their experiences over the last two years during a discussion on mental health hosted Wednesday by Chalkbeat and College Track, a nonprofit focused on helping students reach and finish college.

Students shared familiar concerns, explaining that the COVID-19 pandemic has been a time of isolation, loss of structure, and added mental health burdens. But it was also a time of personal growth, some said — a testament to the resilience required of young people during the pandemic.

Xitlali Curincita, a student from the San Francisco Bay area, set “little goals” for herself, like participating in class once daily, and eventually started her own club that served as a space for students to talk. “I got the opportunity to actually make a statement and say that ‘I got your back,’” she said.

When students struggled, schools didn’t always have the resources to support them. Though schools across the country have added counselors, social workers, and training for teachers — thanks in part to federal COVID relief funding — many have faced staffing shortages and student needs that outstrip educators’ ability to effectively help.

The pandemic also followed years of alarming increases in rates of suicide and depression among young people. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among people ages 15-24, noted Mitch Prinstein, the chief science officer at the American Psychological Association, who participated in the event alongside other mental health experts.

“I’m not sure why it didn’t get more attention before. But I sure wish that it did,” Prinstein said. “Like so many things, the pandemic really exposed a problem that was there for a long time and made us see it all in a very different and more disturbing way.”

COVID also highlighted longstanding racial and age-based inequities in access to mental health services, said Jessica Jackson of the AAKOMA Project, a nonprofit focused on meeting the mental health needs of young people of color. And when families do realize they need help, they often encounter community mental health systems that aren’t flexible, accessible, affordable, or staffed to serve children in crisis.

“When I worked on impatient units, parents don’t know that you have to go to a children’s hospital most of the time” to get intensive services, she said. “If you go to your regular emergency room, everyone on the inpatient unit is like, what do we do with this 15 year old?”

Resources shared by panelists

David Anderson, the Child Mind Institute:

Child Mind Institute: Hundreds of articles for parents and educators on a range of mental health topics.
Healthy Minds, Thriving Kids Project: A collection of 34 videos and 60 skill sheets for educators and parents, adapted for elementary, middle, and high school populations. Each teaches age-appropriate concepts and language, including understanding feelings, managing thoughts, distress tolerance, relaxation skills, and mindfulness. Available in English and Spanish.

Laura Clary, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health:

National Academies: Videos geared toward educating kids and teachers about mental health symptoms and where to go for help.

Jessica Jackson, the AAKOMA Project:

AAKOMA Project: A nonprofit focused on the mental health needs of young people of color. AAKOMA has funding available to connect young people with therapists.
Sound It Out Together: An initiative by the Ad Council that helps young people learn about social-emotional learning and expression via music.

Finding mental health support on an ongoing basis is a particularly acute challenge for families of color, she said. In addition to confronting higher rates of COVID, they’ve experienced the impact of racist violence in their communities.

“Not only am I experiencing the health issue, and grief, but now I’m also experiencing, I don’t know how people feel about who I am as I identify,” she explained. “And then you have to find a therapist that really can work with all of those things.”

It’s not that schools and outside groups don’t want to help, said Le’Yondo Dunn, principal of Mastery Simon Gratz High School in Philadelphia.

“What we are seeing when we want to jump in and get a young person access to support is that the system is incredibly overworked,” Dunn said. Dunn’s school has six social workers, more than most schools. Still, they feel strained.

“Our social workers are spending 80, 90% of their days responding and triaging,” he said. “What I wish our social workers had the capacity to do is to do some of the proactive work.”

Through a program called Rebound, his school provides additional therapy and violence mediation for a fraction of its students. Every student could use something like that, he said, “but it takes resources, and it also takes the right people.”

Students at the event — the final episode of a four-part Chalkbeat series — had their own suggestions for how schools could help.

Curincita said she would like to see schools host conversations about vulnerability, offering space to be vulnerable and to talk about what the concept means.

“Vulnerability, for me, is super hard to talk about,” she said. “But in most cases, I feel like there’s a need to be vulnerable to feel fully heard and understood.”

Another student wished people wouldn’t always try to solve their problems for them, but rather be a listening ear. Others suggested that schools add “mental health breaks” or time for rest. Lisbeth Martinez from Jordan Senior High in Los Angeles said she would like to see schools offer lessons on navigating conversations with adults about emotions, too.

Laura Clary of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shared research suggesting that those conversations can make a difference. Her study of a mental health program in Baltimore showed that students do actively apply the emotional management skills they learn.

“It’s heartening and depressing at the same time,” she said. “It’s heartening, because we can see that this could make a difference. But schools need the resources to be able to do these things.”

Watch the full conversation here.

COVID shuttered schools when I was a freshman. Returning in person as a junior was rockier than I expected.

2022-06-08T19:19:09+00:00

I was a high school freshman when COVID first closed schools in March 2020. I remember feeling cheated out of my first year of high school. There would be no more going to the school library to study, eating lunch in the cafeteria with friends, and attending classes — except through a screen.

Before COVID, the prospect of going to school excited me. At home during remote learning, I dreaded logging into my classes. The learning apps that were sprung on us were difficult to navigate at first. I often felt lost.

Melony Esquivel

And while adjusting to learning online was hard, figuring out how to apply any of those lessons was even harder. For instance, I began falling behind in my algebra class because I couldn’t retain anything through the education website DeltaMath. It was hard to focus, being stuck at home with three siblings who were also doing remote learning. Without teachers and friends to talk to, I felt drained.

So, when it was announced that Chicago Public Schools were reopening for the 2021-22 school year, I was relieved. Sure, there were benefits to remote learning — like rolling out of bed and into class (no commute), but the chance to get off of my Chromebook and back into the classroom with three-dimensional people seemed like a really good thing. I thought back to the first half of my freshman year and how much I liked being in school. Now I’d be a junior.

But when I finally walked inside my high school in August 2021, I realized how much the school environment had changed. Everyone was wearing a mask and trying to minimize close contact with others. I was doing the same thing, but it felt weird. Not being able to read facial expressions made me uncomfortable. I just couldn’t get used to this new normal, and I realized it would probably be like this all year.

That first day back, I remember walking into my third-period class, trigonometry. Everyone around me was talking to each other through their masks. Many faces were unfamiliar. They seemed ready to learn. I wasn’t. I had expected that the transition back to campus would be smooth, but I was wrong. After being away from classmates and teachers for half of my freshman year and my entire sophomore year, social interactions were quite awkward, like when someone mistook me for someone else.

Not being able to read facial expressions made me uncomfortable. I just couldn’t get used to this new normal.

To make matters worse, COVID still loomed. I worried about catching the virus I had been home trying to avoid for the past year and a half. Several times, at the beginning of the school year, I had to step out of that math class and force myself to take deep breaths because my anxiety was really high. I thought these feelings would subside, but the longer I stayed in the classroom, the more discomfort I felt.

However, with the help of my Intro to Secondary Education teacher, I realized the importance of letting out my emotions and processing them in a healthy manner, as well as the power of community- and rapport-building. I began to reach out to classmates, friends, and loved ones. I asked for the support I needed, which fostered confidence and relief. Soon, staying in my trigonometry classroom no longer felt overwhelming. Socialization came more easily. I could once again handle people asking me, “What’s your name, again?”

There were still challenges, to be sure, but I became more comfortable moving through them. Now, as the 2021-22 school year comes to a close, I see this past year as one big transition back to in-person learning — a period of hard, necessary, and ultimately meaningful change.

Melony Esquivel is a high school junior (soon to be a rising senior) on Chicago’s South Side. She takes part in her school’s teaching assistant program, in which high school students are matched with a mentor teacher and assigned to work with other students.

NYC educators wrestle with budget cuts for 2022-23 school year

2022-06-08T00:33:04+00:00

Educators across New York City are grappling with millions of dollars in planned cuts to school budgets, released this week for the 2022-23 school year.

While school leaders had expected the cuts, many saw for the first time in two years what their budgets will look like as the federal stimulus funding starts to wind down and they continue to grapple with declining enrollment, which has dropped by 6.4% since the beginning of the pandemic.

For many schools, the cuts will mean rolling back plans to hire more teachers or cutting back on programming. While schools see budgets that are more closely tied to their enrollment, they’re still grappling with losing students — all while New York City also has been newly tasked with lowering class sizes over the next five years.

“Maybe some people have dealt with huge attrition, but [the education department is] really lowballing people, and they need to go back to the drawing board,” said one Bronx principal, who spoke on condition of anonymity and may need to cut back on extra support at her school.

Over the course of the pandemic, former Mayor Bill de Blasio used federal stimulus dollars to allow schools to keep money if, midway through the school year, fewer students actually enrolled than the city had expected. Before the pandemic, in those situations, schools were typically required to give money back to the education department.

Mayor Eric Adams has decided to phase out that pandemic policy as part of his budget proposal for next year. Under Adams’ proposal, the overall city budget for the education department would drop by about $1 billion next year to just under $31 billion, largely due to the drop in federal stimulus funds provided during the pandemic. While the city is boosting its own contribution to the education department by $720 million as it attempts to expand some initiatives, they’re also planning for a gradual cut to individual school budgets in response to declining enrollment.

Adams wants to cut school budgets gradually over the next two years by backfilling a portion of the cuts with federal stimulus dollars — meaning schools will see a $215 million cut for this fall, just under $300 million for the 2023-24 school year, and finally, $375 million in 2024-25.

Last school year, the city spent $177 million to cover budgets for 870 schools who saw mid-year enrollment drops, with 75% of that cost covered by federal stimulus dollars, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office. This year, roughly 1,200 schools saw mid-year enrollment drops. In response, the city spent $324 million in additional funding, with roughly three-quarters of that cost covered once again by federal stimulus dollars.

The policy reversal means many schools are likely experiencing cuts that are deeper than they’ve known over the past two years, especially with the infusion of billions in federal stimulus dollars.

“During the current school year, the tension between rightsizing school budgets based on actual student enrollment, even as schools’ needs have increased as a result of the pandemic, continues,” the IBO said in a recent report.

According to the IBO, these cuts are coming out of Fair Student Funding, a city formula that sends more money to schools with larger shares of students with disabilities, those learning English as a new language, and students with academic struggles. That pot of money covers about 65% of school budgets and can be used flexibly to hire staff and create school programming.

Officials have said that they’re not expecting layoffs, but for the city to simply not fill vacant positions. City officials did not respond to a question about whether there are other cuts to school budgets on top of those to Fair Student Funding.

Generally, fewer students could mean that fewer teachers are needed, but in practice that’s a far more complicated problem to solve, said Sarita Subramanian, assistant director of education policy at the Independent Budget Office. For example, a principal might have planned to offer a new Advanced Placement course but won’t have the money to cover a teacher licensed in that subject area, she said.

“It depends on what types of offering a school has and wants to make for students,” Subramanian said.

An additional complication: the city is now tasked with limiting class sizes over the next five years, which could require the hiring of more teachers and creating more classroom space. Officials did not respond to a question about how it plans to meet those requirements while also cutting school budgets amid declining enrollment.

On Twitter, the teachers union chastised Adams for the planned cut, insisting that the billions of dollars left in federal stimulus funding and an increase in state funding could help cover costs — including separate costs for lowering class sizes.

“Does the mayor need a math lesson, or is he just playing games with our schools?” one tweet said.

The Bronx principal said the education department projects about 12% fewer students at her school in the fall, even though she’s anticipating an increase in students. She is still calculating the total cuts to her school but city records show about $100,000, or about 4% less, in Fair Student Funding.

She may lose a music teacher and move two teacher-mentors back into the classroom. She may also need to cover some classes with a teacher who specifically teaches students learning English as a new language, and she isn’t sure she can replace any of the three teachers who are leaving.

“I hope they forgive our budgets, or at least really try to forgive a large amount,” the principal said.

Harlem’s Central Park East I elementary school will see just over $11,600 in cuts to Fair Student Funding alone, compared to the current school year. Parent Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, who is a member of its School Leadership Team and a member of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, said that’s not as severe as other schools. School officials have assured families they’ll be able to manage the cuts without decreasing staff or increasing class sizes.

But even with that cut, they won’t be able to hire a full-time art teacher, she said.

“It’s a big thing in terms of what we believe children need to get a full educational experience,” she said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

The Comeback we didn’t expect: Inside the stop-and-start school year of 2021-22

2022-06-03T11:00:00+00:00

This year was meant to be a comeback year for America’s schools — a return to classrooms and rebuilding of communities after months of remote or hybrid learning, disconnection, and uncertainty.

And for many schools, it was, at least for a while. Schools fully reopened. Vaccines were available for teens and would soon be for children over 5. Districts mapped out how to spend an unprecedented amount of COVID relief money.

But the buildings that swung wide their doors to students in the fall of 2021 were changed schools. Staff saw learning loss, behavior issues, and mental health challenges from the trauma of the pandemic. Students faced violence, in their communities or in schools themselves. Some districts faced crippling staffing shortages, struggling to fill not only teaching positions but those for nurses, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and social workers.

Then the pandemic took on a new shape, with the delta and then omicron variants causing disruptions that school leaders had hoped were behind them. The result: temporary shifts back to remote learning, widespread student absences, teachers out sick, and, in some cases, pitched debates about how to balance student needs with health and safety.

Chalkbeat has chronicled this seesawing school year up close for the last 10 months. As this third year of disrupted learning draws to an end, reporters from our eight local bureaus interviewed members of school communities about the highs and lows of the year, how they’ll remember this time, and what lessons they’ll take with them from a comeback year that didn’t always feel like one.

Badberg saw challenging behavior from some of her young students at Lowry.

Kira Badberg, student teacher, Lowry Elementary School, Denver

Kira Badberg sees shadows of the pandemic on the young lives of her preschool students.

Some children, used to eating anytime while they were at home, struggled to wait for snack at 9:30 a.m. or lunch at noon. Others acted out, saying “no” when asked to draw a letter on a whiteboard, kicking a classmate who didn’t hand over a toy, or even spitting at teachers.

“There’s always been challenging behaviors,” said Badberg, a student teacher at Lowry Elementary in Denver. “But now it just seems like there’s four or five, or seven or eight more.”

It’s no surprise. Many young children spent the most critical brain-building period of their lives in stressful or at least unusual circumstances — anxious parents, more screen time, and fewer playdates. Badberg, who’s upbeat with a ready smile, has learned to head off problems before they escalate, sometimes setting timers to help kids share or giving them choices when they begin to shut down.

The 22-year-old graduated from the University of Colorado Denver in May with a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education. She was part of a para-to-teacher program called NxtGEN Teacher Residency, which aims to help students of color, first-generation college students, and students who speak multiple languages enter teaching.

In addition to college classes, the program includes three years of paid part-time work as a paraprofessional — another name for a teacher’s aide — and a year-long student teaching assignment. Badberg, a first-generation college student, worked at Lowry all four years.

During her junior year, when it seemed like she spent most of her waking hours on Zoom, either for her para job or her college classes, things “felt really overwhelming and really hard,” she said. But connecting with Lowry students kept her going — talking about simple things like what they had for dinner or hearing them playfully rename her “Miss Goodberg.”

Badberg already has a job lined up for the fall. She’ll be a kindergarten teacher at Lowry — a beginner and a veteran at the same time.

— Ann Schimke

Rasidakis is leaving the classroom after 20 years teaching in NYC.

Christopher Rasidakis, eighth grade English teacher at I.S. 238 in Queens, NY

Teaching has always been a passion for Christopher Rasidakis, known by his students at his Queens middle school as “Mr. R.”

But after teaching in NYC for 20 years, he is not returning to the classroom this fall. He has never wanted to do the job just to collect a paycheck.

“Emotionally, I’m drained and damaged from COVID,” he said. “If you can’t be there to uplift others, then you’re not serving your kids. I’m doing it this year, but at a cost to myself.”

When students and staff returned to I.S. 238 full time in September, the school community was still reeling from lives lost to COVID, including a beloved teacher, Tammy Hendricks, who died from the virus in April 2020.

Rasidakis’ students have been “warriors,” showing up despite hardships and displaying kindness to each other in a year filled with uncertainty — the rise and fall and rise of coronavirus cases, masks on and then off (though the majority still wear masks because of vulnerable family members, Rasidakis said).

But it’s been hard to watch how students’ confidence has been shattered by prolonged learning disruptions and difficulty readjusting to classrooms. They returned to a slew of academic assessments, and, unsurprisingly, many did not do well on them.

“Everything says: they’re behind, they’re damaged,” Rasidakis said. “Many came back and thought ‘I’m stupid.’”

‘Teaching is my heart and soul,’ he said. ‘To leave it, a part of me is going to be missing.’

Rasidakis has been trying to rebuild their writing skills and faith in their abilities.

Getting students to be engaged again can feel like an uphill battle. The school, like many across the city, is struggling with absenteeism and lateness. And in many ways, Rasidakis feels like people are blaming teachers for these and other problems, which has only made the situation less tenable for him.

He wants to continue working with children, whether as a coach or working at a camp, or even in education law if he decides to pursue a legal degree.

“Teaching is my heart and soul,” he said. “To leave it, a part of me is going to be missing.”

– Amy Zimmer

Thibault and her daughter dealt with sporadic transportation issues throughout the pandemic.

Lisa Thibault, parent, Pike Township, Indiana

One morning last October, Lisa Thibault’s daughter texted her that the bus was late again, and school was starting in less than half an hour.

Thibault drove to the bus stop to see a group of students still waiting in the chilly, dark Indiana morning.

“I rolled down my window to the kids standing there and told them, ‘Hey, I’m going to the school,’” Thibault said. “So I took a couple kids to school that day.”

Whether the bus would come had become a source of anxiety for Pike Township families last fall. A high number of driver vacancies, overlapping sick leave, and demonstrations for better pay and benefits forced the district to intermittently return to virtual learning throughout the first semester.

When in-person school was in session, Thibault said her sophomore daughter relied on the bus, using a district app that was supposed to notify them when the bus was en route. But the notifications — along with the bus — were sporadic.

The most stressful days were when the district canceled in-person school entirely due to transportation issues. While one teacher held classes by video chat, most assigned independent work, Thibault said. Some classes — like art and orchestra — were impossible to hold online.

Thibault said her daughter suffered from lack of socialization, as well as the daily uncertainty over whether she’d be in school and whether tests and assignments would be postponed. In total, about a month’s worth of school was disrupted, she said.

“I was lucky that I had a kid who could take care of herself,” she said. “But her grades suffered because of it all.”

The situation began to improve in the second semester, Thibault said. The district signed a new contract with its teachers in December after months of contentious negotiations. It parted ways with its superintendent and promised raises for bus drivers.

Thibault said the transportation issues have mostly been resolved. She credited the drivers with remaining friendly and welcoming all year, always holding the bus when Lucy was running to catch it.

Though her daughter is learning to drive, it’s likely that they’ll still rely on the bus for some time next year, Thibault said.

“Hopefully,” she said, “it’ll show up.”

– Aleksandra Appleton

Kaitlyn felt the trauma of gun violence and fear weigh on her this past year.

Kaitlyn Stewart, student, Englewood STEM Academy, Chicago

It was dismissal time when the gunshots rang out.

Kaitlyn Stewart and her classmates at Englewood STEM Academy in Chicago scattered, unsure whether to run back into the school building or to nearby cars. Seeing police arrive with guns in hand put “more fear into our bodies,” she recalled.

In an email from school administrators later that day, families learned that the shooting occurred in a nearby home and had nothing to do with the school community.

The trauma of the incident, part of a wave of gun violence that has shaken Chicago this past year, still weighs heavily on Kaitlyn as she reflects on her challenging sophomore year.

The day after the shooting, Kaitlyn stayed home because she was scared. School officials urged parents to alert homeroom teachers if their child had concerns and needed extra support. Kaitlyn, though, said gun violence is not a topic readily discussed at school. Kaitlyn and her close friend talked about transferring. She still thinks about it.

Kaitlyn can’t help but think the uptick in violence is connected to the trauma of the past two pandemic years, especially for those most directly affected.

“Maybe the pandemic has caused some of this violence because people were suddenly losing so many people,” she said.

Going into this school year, Chicago Public Schools had a plan for meeting the mental health needs of students shaken by the pandemic, including expanding “care teams” on campuses — first responders of sorts for struggling students. But last year, gun violence claimed the lives of 57 school-aged children. That prompted the district to expand an anti-violence program for teens in “high-risk situations,” connecting them with weekly therapy and dedicated mentors.

Kaitlyn doesn’t know what the answer is, but she would like to see more mental health support for students,including therapists.

In a poem she wrote in the fall, Kaitlyn wrote that violence “takes a toll on our life:”

“We want to be in a world full of fun,

not a world where we have to watch our back everywhere we go.

We don’t want to be in a world where we live in fear all around us.”

— Mauricio Pena

Chavous has faced behavioral issues and staffing shortages at her North Philadelphia early childhood center.

Tiffany Chavous, director, Somerset Academy Early Learning Center, North Philadelphia

Tiffany Chavous steered Somerset Academy Early Learning Center through the pandemic.

Now she faces new challenges – children’s behavior issues made more challenging by staffing shortages.

Chavous, director of the North Philadelphia center offering preschool and after-school care, credits her “teachers for getting through the height of the pandemic. The center initially opened only for children of essential workers, and a core group of teachers pledged to limit their interactions beyond work and home in an effort to keep each other safe.

“We kept our circles really small,” Chavous said.

As the world reopened, student enrollment increased. The center now serves 122 students, up from 70 pre-pandemic, Chavous said. Families who arrived during the pandemic stayed, and new families have enrolled based on the center’s reputation for working with children with behavioral or developmental issues.

But, like child care centers across Pennsylvania and the nation, Somerset Academy has seen staff slip away. Some staff with underlying health conditions no longer felt safe returning to in-person teaching. Others are seeking out different professions.

Many early childhood teachers left for higher-paying jobs, Chavous said, noting that teachers can make more at big-box retailers or fast-food outlets. “Because of that, it’s been very, very difficult to get quality staff,” she said.

The center has 12 teachers but is in search of three more. In the meantime, interns and parents are covering for the vacancies.

But Chavous knows about being resourceful. During the pandemic, college interns have provided activities such as dance and music therapy.. And Somerset, which has a behavioral specialist on staff, created an interactive science center where kids could get hands-on experiences, she said.

Early in the pandemic, when students at the center logged into their schools’ remote classes, center staff developed a reward system that allowed those who completed their work to pick prizes or earn extended time outside. “We tried to create a fun atmosphere for children who did not want to be on Zoom,” Chavous said

Instead of focusing on problems, she said, “we try to create solutions.”

– Nora Macaluso

Turner overcame the day-to-day challenges of attendance and staff shortages in a year that was supposed to focus on recovery.

Veda Turner, principal, KIPP Memphis Collegiate Middle School, Memphis

This school year, Veda Turner’s workday began as soon as she woke up.

The principal at KIPP Memphis Collegiate Middle School would roll out of bed each weekday and check her email, taking measure of the staff members who were out and game-planning how she would fill their absences at the charter school in Uptown Memphis.

“Well, it’s a good thing I love puzzles,” Turner said as she walked down a school hallway on a recent Tuesday before the school year ended. “Each day is a different story.”

This year was supposed to focus squarely on academic recovery for the school’s nearly 350 students after a year of remote school. But that turned out not to be the case, Turner said, because of staffing issues and a dip in student attendance as the pandemic continued to take a heavy toll.

On many occasions, Turner said she didn’t have enough substitute teachers to cover for staff absences — especially during the fall’s delta wave and January’s omicron surge.

That meant shuffling staff members around when possible and at times teaching a class herself to ensure her students — most of whom are Black, come from economically disadvantaged families, and were disproportionately affected by the pandemic — continued learning.

Turner said she would rather put herself in a classroom than add any more to her already-stressed educators’ plates. For over three months, Turner taught a sixth-grade English class — even though her past classroom experience was mostly teaching science.

“Regardless of who was out, who was in, (the students) still needed to receive instruction,” Turner said. “So I did what I’ve always done: I put my strongest available people in front of kids in places where they’re needed. If I didn’t have that strong person, that means I did it.”

– Samantha West

Spivey’s children lost progress during a year out of school.

Marcia Spivey, parent, Edmonson Montessori Elementary School, Detroit

Marcia Spivey felt helpless and frustrated.

Her son, Rinzer, had easily mastered pronouncing three-letter words last year as a kindergartner through all-remote instruction.

Now, in first grade and in person, he was struggling to grasp basic phonics instruction. Interactive Leapfrog books became supplemental exercises to test his ability to sound out words like yellow, blue, and orange. He often asked his second-grade sister to read for him.

While Spivey prides herself on being actively engaged in her children’s learning, she also recognized her limits.

“I got to do my part because I’m the mom, but I’m not a teacher,” she said. “So I don’t necessarily know how to teach consonants.”

By the end of January, school assessment results confirmed Spivey’s worries: Rinzer had fallen below grade level in reading since the year began. His school, Edmonson Montessori, responded by offering him and other students tutoring sessions.

After years of poor academic performance that drew unwelcome national attention, the Detroit Public Schools Community District has seen steady gains and improved attendance. The pandemic put that in jeopardy; district leaders have responded by setting aside federal COVID relief dollars for tutoring, reducing class sizes, and expanding mental health support.

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti emphasized at the start of the year that in-person learning was the best choice for students who needed to recover academically.

Then in January, as omicron took hold, the district returned to remote learning — leaving parents like Spivey to supplement teaching from online classes.

Rinzer’s confidence in his reading improved when in-person learning resumed, Spivey said. Still, she worries whether the academic gains her children made in the second half of the school year will be lost over the summer months — setting him back again.

— Ethan Bakuli

Russ’ children learned new skills after a year of losing out on in-person activities.

Tracy Russ, parent, Thirteenth Avenue Elementary, Newark

For Tracy Russ, a Newark parent of three children who attend district-run schools, this school year was a time of renewal.

Her children learned new things, like how to dance, swim, read, and play new instruments. They also put down their devices, went to the movies, and made new friends – things they hadn’t done since the pandemic began.

But the change wasn’t as easy as flipping a switch, Russ said.

“Throughout the pandemic, we all picked up on bad habits with our devices,” Russ said. “I said, ‘Tracy, you need to get them back out in the world.’ ”

And that’s what she did.

In the early spring, she signed up her daughters, Tahlia, 10, and Samaya, 8, for dance classes at Newark School of the Arts. Her son, DaJuan, 11, started taking swim lessons through a city-sponsored program for children like him who are on the autism spectrum.

“The computers, being bored at home, depression — it was all starting to consume me and my kids,” she said.

Russ had concerns about COVID safety protocols at Thirteenth Avenue Elementary, which her children attend, and she also worried her children were falling behind academically during remote and hybrid learning. Two of her children have individualized education plans, a document that outlines specialized instruction and services they need.

In addition to being on the autism spectrum, DaJuan has Dandy-Walker syndrome, a congenital brain malformation that makes it difficult for him to control his movements. Samaya has challenges regulating her emotions, and her specialized learning plan calls for a one-on-one aide, Russ said.

While DaJuan received speech, occupational, and physical therapy all year, because of a shortage of classroom aides, Samaya couldn’t receive one-on-one services, Russ said.

Even so, Samaya thrived this year, socializing and getting A’s on spelling tests. Though the vast majority of students struggled with standardized tests this year, Tahlia scored on or above her fourth-grade level, Russ added.

And one afternoon in May, Russ received an unexpected text message from DaJuan’s classroom aide.

“I want you to see what DaJuan is doing.”

Russ pressed play on the attached video and watched her son play the C chord on a ukulele during music class.

“Just seeing the excitement and focus from him, and his teacher telling him to play this chord, and for him to be able to pick it up and do it,” she said, recalling the moment through tears.

DaJuan also made a breakthrough with reading. As Russ and DaJuan waited for Samaya and Tahlia to finish dance rehearsals on a recent Thursday, she was overwhelmed as she watched him read a book aloud.

“I see so much growth in all of them,” Russ said. “And even in me.”

— Catherine Carrera

More Michigan third graders could be held back under reading law

2022-05-27T22:52:46+00:00

Parents of nearly 5,700 Michigan students are getting some unwelcome news: Their third graders could be held back from moving on to the fourth grade because of low reading scores.

That’s up 60 percent from the number of students who were eligible to be retained last year.

The Michigan Department of Education attributes the increase to a larger number of students taking the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress this year. Ninety-eight percent of students took the third grade English language arts M-STEP exam, up from 71 percent last spring. Scores on the reading portion of that test determine eligibility for retention under the state’s controversial “read by grade three” law.

But that only partially explains the increase. Scores declined, too.

This year, 5.8% of those who took the test scored at least one grade level behind, making them eligible for retention. That’s up from 4.8% last year.

It is unclear how many of those students will actually be held back under the law, which provides wide latitude for parents to request exemptions. Administrators granted them liberally last year, holding back only 0.3% of those eligible for retention.

Administrators might not be as lenient in a school year with fewer school closures, quarantines, and other pandemic-related disruptions.

“Last year, there was a general acceptance of the fact that kids didn’t have an opportunity to learn to the extent they would normally,” said Katharine Strunk, director of the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University. “It’s unclear to me how districts will respond now that there’s been more of a return to normalcy,” she said.

State Superintendent Michael Rice said a single test score should not determine whether a student repeats third grade.

“Retention decisions should be on a student-by-student basis, in consultation among parents, teachers, and administrators,” he said. “In general, however, the idea that a given score on a state assessment should generate retention makes no sense. Student performance in multiple ways should be considered before a decision to retain a student.”

The state Center for Educational Progress and Information began mailing letters to parents on May 18.

The K-12 Alliance of Michigan, which opposed the law from the outset, hopes few students are retained.

“Holding a child back can be extraordinarily harmful to their academic success,” said Bob McCann, executive director of the alliance. Individualized instruction, tutoring, and reading coaching are better solutions, and schools are already offering them, he said.

Rice agreed, adding that smaller class sizes, strong teacher training, and summer school are also more helpful than retention, as are well-trained school librarians, specialized help for students with dyslexia, and a longer school year.

Across all grade levels tested, 96% of students took state assessments this year, up from 70% last year. The MDE is expected to release results of those tests in early fall.

“It’s great to see higher participation rates this year — one more indication that higher percentages of parents, students, and staff are comfortable in schools,” Rice said.

Fewer students took standardized tests last year because they must be given in person, and many students were learning remotely.

“It’s a positive sign to see more children in school on a regular basis, where they are able to interact with one another and their teachers to help them grow, learn, and thrive in a wide range of ways.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s controversial social skills assessment helped this Brooklyn school. Getting there hasn’t been easy.

2022-05-27T15:41:08+00:00

Educators and families were in wide agreement: Students would need help adjusting socially and emotionally to being back in classrooms this year amid the COVID pandemic.

But one of New York City’s plans to do that — by using a questionnaire called the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment, or DESSA, in every school — was quickly met with backlash. Educators, already overwhelmed trying to meet the pandemic-era needs of students, worried it was time-consuming, and they feared they couldn’t accurately answer the questions about students they hardly knew at the start of the year. Some concerned parents opted their children out.

Brooklyn principal Kiri Soares could relate.

She also struggled to figure out how her school could use the DESSA to help her students at the Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women.

That was more than five years ago.

Now, the assessment is steeped in the school culture, and Soares and her counseling team say it has been an integral part of preparing students for success — both academically and outside the classroom. But it took time and resources to figure out how to shift the school’s culture to make the tool useful, raising questions about how easily other schools could replicate their model as classrooms continue to be rocked by the pandemic.

“It wasn’t smooth,” Soares said. “You can just roll assessments out there and expect them to be useful if you don’t have time and energy.”

‘Skills that undergird a child’s academic success’

This year, New York City mandated that every school administer the questionnaire through a three-year, $18 million contract with Aperture, the education technology company.

The Urban Assembly network, a nonprofit group that supports 23 schools across New York City including the Institute of Math and Science, had already been using the DESSA for years to address students’ social wellbeing.

Schools use a version of the screening tool that consists of 43 questions that educators answer about their students’ social skills such as decision-making, self-awareness, and taking personal responsibility.

Social-emotional learning, or SEL, has recently gained traction across the country as an important part of what students should learn in school. But lately, the approach has become wrapped up in heated fights tied to social justice issues.

Brandon Frame, the director of social-emotional learning at Urban Assembly, said oftentimes people’s skepticism is tied to misunderstanding what social-emotional learning is. He emphasized that it focuses on building skills and attitudes students need to navigate life in the classroom and beyond: teaching them how to set and achieve goals, for example.

“There’s no community that I go to and they say, I don’t want my child to develop [these] skills,” Frame said. “These are skills that students need to be successful, that ultimately impact our communities.”

Soares said it’s also helpful to be clear about what the DESSA is not. It is not, she stressed, a measure of a student’s mental health. It’s not going to help diagnose or treat depression, for example.

“We are looking for the social emotional skills that undergird a child’s academic success. Like, I don’t want my teachers to be counselors. I have counselors, and I have teachers,” she said.

“But I do want my teachers to help kids, plan, time management, prioritize, learn how to listen, speak respectfully, track the speaker when they’re talking. Those are core skills that help them be academically successful. That’s what the DESSA looks for,” she said.

Counseling teams and peer-to-peer connections

Fine-tuning the approach at the Institute of Math and Science took years and also relied on support from the Urban Assembly network.

Teachers are responsible for administering the questionnaires only for the students in their advisory period, which is usually a smaller class of about 15.

This solves a few challenges: whittling down the amount of time teachers spend completing the DESSA, and making sure that an adult who knows the students well is answering detailed questions about the students’ behaviors, outlooks, and abilities.

The results are then analyzed by the counseling team, solving one of the biggest challenges Soares said she faced when they first implemented the DESSA: what to do with all that data.

She estimates there are 14 people on the counseling team, with a guidance counselor, social worker, college advisors, multiple deans, and a stable of interns from local universities.

Team members examine the results for any biases or outliers. Soares said sometimes teachers rate all their students as struggling or, conversely, report that they’re all doing exceptionally well. Neither is helpful because it’s not likely to be the case. So the team crosses the results with what they know about each student individually and collaborates with teachers to decide which skills students need to work on, or where they’re already strong.

With the results, which get fed into a color-coded dashboard, the counseling team builds small groups of students. They intentionally pair students who struggle with those who excel on the same skills, hoping they learn from each other.

“Sometimes, us as adults, we’re not always as relatable,” said Jennifer Jackson Robbins, a school counselor at the school. “But when you have a peer saying, ‘This is what I’ve experienced, this is how I handled it — or this is how I wish I had handled it,’ I think that speaks louder to students.”

They meet during “learning lab” – essentially a study hall period that Soares created this year to allow students room to work independently, a skill many had to strengthen while learning remotely last year, and one that Soares doesn’t want students to lose before heading off to college when it will be valuable. The period also creates a space for students to work on social-emotional learning skills without missing valuable instruction time in their core subjects.

The small groups come together for about 30 minutes once a week, for five to eight weeks at a time. The university interns play a pivotal role, leading the small groups with the guidance of a curriculum and the professionals on the school counseling team.

Support also comes from the Urban Assembly network. Frame, the director of social-emotional learning, has a team of specialists who visit schools, lead training sessions, and help principals sort through the information collected through the DESSA.

Data-driven approach

When Robbins thinks about the value of the small groups, she thinks about one student who has been working alongside her peers on decision-making skills. At the start of the year, the student would leave class or refuse to sit in her seat, prompting a flood of emails to Robbins from the girl’s teachers. Those emails are fewer now.

Marni Brand, a social worker at the school, thinks about other students who have gone from not being able to make eye contact with their classmates to planning senior events.

Before using the DESSA, knowing whether the counseling team was having an impact often meant relying on these kinds of anecdotes. Trying to figure out who needed help meant pulling bits of data from everywhere – attendance records, discipline logs, referrals from teachers.

Now, they can glance at a dashboard and cross the data gleaned from the questionnaires with what they know about students. The DESSA is re-administered multiple times a year to track progress.

“For so long it was like, ‘Are we helping people? How do we know?’” Brand said. “For us, the value is seeing the way your work is impacting students.”

Christina Veiga is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on school diversity and preschool. Contact Christina at cveiga@chalkbeat.org.

‘A glaring concern’: Chicago’s support staff substitute pool stretched thin amid pandemic

2022-05-25T14:26:13+00:00

When Chicago classroom assistants take time off or quit, Stekeena Rollins steps in to fill a crucial void.

She guides students with disabilities through lessons. She helps them eat lunch and go to the bathroom. And she “puts out little fires” amid an uptick in disruptive behaviors, sometimes feeling like a one-woman trauma team.

During a school year marked by unprecedented support staff shortages, Rollins has been in high demand.

This school year has trained a spotlight on a dearth of substitute teachers in Chicago and beyond. But the district’s special education classroom assistant, or SECA, substitute pool has also been stretched thin — even as the city hired more than 140 support staff substitutes last fall, growing that pool by more than 20%.

SECAs, who help students with disabilities with academics, behavior, and basic needs, have played a key role in navigating COVID’s disruption, helping schools forge and shore up student connections tested by surges and quarantines.

According to data obtained by Chalkbeat Chicago, the district was able to fulfill slightly more than a quarter of almost 80,000 requests for a support staff sub so far this school year, compared with 68.5% of requests for substitute teachers. As with educator subs, data shows wide disparities in the rates of filled requests.

The staffing shortages and heightened student academic and mental health needs have brought renewed recognition of the key roles school support staff plays — and the importance of lining up backup.

At one Chicago school, a blind student skipped lunch because he didn’t know what was on the menu and put off drinking water to avoid bathroom trips when his SECA wasn’t around. At Englewood’s Perkins Bass Elementary, special education teacher Adriana Gonzalez has seen classroom teachers trying to double as aides, standing by a student with disabilities to offer support even as they are teaching a lesson to the entire classroom.

“SECAs are an integral part of the school community,” said Gonzalez. “You can definitely feel a shift when they are absent.”

Amid increasingly stressful work and relatively low pay, many paraprofessionals and other school support staff members have been swept up in the Great Resignation, said Ritu Chopra, the executive director of the Paraprofessional Research and Resource Center at the University of Colorado Denver. Chicago Public Schools has almost 440 SECA and bus aide vacancies this month, compared with 250 around the same time in 2019, according to the SEIU Local 73, the union that represents both full-time and substitute SECAs and bus aides in the district.

Many school districts, including larger urban districts such as Detroit Public Schools, don’t even have support staff substitute pools.

“I am hearing more about paraeducator shortages than ever before,” Chopra said. “In some cases, they get paid more at a fast food restaurant, and it’s less stress for them.”

SECAs pick schools that communicate student needs clearly

Rollins, the substitute SECA, says schools desperate for substitutes have courted her like never before: She gets more phone calls directly from principals trying to enlist her. Teachers praise her work and ask if they can get her a coffee or a bite to eat.

Stekeena Rollins serves as a special education classroom assistant substitute in Chicago Public Schools.

“I need to clone myself 10 more times because I get so many requests,” said Rollins, who subs in Chicago and neighboring Evanston. “It’s almost like a bidding war.”

Support staff vacancies and attrition have bedeviled Chicago Public Schools for years, but this year, the number of SECA vacancies are “a glaring concern,” said SEIU Local 73 executive vice president Stacia Scott.

Some students with disabilities are entitled to one-to-one or part-time SECA support under their Individualized Education Programs, the binding documents outlining their needs. Scott says she has seen more robust efforts — in some cases in tandem with the union — to recruit and quickly onboard custodians and crossing guards.

“I’m not sure why there hasn’t been the same full-court press when it comes to SECAs and bus aides,” she said.

While the fill rates for substitute SECA requests have been low across the board this school year at about 23% on average, some schools have done much better than others, a data analysis by Chalkbeat shows.

About 45 of the district’s roughly 500 schools had none of their requests for SECA subs fulfilled. On the flipside, almost 20 schools had fill rates of 70% or more. The Blair Early Childhood Center on the Southwest Side got coverage all 94 times it requested support staff subs.

Substitute teacher coverage data shows that schools in some North Side neighborhoods tend to draw those educators at much higher rates than high-needs campuses on the South and West sides. But the picture is more mixed when it comes to support staff subs. The neighborhoods with highest fill rates for SECA and other subs are largely on the South and Southwest Sides, including Oakland, South Deering, Riverdale, and Roseland.

Scott and SECA subs who spoke with Chalkbeat suggested that more of these substitutes live in South and West side neighborhoods and seek out opportunities to fill in close to home. Areas that are harder to reach by public transit, such as O’Hare, might be at a particular disadvantage.

Ciere Fisher started working as a substitute SECA in 2014 while she was attending community college and weighing a teaching career. She later joined the district as a full-time SECA but returned to subbing as she pursues a graduate degree in occupational therapy. She says she subbed at a handful of nearby schools when she lived on the West Sides. Now in Lakeview on the North Side, she again stays largely close to home.

But she also says that some campuses do a better job of helping substitute SECAs navigate the tough job of parachuting in to serve students with high needs in unfamiliar environments.

Following advocacy from the support staff union, full-time SECAs are expected to leave information on students’ needs, schedules, likes, and dislikes for their substitutes in the district’s system. But only some schools, such as Hawthorne Scholastic Academy, where Fisher works regularly, have fully embraced that practice.

In other cases this school year, Fisher says, teachers are surprised when she shows up in their classrooms — occasionally saying they didn’t even know the district had substitute SECAs. And during a hectic school year, no one has the time to explain what she needs to do and how she can be most helpful.

She’s had some overwhelming days, stepping in to cover absences or vacancies in several different classrooms on the same day and covering lunch duty.

“It’s kind of like being thrown to the wolves,” she said. “I end up feeling like I’m not being that helpful, and I’m just a body in a room.”

Rollins also says she also gravitates toward schools that communicate clearly about student needs. Because of a shoulder injury, she often can’t serve students who need to be lifted onto wheelchairs or changing tables during the day — and it’s frustrating to show up at a school only to find out she’s not a fit for their needs.

Schools in Chicago tend to be better about providing that information than Evanston, said Rollins, who also substitute teaches in that district. At $24 an hour for sub SECAs, the pay in Chicago is better.

Chicago has stepped up effort to hire substitute paraprofessionals

The district says it has stepped up efforts to recruit and retain both substitute teachers and paraprofessionals this school year. It touts monthly job fairs, a redesigned sub recruitment website, and a social media campaign to highlight the flexibility and rewards of these jobs.

The district hired more than 140 substitute SECAs in October and November alone to address support staff vacancies, increasing that pool to 430 people, from 350 on the cusp of the pandemic.

The district also offered a daily pay incentive at the height of the omicron surge in January. SEIU’s Scott says the COVID spikes and delays in contact tracing earlier this year affected sub coverage: “The fear level is very high among our subs because of how transient they are.”

Nationally, districts are paying closer attention to support staff recruitment and retention, and in some cases trying to expand their substitute pools. The 820,000-student New York City school district now has 10,000 paraprofessional substitutes, up more than 3,000 since before the pandemic, according to the United Federation of Teachers, the district’s educator union, which also represents para subs. That district requires full-time paras to serve in that substitute pool first; it pays a daily rate of $166.67.

In Chicago, mental health and behavioral concerns have dominated calls to Equip for Equality’s hotline, but staff attorney Luiza Quental says the nonprofit that provides legal services and advocacy for people with disabilities has also heard from families who say their children are entitled to a SECA — but it doesn’t seem one is there, at least not consistently. Being able to line up backup for those crucial positions is key, she said.

“Some kids really can’t be without a para,” she said. “The day the para doesn’t come, families don’t send them to school or pick them up early.”

Angelina Landaverde, one of the nonprofit’s clients, has a fourth-grade son who is blind and shares a SECA with other students. She says the boy has had four different SECAs so far this school year, and she keeps hearing from him about stretches when he isn’t getting much help.

The family is pushing for more support in hopes of seeing faster gains in his reading and writing skills. Landaverde said her son didn’t eat lunch sometimes and avoided drinking water because he didn’t want to impose on friends to help him with meals and bathroom trips.

“Those are not jobs for his friends,” Landaverde said in Spanish. “That’s where a paraprofessional comes in.”

Gonzalez, the Englewood teacher, says she has definitely felt the shortage of backup SECAs this school year. In a self-contained classroom where she works with students with disabilities, missing a SECA for the day means that she struggles to accommodate students who need to take a break from the classroom during the school day.

Gonzalez took part in a recently released survey by Educators for Excellence Chicago, in which 83% of teachers polled said special education support staff shortages have challenged their school this year.

Some Chicago principals say in a school year filled with staffing and other challenges, finding support staff backup can seem like a lesser worry.

But, as one principal who spoke with Chalkbeat anonymously because he was not authorized by the district put it:

“If you can’t find a SECA sub, how do you supervise lunch and recess? How do you provide attention and care to students with extreme behavioral and other needs? For families and for classroom teachers, it’s a big deal.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Event: What our schools need next to support student mental health

2022-05-19T16:57:56+00:00

This event was originally scheduled for June 1, and has been postponed to June 8.

Mental health is a topic that has threaded throughout Chalkbeat’s journalism with particular intensity since COVID started.

In response to this national need for more discussion around mental health, Chalkbeat and College Track will host student panelists from across the country in conversation with Blair Imani to share their experiences with mental health and wellness over the last two years, how they have felt during the pandemic, and what they need next.

Following the students, Chalkbeat managing editor Sarah Darville will moderate a panel of mental health experts to discuss how COVID has exacerbated many issues that existed in schools around mental health, and the solutions to address the effects of the added stress students and educators have endured over the last two years.

Join Chalkbeat and College Track for this important discussion with students and mental health experts. Please RSVP for this premiere so we’re able to provide streaming information. This event is free to attend, but any optional donations will go to support Chalkbeat’s nonprofit journalism and events like these.

This event is the final in a four-part national Chalkbeat series titled COVID and Mental Health, which seeks to amplify efforts to better support the wellness of students and school staff during this challenging comeback year.

This school year never got back to ‘normal.’ These are the lessons educators will carry with them.

2022-05-19T16:41:38+00:00

Rita Jackson had a big new job this year.

The longtime Baltimore elementary school teacher became a “learning loss interventionist,” working with small groups of struggling students every day. She’s spent the year showing younger students how to put pencil to paper and teaching older students how to craft compelling paragraphs.

With that targeted help, students are “definitely showing growth and gains,” she said. Still, “it was almost like whack-a-mole all year long,” Jackson said.

“COVID numbers are down, but the kids are fighting or they’re not getting along. Then, here go the numbers again, we’re spiking, oh here’s the stress and anxiety. Oh, we have no subs, so no intervention. It’s just constantly something else.”

That will sound familiar to many teachers and students across the U.S. about to wrap up their third pandemic-affected school year. The year marked a return to fully in-person learning for most, but COVID waves, staff shortages, and a sharp rise in student absenteeism meant the school year never quite got back to “normal.” Now, many exhausted teachers and students are counting down the days to summer — while thinking about how the lessons of this year will shape the next one.

“It has taken a toll on everybody to make it this far,” said Alyssa Rodriguez, a school social worker in Chicago. “It’s just going to be a very long finale.”

A rise in teacher absences due to COVID or other illnesses — and a lack of subs to fill in for them — has been a defining feature of this year. Coupled with persistent staffing shortages, the issue has compounded burnout and made it harder for students to catch up, as educators routinely stepped in for missing colleagues while juggling their own classes.

In Hillsborough County, Florida, assistant superintendent Daniela Simic saw how teacher absences weighed on schools. At the start of the school year, Simic said, teachers were asking her team of curriculum specialists lots of questions and using resources they had created to help teachers review skills or knowledge from a prior grade level. But she noticed a drop-off as the school year progressed, especially at schools with more teacher vacancies and absences.

“When you are so exhausted and you are dealing with having to take on three other classes during the day because there’s no substitute teachers available to take the kids, then you kind of revert to what’s easiest,” she said.

Substitute shortages were more common at higher-poverty schools in her district, Simic said, because subs were more likely to choose to work in schools with more affluent students. Those staffing disparities had an effect on student learning.

“That divide continues to grow and grow,” she said.

Student absences also complicated schools’ intervention plans. Many districts have reported a spike in student absences this year, including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Memphis.

At Jackson’s school in Baltimore, some students missed school when they got sick or quarantined. In other cases, families kept children home for weeks at a time whenever the city’s positive case rate ticked up.

Jackson understands why the fear has lingered for some families in a majority Black city that’s weathered some 1,800 COVID deaths. Students who are cared for by grandparents are especially worried about getting their family sick. But she also sees the impact. Some of her students have missed 45 to 60 days of school.

“Our kids that aren’t coming to school aren’t getting the intervention and they’re not making growth,” Jackson said. “These are kids that are struggling, and that’s hard.”

In Los Angeles schools, teacher Meghann Seril saw her third graders make strides as they spent more time in the physical classroom.

The gains of one student who struggled to learn math virtually last year have been particularly heartening. Online, the student had a hard time recalling what she’d learned the week before, and she froze up when it came time to start a math problem. Now, Seril sees that student putting objects on her desk to help her count and using the listening strategies they worked on as a class.

But Seril is already eyeing ways to change up her instruction this fall. Third grade teachers at her school decided to put away the devices this year to give their students a break from technology. But sometimes that meant students did less independent learning.

For example, during a recent unit about how Los Angeles has changed over time and how people interact with the natural environment, students wanted to know: “Who takes care of the Los Angeles River?” Seril wished she’d planned for students to get into groups to find the answers to their questions online.

“I definitely want to build in time next year for students to do some of their own research, and to feel a little more empowered,” she said. “I want to swing back a little bit and see how we can get a better balance.”

Seril is also planning to spend some extra time getting to know the second graders who will be in her class next year, so she can tweak some of her lessons over the summer to reflect their interests — whether that be rocks or mythology.

“At the end of last year, I was so exhausted that I did not have the capacity to do this,” she said. “But I have been so re-energized by my experience with my students this year that I feel like I have that little extra that I can give.”

In Chicago, Rodriguez has seen her school nail down exactly when a mental health need is serious enough to require outside help, and how the behavioral health team can best work together to keep a close watch on students in need.

But there are some challenges that have lingered all year. Students are still fighting more than usual, and conflicts escalate quickly if an adult isn’t there to step in.

Come fall, her school is planning a big push to help students work on building friendships, resolving conflicts, and identifying adults they can turn to for help. Her school will be “coming in with very high and strict, concrete expectations,” she said, after a year in which students had a lot of “wiggle room.”

“We really didn’t know what to expect,” Rodriguez said. “We didn’t have as many guardrails as we normally would have had.”

Educators plan to hang reminders throughout the building so students have a clear picture of what happens if they skip their homework or act out in class.

The goal: “Just trying to figure out how we come in strong in the beginning so we’re not necessarily having to have so much discussion on the back end.”

Kalyn Belsha is a national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

‘I’m lucky if I can get him out of bed’: NYC families struggle with school refusal

2022-05-17T19:28:49+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

Every morning raises a stressful question for Lori: Will her son go to school?

Most days, the answer is no.

Her eighth grader, Scott, has not attended school for a full day or entire week since mid-January.

“He said he hates math, he hates school, and doesn’t want to go,” said Lori, a single mom from Staten Island who asked to use middle names for privacy reasons. “There are mornings where he would get dressed and go, but not get out of the car. Sometimes he doesn’t leave the house.”

The school year at I.S. 7 started smoothly for Scott, who is on the autism spectrum. His teachers heaped praise on him, and he seemed to be making friends, Lori said. But by November, he had been sick several times, and he missed half the month.

He never got back on track.

Many children have days where they dread school or try to get out of going at some point in their academic career. But Lori’s son and other children like him are suffering from an extreme aversion to being in the classroom that clinicians call school refusal.

Studies estimate about 1 to 5% of children nationwide exhibited signs of school refusal before the pandemic. Experts, parents, and educators told Chalkbeat they believe coronavirus shutdowns worsened the problem. Many children learned outside of school buildings for an extended period of time, while instances of anxiety and depression — disorders often associated with school refusal — skyrocketed.

Post-pandemic statistics for school refusal aren’t available, and it can be hard to untangle whether mental health issues are impacting attendance since they can manifest in physical symptoms like stomach aches. But observers wonder if post-pandemic school refusal is contributing to the city’s soaring absenteeism rates. Education department officials estimate that by year’s end, 37% of the students in kindergarten through 12th grade could be considered chronically absent, defined as missing at least 10% of the school year. That is significantly higher than in 2018-19, the year before the pandemic, when it reached 26%.

An increase in school refusal following campus closures stands to reason, since experts say the problem can be triggered by absences, illnesses, or major transitions like starting a new school. COVID rates continue to be high in New York City, leading to prolonged periods away from school for ill students as well as students exposed to the virus by classmates (though quarantine rules have been relaxed in recent months). And remote learning led to a longer-than-normal feeling of transition for students who enrolled in new schools but spent limited amounts of time there.

Students refusing to attend school can drain and frustrate educators and parents alike. Without any official city guidance on how to approach refusal, the response from school administrators ranges from deep partnership with families to little or no involvement. Parents, meanwhile, can find the problem emotionally and financially taxing, interfering with their work and leading to expensive therapy bills.

After Queens mom Jenn Choi saw one of her own sons this year struggling with school refusal, the consultant for families of students with disabilities surveyed other parents experiencing similar situations.

Schools and families need more guidance beyond the patchwork of strategies being used now, according to Jenn Choi, a Queens mom whose child has avoided school this year. She also runs Special Support Services, a consulting firm for families of students with disabilities, and recently surveyed 140 families experiencing school refusal, finding that most of their children— some 57% — had not avoided school prior to the pandemic.

Under education department policy, if a student is out 10 or more consecutive days, interventions such as home visits should be triggered. But many of those surveyed said their children have been refusing school intermittently.

Only 14% of respondents reported that an attendance teacher called or visited the home. Roughly 11% of the families said their children’s school took no action.

“The response has not been consistent,” Choi said. “There needs to be some protocol or threshold. If the student goes to the nurse’s office five times in one week, we need to do something.”

Education department officials say that schools closely monitor attendance trends, identify reasons for a student’s absence, and offer interventions such as mentors and social-emotional support for students at risk of chronic absenteeism.

“While school aversion is just one of many reasons why a student might be absent, we are taking extra steps to ensure that this does not become a contributor to chronic absenteeism,” said education department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein. “We are offering targeted interventions for students who are identified as being at risk for school aversion-related chronic absenteeism through guidance counselors, social workers, attendance teachers, and staff.”

A gradual approach

Even though Amanda Abry worked hand-in-hand with her son’s middle school to help him return to the classroom, the Brooklyn mom ended up using 12 weeks of family medical to make that happen.

Returning to Charles O. Dewey Middle School in the fall of 2021 was overwhelming for her seventh grader. Last year, he attended school only a couple days a week, if at all, because of the hybrid schedule and COVID-related closures. Additionally, he switched to taking two subways every day from Cobble Hill to the Sunset Park school, a departure from the yellow bus service he was entitled to as a sixth grader.

The school made efforts to cut transitions for students, allowing them to remain in one room throughout the day, with the teachers pushing in instead of kids changing rooms between periods. Still, by October, Abry’s son started missing one or two days a week.

By November he stopped going entirely, saying he was getting stomach aches. The therapist at Dewey’s school-based health clinic was only accessible when Abry’s son was in the building. A therapist from the school was willing to do virtual sessions, but the seventh grader refused the offer. By December, he was able to start seeing a cognitive behavior therapist in private practice, and his mom and dad got parent coaching.

The school followed the gold standard of what’s recommended in easing a student back. He was allowed to enter just the lobby. Then he worked up to attending half days. Finally, after nearly three months, he was able to go to his dreaded science class and attend five days a week.

This approach is in line with advice from Dr. Stephanie Ruggiero, a psychologist in the ADHD and Behavior Disorders Center at the Child Mind Institute, who said schools should work with families on a plan that gradually exposes the child to being back, slowly building their tolerance over time.

A school might allow the child to attend one or few classes before working up to a full day. Schools should create tailored plans based on a child’s needs, she said, and since missed assignments can be another source of anxiety, parents should discuss whether schools can give extensions or excuses for certain coursework.

There’s no official guidance on how schools should handle school refusal, and parents have seen widely varied responses.

‘Embarrassed about how far behind he is’

Sally traces her seventh grade son’s school refusal back to starting middle school in the pandemic and other personal struggles. He was tired for months after getting COVID in November 2020, and he began exhibiting signs of depression after his older sister’s suicide attempts. (The mom asked to use a family nickname as she works to improve her relationship with her son’s school.)

“He is very embarrassed about how far behind he is. Unfortunately, more days out leads to more school refusal, and it is very hard to get kids like this re-engaged.”

This year, her son has missed too many days for his mom to count. Since January, he has made it twice a week, at most, and those days were not necessarily full days. In April, as he was starting to get momentum in returning, another bout with COVID interfered, and then a few weeks later, he was hit with another illness. When he was in school, her son got into altercations with peers. After a STEM class became challenging, the teachers offered her son catch-up help at lunch, but his mom didn’t want him to lose the socialization time after a year away from other kids. They suggested that her son had “cabin fever,” making her feel they were dismissive.

“He is very embarrassed about how far behind he is,” she said. “Unfortunately, more days out leads to more school refusal, and it is very hard to get kids like this re-engaged.”

The 800-seat school brought in a counselor this fall dedicated to mental health, the mom said. But it wasn’t enough, and the school hired another recently. That new counselor is arranging for her son to do some of his work in her office because he was having panic attacks when entering classrooms, Sally said.

The approach has started working. In the past few weeks, he’s gone into the building three times, sometimes spending much of the day in the counselor’s office.

“There are days when I’m lucky if I can get him out of bed. Is it fair they have to be de facto counselors?” Sally said of teachers. “No, but you’re sending them into a war zone without armor. They don’t know how to recognize suicidal ideation, anxiety, and depression.”

Getting back in the building as quickly as possible

Unlike Sally, whose son did not exhibit signs of school refusal before the pandemic, Lori’s son, Scott, began avoiding school a few months before coronavirus shuttered school buildings. He had just started sixth grade at I.S. 7, which declined to comment for this article, after spending elementary school in a gifted and talented program where he was essentially with the same children since kindergarten.

At the new school, Lori’s son experienced bullying, she said, and an incident during recess ended in her son and another student getting in-house suspension.

After that, it became more common that Scott visited the nurse for stomach aches and asked to go home. Then the stomach ache complaints started first thing in the morning, to avoid going to school altogether.

The problem, however, receded and his anxiety lessened when school buildings closed, and he remained fully remote the next year due to health concerns.

When children stop attending school and see their anxiety melt away, it can be harder to get them back into the building, according to Ruggiero, the psychologist.

“The more you are avoiding something, if you are overwhelmed with fear, you get that temporary relief from avoiding it,” she said. “The avoidance makes it go away. But the problem is, we lose our ability and confidence to cope by not facing it.”

It’s critical to get children back into the school building as quickly as possible, even for a few minutes a day, experts say, advising parents to take away things that make being home appealing, like video games.

In Lori’s case, the school devised a plan in March. An attendance specialist arrived at their house in the morning, drove behind Lori’s car to school, and then escorted Scott inside the building. That worked for about a week before Scott said he could go into the building on his own. After a day or two, the middle schooler was back home.

Earlier this month — and nearly five months after Scott stopped attending regularly — the school created a new plan to initially allow him to attend just science and social studies, which are led by his favorite teachers. They offered to change his math class, the course that has been his biggest hurdle.

Dr. Chelsey Rosen, a former school psychologist, believes schools could benefit from deeper work on behavioral management strategies.

Dr. Chelsey Rosen, a therapist at the Manhattan Psychology Group, is a former school psychologist and understands that schools can often be stretched thin, making it difficult for them to come up with personalized plans for students.

Though schools have talked about implementing more social-emotional learning this year, Rosen worries they haven’t had enough training on deeper work, such as behavior management. Additionally, schools might not have the wherewithal to tailor a plan to gradually reintroduce a student back into the classroom, which often relies on a dedicated staffer to be the point person supporting that child.

“I do feel like schools are trying in many ways,” she said. “They’ll throw in social-emotional learning, but they’ll just do a 10-minute thing on mindfulness — not that mindfulness isn’t good — but they’re just checking a box.”

For Abry, the Brooklyn mom whose son stopped attending seventh grade, there are still tough moments, and Abry herself gets drained by the strain of coaxing her son back into school each day. But she feels like her son is on the other side of the mountain.

“It’s wonderful to see him blooming again,” Abry said. “It’s been nice seeing him re-engage with the world.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Proposal would make it easier for NY students to pass Regents exams

2022-05-17T14:50:38+00:00

Update: The Board of Regents approved this proposal on Tuesday, May 17.

After a third school year disrupted by the pandemic, New York state officials want to allow students to more easily appeal failing scores on Regents exams, starting this spring through the end of next school year.

Students now must earn a 65 or higher to pass Regents exams, which are required to earn a high school diploma. But students could appeal scores of 50-64 if they pass the related course under a proposal expected to come before the state Board of Regents Tuesday. If approved, the change would go into effect immediately, likely allowing more students to meet graduation requirements.

The changes are meant to soften the blow COVID has had on schools across the state this year and would mark the third year in a row that officials have changed rules around New York’s high school exit exams. The pandemic has “continued to have adverse impacts on students and schools,” and that instruction has “varied significantly across the state,” state officials wrote in a memo about the proposed changes.

New York is approaching a “high alert” level for COVID with hospitalizations on the rise, and it’s possible schools could see yet another major disruption to student and staff attendance. During the omicron variant surge after winter break, cases skyrocketed among New York City schools students and staff, disrupting schooling and leaving children at home with little to no instruction.

While attendance improved after that surge, chronic absenteeism in New York City could reach the worst levels since at least 2000 if attendance rates don’t improve.

The temporary changes proposed Monday make it significantly easier for students to appeal failing scores. That may ultimately help to once again boost the state’s graduation rate, which was on the rise before the pandemic but has continued to increase as Regents have been canceled or decoupled from graduation requirements.

Currently, students can appeal failing scores of 60-64, with some exceptions for students learning English as a new language and students with disabilities. But there are a slew of other restrictions: Students can only appeal a score if they’ve failed the exam at least twice, have passed the related course, have received extra academic help in the subject, and are recommended for an exemption by a teacher or department chair. Students can only appeal scores on two of their five Regents exams that are required to graduate. Under the proposal, students must pass the related course but don’t need to meet any of these other requirements through next school year. Their parent or guardian, however, may refuse a granted appeal if they want the student to receive more instruction.

Regents exams have been a long debated topic in New York, one of about a dozen states that administers a high school exit exam. State officials are rethinking the role of the exam and will launch a pilot program looking at new ways to earn a diploma. In recent years, the Regents have made it easier to meet exam requirements by approving more pathways to graduation and lowering the score needed for an appeal.

This will be the third school year that state officials have tweaked rules about Regents exams in response to the pandemic. State officials canceled the exams when the pandemic first hit in the 2019-2020 school year. In the 2020-2021 school year, students were not required to pass exams in order to graduate as they currently are, and most Regents exams were canceled. January exams were canceled this year during the omicron surge.

Regent Roger Tilles, who represents Long Island, criticized the department’s decision to continue with the exams this year and said they are “twisting like a pretzel” to make the exams work instead of rethinking how they are being administered this year.

“Virtually everything on Long Island is being disrupted fairly drastically, and I’ve talked to a number of school superintendents, and their numbers are very high of kids who are out of school right now, and I think we ought to reevaluate how we are re-administering the Regents,” Tilles said.

Asked why the state didn’t instead remove the exams as graduation requirements, a spokesperson pointed to the proposal memo, which said the exams are important “as one of multiple measures of student achievement in the 2021-2022 school year.” The tests can help determine whether students are achieving state learning standards, the memo said, and help state officials determine steps “to foster equity and improve educational opportunities.”

But decades of research shows these exams don’t better-prepare students for life after high school and, in fact, can harm students of color from low-income families.

One Brooklyn high school principal said he expected the state to expand safety net options for students this year, as rates of chronic absenteeism have shot up and COVID has continued to disrupt instruction with many students and staff forced to isolate at home.

But the principal, who requested anonymity to speak freely, questioned the decision to make the exams easier to pass rather than canceling them.

“The breadth of material tested is so large that every teacher who teaches Regents feels that content pressure at the best of times,” the principal said. “This year, so many students are out so many days, the crunch becomes exacerbated.”

Even though the exams will be easier to pass, students still will face pressure to score well above a 50, as low Regents scores typically appear on student transcripts, the principal said.

“On top of all the trauma and challenges they’ve been through over the past two years, I’m not sure what the state is hoping to accomplish by having the Regents exams at all,” he added.

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Without performances and potlucks, school communities began to unravel

2022-05-16T12:40:25+00:00

It has long been part of my job as a school administrator to listen to parents with complaints, but there was something different about the first half of this school year. Everyone seemed mad.

My child’s teacher is picking on her.

My daughter is being bullied on social media, and the school needs to make it stop.

The school dismissal plan is violating my son’s rights.

Christine Ferris

During my years as an educator, I have come to expect such complaints. Kids have always had big feelings about being teased or getting in trouble, and many parents reach out to the school for help. In a typical school year, we have one or two parents of our more than 1,000 students who get so frustrated that they talk to me, the Executive Director, or complain directly to the school district.

But during the first half of this school year, I found myself fielding complaints almost weekly, and most of the time, the parent hadn’t yet spoken to the teacher or the principal before escalating the concern. This still represented a tiny percentage of our parents, but the shift felt meaningful to me.

The change, I think, has everything to do with how families experienced school these past few years. That’s because schools are built on relationships. When we are disconnected from each other, it’s harder to trust and work through challenges. Due to COVID restrictions, we were in little Zoom boxes or waving to parents through car windows at dismissal for over two years. Until just recently, we’d canceled all our in-person events. Some parents hadn’t even been inside the school building where they were leaving their little 5-year-olds each day.

As we lost connection, our school became every school — the faceless bureaucracy people complain about on social media and in the news. We were no longer the people who care about your child. We were no longer the people you talk about sports, weather, and traffic with as you stand around at the back-to-school potluck or wait for the music performance to start.

Some parents hadn’t even been inside the school building where they were leaving their little 5-year-olds each day.

We were able to maintain some semblance of connection the first year when so many of us were stranded at home, but since then, and this year especially, connections have frayed.

All of us adults are struggling right now. For two years, we worried about catching a new and potentially deadly virus. Schools closed and sent us all home, which is something that has never happened in our lifetimes. When you are stressed and living in a state of fear, your brain floods your body with hormones meant to prepare you for fighting or fleeing. It spikes your blood pressure and sends energy to your muscles. It primes you for action. Over time, it becomes harder to respond with the appropriate level of emotion. Everything still feels like an emergency. Maybe this is also why, across the country, we are seeing more rage — on the road, in workplaces, on airplanes, in restaurants, and at schools among children and parents alike.

We are a trauma-informed school, meaning our staff has been trained in how to support children who have experienced trauma. We know that being calm, consistent, and clear helps children when they get dysregulated. We now know from brain science that when children experience trauma, it makes it harder for them to respond appropriately to stress. A slight disagreement with a friend or not getting the marker color they want triggers their fight-or-flight response. They can’t help it. But we can help them learn how to calm down their body with deep breaths. We can help them use their words to express how they are feeling. We can reinforce behavior expectations and teach them what they should do instead. We know that building caring relationships with our students helps, too.

Since the end of March, we have been able to start bringing our parents back into our building. We started small with a few tours for enrolled families who had never been inside and our multilingual learners performing “Stone Soup” and other fables for their family members. This month, we are bringing back assemblies, in-person parent-teacher conferences, and a spring festival.

Communities are created through small rituals like these, and our community is beginning to mend. I haven’t had a parent complaint escalate to the district since spring break. Next year, we have a new principal starting at one of our schools who has a passion for community events. She is excited to invite families to performances, potlucks, kindergarten breakfasts, and PTA meetings. School events help connect us, parents to educators, and parents to each other. As we emerge from a period of sustained trauma, we all need a village.

Who knew so much depends on a school potluck?

Christine Ferris is Executive Director of Highline Academy Charter Schools in Denver. She founded and led Our Community School, a K-8 charter school in Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013. Ferris has been a consultant for multiple charter schools in Denver, Los Angeles, and nationally.

‘We need to double down’: After a surge in ninth graders held back, schools step up support

2022-05-12T15:38:03+00:00

When high schools in Gwinnett County, Georgia opened their doors last fall, many more freshmen than usual walked in.

The main reason? Many ninth graders didn’t earn enough course credits to move on to 10th grade last year, officials say. While the district has seen its freshman class hover between 15,300 and 15,600 in recent years, this year’s class numbered more than 16,800.

“We understand, with that increase we saw in terms of the number of students who were not successful in terms of ninth grade promotion, that we need to double down on our efforts to get them on track,” said T. Nakia Towns, the district’s deputy superintendent. “It’s our highest priority.”

Many districts across the country have seen a similar spike in their freshmen class this school year. While some expected a bigger class because of higher birth rates — along with some continued pandemic-related school mobility — many school officials say the big driver is the larger-than-usual share of ninth graders who were held back.

Thirteen states, including Georgia, saw at least a 5% increase in their ninth grade class this past fall, according to data across 34 states provided by Burbio, a private company tracking school enrollment. The freshman class shot up by 10% or more in Arkansas, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, and West Virginia.

Coupled with other state data showing more ninth graders are off-track to graduate in four years, the data raise questions about whether schools will be able to help this larger group of struggling ninth graders catch up. Already, some school districts are pouring money and staff into new efforts to get these students back on track.

“If we don’t do something to intervene right now, and with urgency, we could see that play out three years later in ways that would not be good for kids and for families,” Towns said. “We’re determined not to let that happen.”

That scenario is playing out in Fort Worth schools in Texas, where about 990 of 7,300 freshmen were repeating the grade this past fall. Those students pushed ninth grade enrollment beyond where it’s been in recent years — typically between 6,300 and 7,000 students.

To respond, the district added two required reading classes for struggling ninth graders that offer extra time to practice foundational skills students missed out on in middle school during the pandemic.

Fort Worth also placed a “freshman success” coach at each of its high schools, part of a new initiative funded with federal COVID relief dollars. The 23 coaches, along with teachers, pay particularly close attention to ninth graders’ academics, attendance, and emotional well-being, and work intensively with a smaller group of students who need it most.

Marcey Sorensen, the district’s chief academic officer, says staffers are looking for warning signs earlier and intervening sooner. If a ninth grader fails a class in the first semester, they’re targeted for credit recovery in the second semester, instead of over the summer. The thinking is rooted in research that has shown ninth graders who fail even one core class are much less likely to graduate within four years.

“That feels a lot like being a warm demander,” Sorensen said. “It’s when there is an adult that is connected to a child to say: ‘You have to be on Edgenuity’ or ‘You have to go to credit recovery,’ or ‘I’m checking and monitoring your attendance and it is at this percentage,’ or ‘I’m taking you to the counselor.’”

So far this year, just over a quarter of the freshmen who were repeating the grade have moved up to 10th grade, or some 280 students.

Gwinnett County is trying to take a more proactive approach, too. For example, ninth graders who failed a core class in their first semester were assigned a “power hour” class in January so they could work on making up that half-credit. The district is also offering 30 minutes a day of intensive tutoring to ninth graders — math and science are the big needs — and paying teachers extra to work with students after school and on Saturdays.

The idea is “stopping in the middle of the year and saying: ‘Let’s actually remediate right now,’” Towns said, “instead of waiting until the end and digging a bigger hole for kids to get out of.”

State data show the district’s freshman class dipped by some 570 students this spring, after some ninth graders successfully moved up to 10th grade.

In Allentown, Pennsylvania, schools started with 450 more freshmen than the prior year, about 300 of whom were repeat ninth graders.

This year, the district added more credit recovery classes staffed by teachers during the school day and after school. Officials also revamped the summer bridge program that prepares rising ninth graders for high school. In the past, the program had been shorter and poorly attended, but this year the district lengthened it and saw a big increase in participation. Officials plan to run it again this summer.

“We knew the needs that we were going to get,” said Brandy Sawyer, who oversees secondary education for the district. “It was a big transition. These kids weren’t in school for a full year since fifth grade and here they are, ninth graders.”

So far, the district has seen 55 repeat ninth graders move up to 10th grade — more than four times the number who moved up last year.

Houston ISD in Texas is offering more vacation “boot camps” to struggling ninth graders. In the past, the district paid teachers to offer that extra help only at select schools, but all schools could offer the program this year.

Principal Orlando Reyna, who heads Austin High School, says that strategy prevents students from getting bogged down by make-up classes.

“Those credit recovery boot camps are a way to keep our students on track,” Reyna said. “We want to be able to keep their schedules as open as possible to be able to serve them better.”

That support comes as the district enrolled 17,700 ninth graders this past fall, up from 15,000 to 16,300 in recent years. Connie Smith, who oversees high school curriculum for the district, estimates that around 12% of those students were repeating the grade, often after they missed class to work or because they got sick or exposed to COVID. The district also saw an uptick in ninth graders due to the arrival of unaccompanied minors from Central America and refugees from Haiti, who have their own particular needs.

The district has been urging students to earn credits over the summer to build “cushion” into their schedules later if they have to retake a class.

“I’m feeling hopeful,” Smith said. “They are moving in the right direction.”

Kalyn Belsha is a national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

‘We deserve it’: After two years of COVID upheaval, Chicago teens are ready for prom

2022-05-11T13:56:59+00:00

As the omicron variant surged in Chicago in January, Liset Perez contemplated the spring ahead with rising anxiety: Would the pandemic scuttle the Sullivan High School prom as it did for last year’s senior class on the Rogers Park campus?

Students like Perez have clung to the promise of such hallmarks of senior year as the coronavirus upended yet another school year.

Several months later, on a late April afternoon, Perez sat in her school’s auditorium and watched classmates sashay across the balloon-festooned stage in flowing chiffon and silk as they modeled some of 100 donated prom dresses secured by a Sullivan teacher and a local beauty pageant winner.

Prom was definitely on, the school’s principal assured the students, and Perez joined her classmates in a raucous cheer.

“We deserve it because we have worked so hard the last couple of years,” she said later.

Those two years have tested students again and again: Teens have lost loved ones to COVID, navigated racial unrest, taken on jobs to chip in for strained family budgets, and worked to stay engaged in school through campus shutdowns, staffing shortages, and more.

This spring for students across Chicago, prom — the perennial cornerstone of that final stretch before graduation — doubles as a milestone on the way to reclaiming a measure of normalcy. Like Sullivan, some city campuses did not host prom at all last year while others opted for smaller, socially distanced events on the heels of a high school reopening that brought less than a third of students back to school buildings.

After two years of massive disruption for teens, students like Perez say prom feels more meaningful and joyous — and they are taking none of the build-up for granted.

Throughout Chicago, educators and others have worked to ratchet up the excitement. Across the city from Sullivan, at the Southwest Side’s Juarez High School, a packed auditorium exploded in applause earlier this spring when the principal unveiled the prom’s location. (No, it’s not the cafeteria again.)

Students modeled donated dresses in the auditorium of Sullivan High School in Rogers Park. A teacher at the school organized the donation drive.

Sullivan High hosts major prom dress donation drive

Earlier this spring, Jodi Weiss, a special education English teacher at Sullivan, started worrying. After two years, the school would again host prom — but what if some of its students could not afford a dress? Almost 95% of students are low-income at Sullivan, nicknamed “Refugee High” because it serves as a starting point for many newcomers to the country.

Weiss posted a call for donated dresses on a Rogers Park Facebook page. She spent a Saturday earlier in March driving around the neighborhood and picking up donations. Some are “not so prom-y,” she said, but she figured students could still wear them to scholarship interviews and other formal occasions. At the end of the day, though, she didn’t think she had enough outfits.

Luckily, Alejandra Sotelo, recently crowned Miss Teen Rogers Park, saw the Facebook post. Her own prom at a small Catholic high school had been canceled the previous year, yet another festive occasion the pandemic derailed.

Thinking about students who might miss prom because they couldn’t afford a dress “broke” her, Sotelo told the seniors gathered in the auditorium on that April afternoon. So she sprang into action, lobbying local boutiques and consignment shops for more donations.

Weiss took over a storeroom the school’s security guards had used for their equipment. Now, racks laden with dresses in sizes 0 to 14 and in a rainbow of fabric, sequins, and lace filled the space, with shoes and other accessories stacked up nearby. The school is still looking for donated suits.

“You do not have to go shopping,” said Sotelo, now a freshman at Loyola University, in a long black dress and her white sash. “You do not have to spend a ton of money.”

“Make some noise if you are ready to get out of here!” she called, to loud applause as junior girls modeling some of the donated dresses started parading across the stage.

They strode arm-in-arm with boys, some wearing suits and some unabashedly underdressed in T-shirts and jeans. Sotelo talked up the dresses — “a stunning navy blue number with butterflies at the sleeves!” — as the couples paused in front of an arch fashioned from white, gold, and black balloons.

Last spring, prom had returned to many, though not all, Chicago high schools, but events carried reminders of the pandemic’s unyielding grip: Some were held outdoors. Others were confined to gyms and cafeterias, with restrictions on guests and exhortations to socially distance.

This year, many schools are returning to larger events, and though the district recommends masks, they won’t be required. A slew of schools, from Bowen on the South Side to Lane Tech on the North Side, have organized their own prom attire donation drives. Lane Tech and its alumni association recently hosted a “Prom Pop-up Shop” featuring more than 50 donated dresses.

Perez, the Sullivan student, and her friends Rodney Mason and Dariana Lee already had outfits picked out the day of the fashion show, but said they will get the word out about the donated dresses.

They know how disappointed seniors had been to miss prom the previous years. So they are taking nothing for granted: the fun of putting their outfits together, the company of favorite teachers who have signed up to chaperone, even the chance to hone social skills still rusty from pandemic isolation if the school ends up sharing the venue, the downtown Hyatt Regency, with another campus on May 20.

During another challenging school year, Mason said, “Prom is a good thing to focus on to keep your mind positive.”

“We’ll be one of the lucky ones,” said Lee. “It’s going to be really special for us. It’s been a long year.”

Juniors at Sullivan High School on Chicago’s Far North Side modeled donated prom dresses in the school’s auditorium in April 2022. The school did not host prom in 2021.

At Juarez High, principal unveiled the prom location at a school assembly

Back in late February, shortly after the omicron surge had subsided, principal Juan Carlos Ocon stood in a crammed Benito Juarez auditorium and recounted a conversation with students a few weeks earlier. A table of seniors in the school’s cafeteria had stopped him as he passed by during the lunch hour.

“We’re kind of sad,” one student said. “Are we going to have the graduation ceremony in the parking lot again?”

“Are we even going to have a prom?” another pressed Ocon. “Are we going to have it in the cafeteria like we did last year?”

“Class of 2022, you know that the last three years have been so hard,” Ocon told the students in the auditorium that day. “Your sophomore year was interrupted in so many ways. Your junior year was crazy. And if you thought those two years were crazy, this year was even more so.”

So, Ocon said, this year’s seniors were due for some good news.

“Prom is not in the cafeteria,” he said, prompting cheers from the crowd.

“Prom is not in the gym.”

More cheers.

“For the first time in three years, we are going to be at the Palmer House in Downtown Chicago,” Ocon said, to raucous applause, almost as loud as when students found out later during the assembly that the nonprofit Hope Chicago would give every Juarez student a free ride to an Illinois college.

Juarez senior Bella Rios was in the auditorium that day. Like Perez at Sullivan, she had almost resigned herself to graduating without a prom, rebuffing her mom’s invitation to go prom dress shopping. She did not see Ocon’s announcement coming.

When she heard it, she said, “I was completely shocked, and I was really happy. I would be able to experience what other students did not.”

That morning, Rios looked for pictures of the Palmer House’s interior on her phone, eager to picture herself and her friends in that sprawling space.

Juarez counselor Jesse Palencia said excitement has been building since. The Six Flags Grad Night, the overnight Senior Lock-In at the school, and other events in the run-up to prom have been better attended than usual. The school is also planning a celebration with music, food, and a photo booth for college Decision Day on May 20.

This year unlike in the past, Juarez students got to pick the dance’s theme, just announced last week: Old Hollywood.

For teens, said Ashley Baker, a senior at Westinghouse College Prep, the pandemic has heightened experiences as simple as being on campus with friends and infused milestones such as prom with special meaning.

“Everyone’s talking about prom — what colors they are wearing, how we’ll make the place bright and vibrant,” she said. “I feel prom is more meaningful this year. We’re all able to communicate and socialize instead of being 6 feet away from each other.”

Though Baker still masks daily at school, she might go maskless during at least part of the June 10 prom, to show off her makeup and snap photos with friends.

Baker recently collected a swatch of fabric — emerald green sequins — from the seamstress working on her dress. Now she just has to find the perfect matching shoes and accessories.

Mauricio Peña contributed to this report.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

New data: 3 in 10 Memphis-Shelby County Schools students are chronically absent

2022-05-10T23:58:23+00:00

Nearly three in 10 Memphis-Shelby County Schools students were chronically absent from school this year — a jump of almost 10 percentage points over pre-pandemic years.

The new data, presented to the school board during a Tuesday committee meeting, also shows that historically underserved student groups — Black students, children from economically disadvantaged families, and students with disabilities — were more likely to be chronically absent.

The data also revealed that MSCS charter schools had lower attendance and higher chronic absenteeism rates — about 90% and 39%, respectively — than district-managed schools — about 92% and 27%, respectively.

Students are considered chronically absent by the state Department of Education if they miss 10% of school days or more for any reason, including both unexcused and excused absences, taken when a student is out sick or in quarantine.

Shawn Page, chief of academic operations and school support, blamed the continued threat of COVID for the spike in habitual absenteeism. Not even a month into the school year, MSCS grappled with skyrocketing COVID cases due to the delta variant. Then, as students and educators returned from winter break, they faced another surge fueled by omicron.

Districts across the nation also reported rising chronic absenteeism earlier this school year, as in-person schooling resumed for the first time in over a year. The soaring absences have raised questions about how much students have recovered from the learning losses stemming from virtual learning if they’re not in class.

In November, the chronic absenteeism rate rose to about 20% in Portland, Maine, compared to 13% in the 2019-20 school year. The story was the same in Detroit: 59% of public school students were considered chronically absent in November — up from an already-high 45%.

Chronic absenteeism rates weren’t quite as high in Memphis before the pandemic, ranging from 16% during the 2017-18 school year to 20% in 2018-19, according to district data. Daily attendance rates hovered around 95%.

This year, chronic absenteeism among Memphis students in both charter and district-managed schools stands at 28%, with an average daily attendance rate of nearly 92%.

Economically disadvantaged students were more likely than any other student group to be chronically absent, with a rate this year of almost 36% — up from about 26% in 2018-19. And just over 30% of Black students and 28% of students with disabilities were chronically absent, according to the data — an increase from about 23% and 26% in 2018-19, respectively.

The district also shared suspension rate data. This year, about 10% of students were suspended, marking a slight decrease from school years before the pandemic. In 2017-18 and 2018-19, the rate stood at nearly 14%. In a continuation of pre-pandemic trends, Black students, children with disabilities, and economically-disadvantaged students were more likely to be suspended than their peers.

Samantha West is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, where she covers K-12 education in Memphis. Connect with Samantha at swest@chalkbeat.org.

As pandemic wanes, Denver looks to make up missed special education services

2022-05-06T19:37:20+00:00

Kiran Obee’s twin boys were in second grade in March 2020 when the pandemic hit. With school buildings closed, her boys’ special education services were provided over an app. They only saw their special education teachers a few times on video chat for social “lunch bunches.”

The following year, so many teachers at the twins’ school were granted exemptions to work from home that the school cut its hours. Obee kept her boys at a recreation center “learning lab,” which offered eight hours of child care and Wi-Fi for remote learning.

Even though they diligently attended virtual sessions with their special education teachers, the remote learning was not as effective, Obee said. At a meeting in May 2021, district staff told Obee that her boys qualified to receive makeup special education services.

District data shows Obee’s sons are among the 19% of Denver Public Schools students with disabilities who qualify for those services, meant to compensate for what students missed during the pandemic and address any regression.

The educators who know their students best are supposed to determine who qualifies and for what based on whether COVID disruptions interfered with students’ ability to access a free and appropriate public education, as guaranteed by federal law, and whether they lost skills or failed to make progress toward their educational goals.

But a year after they were promised the makeup services, Obee’s twins, now 9, are still waiting.

“Basically, it just feels like a very hollow commitment to my sons,” she said.

Advocates have praised Denver Public Schools’ proactive approach to what’s known as compensatory services, evaluating students to see if they qualify rather than waiting for parents to file complaints. The district set aside $12.1 million of its roughly $205 million in federal COVID relief funding, which must be spent by the spring of 2024, to pay for providing the services.

But Denver is leaving it up to each school to figure out the best way to deliver the services and when. That latitude has produced uneven results. While some schools have asked for a portion of the $12.1 million, district records show many schools have not.

At some schools, special education staff are already squeezing in extra services during the school day. At others, families say they haven’t heard a thing about it.

“The way in which we’ve been approaching our schools is, ‘These are the options, here’s some ways to think creatively, and we’d like for you to start solving this,’” said Julie Rottier-Lukens, director of special education for the district. “Because our school leaders and teachers know their students and communities best and they know their own capacity and what could be feasible, we wanted to try to provide flexibility in those options.”

Parent Deronn Turner, whose 12-year-old daughter has Down syndrome, sees it differently.

“This is something that happens with the district,” said Turner, an involved parent who pays close attention to district policies. “They don’t want to take accountability for it. They’ll go, ‘We’re going to leave it up to the school,’ when the school doesn’t have the right guidance and tools and resources.’ Basically what they’re doing is passing the buck.”

By the numbers

District data shows that as of April, schools had evaluated 7,322 students for compensatory services. That’s about 67% of the 10,806 students this year with special education plans, known as individualized education programs or IEPs. Of those evaluated, 2,053 students, or 19%, qualified.

Black students, like Obee’s twins and Turner’s daughter, were nearly 1.5 times as likely to qualify as white students, signaling that they missed more services and regressed further on their special education goals. Latino students were 1.3 times as likely as white students to qualify. Many Black and Latino students spent longer in remote learning due to family choice.

Middle and high school students also spent longer in remote learning than elementary school students due to district timing on reopening school buildings. Data shows more seventh, eighth, and ninth graders qualified for compensatory services than did younger students.

The number of students who qualified at each school also varies widely. At some schools, only one student was identified for compensatory services, district data shows. At others, the number was as high as 68. (The data for some small schools was redacted.)

It’s not clear if Denver’s numbers are high or low. District officials don’t know, and neither do officials at the Colorado Department of Education, which isn’t tracking the data.

“Knowing an average number of students who may be in need of compensatory services will be difficult because compensatory services are, by design, supposed to be very specific to the child,” said Paul Foster, the state’s executive director of exceptional student services.

“Also, different districts had different responses to how they provided services during the pandemic or were working under different constraints,” he said. “For example, some of our rural districts were in person for more of the school year than some of our metro districts, so the need for compensatory services may not be as significant an issue in our rural districts.”

Several national organizations that advocate for students with disabilities, such as the National Center for Learning Disabilities, The Arc, and the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, said they aren’t tracking the data on a national scale either.

Missing students

Disability advocates prefer proactive approaches like the one Denver is taking over the approach supported by organizations such as Council of Administrators of Special Education, which argued that districts should provide compensatory services only when ordered to do so by a court or a due process hearing officer in response to a family complaint.

But even Denver’s proactive approach hasn’t reached every student. District data indicates as many as 33% of students with IEPs weren’t evaluated for compensatory services. Staff at El Grupo Vida, a Colorado organization that supports Latino families of children with disabilities, said none of the parents they work with have heard anything about makeup services.

Rottier-Lukens said it’s likely that some of the missing students graduated or moved away during the pandemic. Others may not have had IEPs at the start of the pandemic and therefore would be less likely to qualify for makeup services. The number of students newly evaluated for special education services plummeted in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years.

Pandemic-era special education staffing shortages also likely contributed to the gap, Rottier-Lukens said. In addition to lags in identifying students, ongoing staffing challenges — including educators quitting mid-year and unsustainable workloads for those who remain — make it harder to provide the compensatory services themselves, she said.

The district doesn’t have a reliable count of how many service minutes the 2,053 students who qualified are owed, let alone how many have been delivered, Rottier-Lukens said.

“As much as I’d like to say, ‘Great, we solved this one,’ it’s going to be something we’ll need to continue to work on and support our families,” she said.

Getting back on track

To that end, Denver Public Schools has contracted with a company called Catapult Learning to deliver compensatory services in literacy and math starting this summer. The contract is for up to $1 million and 1,000 students. Catapult staff will work with groups of up to four students for as many as 90 minutes per week at a cost of $160 an hour, the contract says.

Schools can opt to use Catapult’s services or they can go it alone. But district data suggests many have not started. Denver has only spent 3%, or about $403,000, of the $12.1 million in federal COVID relief funding it allocated for compensatory services, according to a budget presentation district staff gave to the school board Thursday.

North and John F. Kennedy high schools are among the few that have requested a portion of that funding and begun providing makeup services. The two schools also had among the highest numbers of students who qualified at 54 and 60 students, respectively.

North began last year with an in-person summer school targeting ninth and tenth graders who failed core classes, said Assistant Principal Amanda Marquez. This year, special education teachers used a new eighth-period block meant to provide all students with time to ask for extra help as a way to provide compensatory services to students with IEPs. North will also likely refer some students to Catapult Learning next school year, Marquez said.

John F. Kennedy created a new class called “academic success.” Instead of an elective class or free period, 15 to 20 students with high needs who regressed significantly during the pandemic spend that time working with two special education teachers.

The students are far behind — reading and doing math on a second- or third-grade level — and are embarrassed to ask for help in their bigger classes, said Sarah Walters, one of the two teachers. The class has proved to be a safe space to work on their skills, she said.

In addition, John F. Kennedy staff intermittently pull 40 to 45 other students from class to provide them with compensatory services. Walters and others are getting paid extra to work through their planning periods, but the additional workload has made for a tough year.

“Time is more valuable than money for teachers,” said Principal Tiffany Almon, “so they’re doing a lot to serve our students and get them back on track.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Did you quit teaching this school year? Chalkbeat wants to talk to you.

2022-05-05T17:02:08+00:00

Following this post, Chalkbeat heard from 80 educators who quit teaching last school year. Read their words on why they quit and what could have kept them in the classroom here.

Teaching, like many professions, has undergone significant shifts during the pandemic.

To better understand this new reality for teachers, Chalkbeat is looking to speak with people across the country who quit teaching — or have given notice — during the 2021-22 school year.

Did you leave the classroom this year? We’d love to hear your story.

To be clear, we don’t want to overstate what the data on teachers leaving the profession shows. As Chalkbeat reported in February, “claims of a coming — or ongoing — teacher exodus warrant considerable skepticism. That’s both because we don’t yet have data to support strong assertions and because recent history suggests that an exodus is unlikely.”

But recent surveys and polls offer hints that more teachers have considered leaving the field. New data from Texas, South Carolina, Philadelphia, and Clark County, Nevada, show a jump in teachers leaving in the middle of the school year. A 2021 poll of the nation’s largest teachers union found that 55% of its members reported an increased likelihood that they would quit teaching earlier than expected. And stories of teachers who’ve recently quit are increasingly common on social media platforms.

Are you a new teacher or a soon-to-be teacher? Don’t worry — we also want to talk with you. Be on the lookout for another callout in the coming months.

We know this is a delicate and complicated topic. Please note that this form is confidential and nothing shared in the form will be published without a Chalkbeat journalist reaching out to you and getting your consent.

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Eba Hamid-Rivera is Chalkbeat’s first-ever director of audience. They have more than 15 years of experience as a journalist, news editor, and digital strategist. Connect with Eba at ehamid-rivera@chalkbeat.org

Caroline Bauman connects Chalkbeat journalists with our readers as the community engagement manager and previously reported at Chalkbeat Tennessee. Connect with Caroline at cbauman@chalkbeat.org.

Chicago’s Virtual Academy will return this fall, but little is known after its first year: ‘It’s been a black box.’

2022-05-04T15:25:23+00:00

As other Chicago Public Schools students donned masks and walked into school buildings for the first time in nearly two years in the fall, Gabriel Morser powered up his laptop to start seventh grade at the district’s Virtual Academy.

Inside his Northwest Side home, the 13-year-old felt a sense of calm even as delta and omicron surges disrupted in-person instruction for many students throughout the fall and winter.

“I feel a lot safer,” said Gabriel, who has asthma. “Because I’m kind of in my prime environment. I’m totally protected.”

Last fall, as school districts welcomed students back into classrooms, Chicago Public Schools – and other districts across the country – offered limited, remote instruction for children unable to return to school buildings amid the ongoing pandemic. Chicago’s Virtual Academy was set up to serve medically fragile students with a number of specific medical needs that include cystic fibrosis, spina bifida, leukemia, and asthma.

For about 420 students such as Gabriel, the Virtual Academy has offered a chance to focus on learning this school year without the specter of a potentially life-threatening bout of COVID. He says the instruction has been engaging, challenging, and tailored to his needs. Even as other districts have announced plans to do away with similar programs in the next school year, Chicago plans to keep that virtual option and offer a few more seats.

But as the district starts accepting applications for next year, information about how well the program has served students this year remains sparse. The lack of transparency has made it difficult to evaluate the program’s effectiveness, one union leader noted. Advocates and parents have raised questions about the curriculum and others familiar with the program said the Virtual Academy failed to provide adequate support for English language learners or meet the learning needs of children with disabilities.

In a statement, Chicago Public Schools said it was “evaluating” its “efforts during the first year of the program to determine necessary improvements, including improving communication with teachers, staff and students.”

Attendance data, obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request, from the first half of the school year also shows students logged on at a much lower rate than for the district as a whole, and enrollment in the academy has fluctuated throughout the year.

“There’s not a lot of transparency around what’s happening with the Virtual Academy,” said Alex Kuske, an attorney for Equip for Equality, a nonprofit watchdog for people with disabilities.

Last summer, the district saw tepid interest in the program, with 150 applicants before extending its deadline. Some parents criticized the “confusing and chaotic” application process, lack of curriculum details, and uncertainty around whether the school would be able to support complex learning needs of students with Individualized Education Programs, a written education plan designed to meet the needs of students with disabilities, Chalkbeat reported at the time.

Of the 3,000 students determined to be eligible for the program, the district received 965 student applications. The district accepted 545 students and about 437 students were enrolled at the start of the school year, according to district figures. But student enrollment in the Virtual Academy has fluctuated throughout the year, district officials said.

For the first part of the year, elementary and high school level attendance at the high school lagged significantly behind the district, data shows.

Across the district, average student attendance was 94% in early September, compared to 84% among elementary students and 70% among high school students at the Virtual Academy. Attendance steadily increased in the months that followed, slightly surpassing the district average in late January during the height of the omicron surge, data shows.

Staff works to keep medically fragile students safe

Virtual Academy principal Wayne Bevis said staff has been working hard to accommodate the needs of families amid reopening.

“It’s been an amazing ride this year, setting up the school so that we can serve the medically fragile students of Chicago, and to keep them safe during this time of COVID,” Bevis said in an interview.

The Virtual Academy offers the same CPS curriculum for pre-kindergarten students while the school uses Edmentum, a curriculum designed for virtual learning, for kindergarten to 12th grade students. For students with disabilities, the school uses the Unique learning system curriculum modified for virtual instruction. All of the programs through the Virtual Academy, Bevis said, are aligned with Illinois education standards.

The school currently has 52 teachers, 25 special education aides, 12 bilingual special education assistants, and 12 support staff including the principal, clerks, counselors, and case managers, according to district figures.

Teachers, staff, counselors, and social workers are focused and committed to providing support and meeting the needs of students, Bevis said. He, along with the administrative staff, interact with parents on a regular basis to answer questions and get feedback from parents. They also have a bilingual advisory committee to address the needs of bilingual families and their students in the program, he said.

The aim is to “really learn about how we’re doing as a school and look for ways for improvement, because we’re always looking at how we can improve our services in our education for our students,” he added.

According to a survey of families, the principal estimates that about 90% of families have been satisfied with the program and plan to re-enroll in the coming year.

Bevis also noted the school was within 1% of the district average for medically fragile students, who typically have lower attendance due to the nature of illness and frequent doctor’s appointments.

For the Morsers, the program exceeded the family’s expectations and they plan to come back.

“A lot of people have been saying that they don’t think that students are being challenged while they’re in the virtual setting,” Taryn Morser said. “They are.”

Gabriel Morser explained that he felt “quite challenged” with teachers expecting more of students. “I’m doing high school level work and I’m getting like straight A’s from it,” he said.

His mother said the Virtual Academy was a blessing — one that has given her piece of mind regarding her son’s safety. “I know he is safe,” Taryn Morser said. “I know it’s not the petri dish like in a school.”

“It’s just been an amazing experience for both of us,” his mother added.

Parents are nervous about pushing back

But satisfaction with the program has not been universal.

Parent Katherine Buitron, a mother of three CPS students, saw early challenges with the Virtual Academy, starting with navigating the application process. Her sixth grade son, Matias, who has a medically complex diagnosis that includes primary immunodeficiency, cerebral palsy, asthma, and heart disease, was denied acceptance four times. He was ultimately accepted after multiple appeals.

“They made me jump through hoops, needles and red tape,” Buitron said.

Her other son and daughter, who are both over the age of 12 and had medical conditions including heart disease and asthma, were denied a spot in the academy, in part, because they were eligible for the vaccine, she says.

Parents and advocates expressed frustrations that siblings of eligible students were ineligible for the program. Those concerns intensified after the district moved to lift the mask mandate in March.

Buitron said she was “extremely upset” after learning her older children were not accepted. “I felt discouraged,” she said. “At that point, I even considered homeschooling my kids because we are talking about a matter of life and death with my youngest.”

Still, her older children returned to in-person learning while her youngest set out in the Virtual Academy. From the beginning, Buitron recalled classes being short-staffed and a failure to provide the additional support outlined in her son’s individualized learning program.

While her son isn’t an English language learner, Buitron joined the bilingual advisory committee to support parents’ whose children were not receiving English learning support.

During classes she found herself sometimes translating instructions to help parents who didn’t speak English. Two sixth grade classes were also combined because the school lacked enough staff.

“So at the very beginning,” she said, “there was a lot of scrambling.”

The classes were also hit or miss. In some classes, students had full teacher instruction, while in others, students watched YouTube videos for 45 minutes on which they would be tested, she recalled.

When her son started to have seizures from prolonged screen time, Buitron asked for paper copies of assignments to reduce Matias’ time in front of the computer. Parents were advised not to post concerns about the program on social media or go to the press, but instead to share their concerns with administrators, Buitron said. But after raising concerns with administrators without action, she took her son out of the program six weeks into the school year.

She homeschooled Matias for an additional six weeks before enrolling him back to in-person learning. After four days back in-person, he caught COVID-19 and landed in the ICU. He was later diagnosed with long COVID, she said.

Her son’s medical team has since created a modified schedule where he can return to school for part of the day. Still, she said the school year has been “extremely disruptive.”

Buitron has kept in touch with some parents who have said some of these issues persist.

Looking back, she said more accountability is needed for the Virtual Academy for the sake of the students and their families, especially for those considering enrolling their children for the upcoming year. “They’re failing everyone,” she said.

Parents who have signed up for the Virtual Academy are often “desperate to keep their children safe and out of brick-and-mortar schools,” or out of the district’s homebound program, which offers medically fragile students about an hour of instruction per day, said attorney Kuske.

Parents have been more flexible about what services they’re willing to accept with the Virtual Academy because the other options of returning to in-person or homebound aren’t “justifiable” options at the moment, Kuske said.

“To some degree, parents have been nervous about pushing back against the services their students are receiving because it feels to them like this is their child’s best option at the moment,” Kuske said.

In addressing questions about the curriculum, CPS said Edmentum was designed to provide teacher instruction equivalent to in-person. The Virtual Academy will implement Skyline schoolwide in the fall.

“Video clips may be used as part of both curriculums; videos are purposefully integrated into the curriculum, just like they may be used in the physical classroom at any school,” the district said.

It worked to adequately staff classrooms as more students were accepted into the Virtual Academy. In the event of a teacher vacancy, a substitute was put in place. The Virtual Academy staff also “worked consistently to meet the needs of Individualized Education Programs despite related service provider (RSPs) shortages,” the district said.

Bevis countered the claim about the combination of classes, saying the school made adjustments due to rapid enrollment at the beginning of the year to ensure English language supports were met.

“Parents have been asked to share their questions or concerns so we can address and resolve any issues,” the district said. “CPS actively encourages parents and students to participate in an open dialogue with administrators and staff at the Virtual Academy and throughout the District.”

What’s next for the Virtual Academy?

Last month, Virtual Academy announced applications for the upcoming year even as other districts nationwide are scaling back or getting rid of their virtual option

The Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) found that less than half of the 94 urban districts with a virtual option for the 2021-22 school year had plans to continue the virtual offerings for the 2022-23 school year. A majority of those returning programs pre-date the pandemic, according to CRPE.

In Chicago, the district has made some changes for the upcoming year, including streamlining the application process and acceptance policy, which has been broadened for qualifying students based on school capacity. The Virtual Academy will also manage all inquiries and the acceptance process.

The Virtual Academy will also partner with high schools to increase advanced placement and dual credit courses. Elementary students will have access to Spanish and algebra lessons.

The application for next year is open until July 1, and acceptance will be announced by July 15. A lottery will determine placement if demand exceeds 550 applicants. Qualifying students who don’t get in will be placed on a waitlist, according to the district.

Still a year into the program, the district has released little information about the Virtual Academy, leaving many parents and community members with unanswered questions.

Union vice president Stacy Davis Gates said there is still little known about the first year of the academy. The CTU lobbied for a virtual option for medically fragile teachers and students ahead of full reopening. The union asked for teachers with medical conditions to be prioritized for the teaching positions at the program.

Asked about the percentage of school teachers hired with a medical condition for the program, the district said “all teachers and administrators at the academy applied via the normal CPS hiring process.”

It’s unclear how many teachers at the Virtual Academy have a medical condition.

“The Virtual Academy is a tool to be used during a pandemic,” Gates said. “Our ability to understand its use as an effective tool means that we need as much information in the selection process and the interim evaluation of how it’s going.”

CPS has leaned very heavily on principle autonomy and discretion, even with the Virtual Academy, which makes it difficult to evaluate the program, Gates said.

“There’s a lot we don’t know,” Gates said. “It’s been a black box.”

Correction: The article has been updated with the correct spelling of Wayne Bevis’ last name and with additional responses from the principal.

Mila Koumpilova contributed to this report.

Mauricio Peña is a reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago, covering K-12 schools. Contact Mauricio at mpena@chalkbeat.org.

Remote learning made it challenging for English learners to practice speaking skills. This district is finding ways to help.

2022-04-28T11:00:00+00:00

As Guillermo Benitez moved through a lesson on ratios, he pressed his sixth-graders to elaborate at every turn: How did we get that answer?

The math teacher gave some students a heads up first, knowing it’s helpful not to put English learners on the spot. Along the way, Benitez kept a mental tally of who hadn’t spoken up yet.

Benitez has relied on his experience as an English learner to support students. “I feel like that connection with them — they understand that I went through the same thing as them,” he said. “And if I can overcome it, they can overcome it as well.”

“I’ma call on you to explain something to me,” Benitez nudged one student. “You’re the only one I haven’t called on today. Your time’s coming. Are you prepared?”

“No!” the student said, with a giggle.

Earlier in the period, Benitez let students work out problems in groups of three before they shared with the whole class — another way of helping students prepare to participate. He leaned over the desk of a student who hadn’t spoken up in her group.

She began to explain how they arrived at 14, softly. “Good,” Benitez told her. “That’s how you show your work.”

For many teachers of English learners like Benitez, working with students to build oral language skills has been especially crucial this year.

That’s because remote learning made those skills harder to practice last year. A report released this month detailed some of the common challenges: Students had fewer opportunities to talk with their classmates online, and teachers who specialized in language support often got pulled away to help with other duties. The charts and word banks that students rely on as they learn to speak a new language were harder to share in virtual classrooms, too.

“Kids, especially younger kids, just did not have opportunities to use language in the way that they normally do,” said Amaya Garcia, a co-author of the report who researches education policies that affect English learners for the think tank New America. “For a lot of the people that we spoke with, that was a real area of concern.”

Those issues showed up on the test that many states use to measure the progress of students learning English. Across the U.S., including in Benitez’s school district, a smaller share of students reached their English language proficiency goals than usual last spring, especially in the younger grades. Scores dropped the most on the writing and speaking portions.

To help students make up for lost time, school districts like Berwyn North, where Benitez teaches just west of Chicago, are focused on boosting English learners’ speaking skills with new tactics, more coaching, and even new furniture arrangements.

Districts across the country are trying to help English learners make progress this year, after a smaller share of students hit their English proficiency goals than usual last year.

“That was very important for them to practice that conversation piece,” said Francela López, who oversees services for Berwyn North’s English learners, who make up a third of all students in the district. “They did miss out on some of that.”

Like many districts, Berwyn North schools had a tall order before them last fall. It marked the first time most students returned for in-person learning after more than a year. Though the district reopened buildings last spring, few students came in. Most English learners got language support over Zoom, but few were able to practice their English outside of class, López said.

Dana Sartori, an elementary school teacher who’s worked in the district for two decades, noticed that when they returned, many younger English learners were quieter than usual.

“It’s like you have to pull words out of them,” Sartori said in an interview in December. “I always thought that all the kids had silent periods, but this is different.”

To help, Sartori has tried to boost her students’ confidence. One morning that month, she stopped by the desk of an English learner in third grade wearing sparkly silver shoes whose voice barely rose above a whisper.

Sartori knew the little girl often stayed quiet because she struggled to read, so Sartori read the lesson aloud with gusto and asked the student to tell her about it. The third-grader’s voice rose up a notch. “It was louder because she felt comfortable and confident in what she was telling me,” Sartori said.

This year, Berwyn North teachers arranged new hexagonal desks in ways that encourage students to talk more with one another.

Educators have looked for ways to get students talking more to one another, too. Early in the school year, for example, López and a colleague helped teachers figure out how to set up new hexagon-shaped desks to encourage students to turn and talk with a classmate.

Teacher coaches have helped teachers add more speaking practice into their lessons, too. It’s something they did before the pandemic that’s taken on added significance this year.

One day in December, fifth-grade teacher Anne Vaccaro tested out a new activity that gave each student a different speaking role. Students pushed their desks together into groups of four and took turns asking and answering science questions about the atmosphere, weathering, and erosion.

Conversations filled the room. At one table where a little boy wasn’t saying much, a classmate tried to help him explain how erosion breaks down cliffs, while he nodded along — the kind of natural interaction that had been difficult to replicate online.

Some students glanced down at a piece of paper filled with phrases such as “What do you mean when you say that?” and “Can you tell me more?” Getting students to elaborate on their thinking like that has taken a little longer this year, Sartori said, but by winter, she was starting to see it stick.

“What I liked about interacting with my classmates was that I could share my ideas,” said one especially enthusiastic student.

Teachers also got more training on how to use Flipgrid, a tool that allows students to record themselves speaking, listen back, and get feedback. Sartori uses the tool twice a week in an extra support class for a handful of struggling English learners, though sometimes it hasn’t elicited the response she was looking for.

“Remember, you’re talking as much as you can!” Sartori told her three students that day. She wanted them to look at a picture of a young boy playing soccer and describe how he might be feeling.

“OK, when you’re ready!” Sartori said. None of the students spoke.

Sartori moved around the room, trying to help. She offered to turn off the camera so students wouldn’t see their faces. She provided some sentence starters and rehearsed what students might say. One student wrote his answer on a Post-it, but he didn’t want to say it.

“You’re being shy? What’s going on?” Sartori said. “You’ve done this before!”

For one 9-year-old, who rarely talks in her larger classes, the lesson felt hard. She prefers working in teams and doing activities that feel more like games, she said.

At home, she said in Spanish, “I talk a little more because I feel more comfortable there.” But at school, “there are a lot of people I still don’t know and it makes me nervous.”

The district is also serving a larger number of newcomer students this year, mainly from Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Morocco. Some students arrived a few months ago, while others started school just before the pandemic but didn’t attend many virtual classes last year.

Teachers are using tools like Flipgrid, a self-recording platform, and conversation prompts to get students more comfortable talking with each other in English.

To support those students at the middle school, teacher Hannah Nolan-Spohn created a small class in February specifically for newcomers with six Spanish speakers and two Arabic speakers.

It’s a one-hour class where students can get more consistent language support. Nolan-Spohn, who specializes in working with English learners, sets aside time every Tuesday for students to talk with their classmates, and she’s teaching them phonics so they feel confident in their pronunciation. She also tries to pick activities that will resonate with students, like listening to an audio story about a Vietnamese-American woman trying to maintain a connection with her mother’s language.

“I’m hoping that will continue to make them feel safe,” she said. “This is the place to make mistakes and take risks because everybody’s in the same boat as you. No one’s going to tease you. It’s OK if you mispronounce something. This is the space to try.”

Already, she’s built an atmosphere where students feel comfortable joking with each other. At the start of a lesson in mid-February, one student led the class in a daily speaking activity about the day and the weather. She teased her classmates when she didn’t get much of a response.

“Are they asleep?!” she asked Nolan-Spohn.

After a winter of pandemic hiccups — including a spike in student and teacher absences that pulled some English learner specialists away to sub — López is hopeful English learners will make more progress this year.

Last year, around 6% of English learners in the district scored high enough on the proficiency test to exit the program, though typically it’s between 7% and 9%. Educators are hoping it will be closer to 10% this year.

“I think we are moving along,” López said. “Our goal is to see some growth.”

Garcia, at New America, expects speaking scores will be higher this year, now that students have had more time to talk with their teachers and classmates in person. And with more information in hand, she wants schools to pay particularly close attention to English learners’ progress.

Last spring, school districts were able to test a much smaller share of their English learners than usual — Berwyn North reached around 60% — so teachers had less information to work with. This time around, teachers will know a lot more about what support students need and what they can do.

“To me, this is the level-setting year,” Garcia said. “Now we need to figure out how to adjust what we’re doing to address what we see.”

Kalyn Belsha is a national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Amid pushback on school budget cuts, Chicago schools chief promises more communication

2022-04-27T22:54:35+00:00

Chicago Public Schools leaders vowed to step up efforts to explain next fall’s school budgets amid intensifying pushback — and sharp questioning from a school board member — about cuts on some campuses with declining enrollment.

After a string of protests — including two events Wednesday ahead of the regular school board meeting — district CEO Pedro Martinez said the backlash has in some ways misrepresented a shift in how the district budgets for schools.

After two years of largely holding schools harmless amid steep enrollment losses magnified by the pandemic, the district proposed cutting budgets at 40% of schools, while the remainder could see comparable or increased funding. Critics, including the teachers union, the principals association, some elected officials, and parent groups, have argued the district should use its federal COVID relief dollars to ward off the cuts as schools are still trying to bounce back from the pandemic’s disruption.

At Wednesday’s meeting, board member Elizabeth Todd-Breland argued the district should have communicated and engaged school communities more about the budgets. Local School Councils, for instance, had to vote on the budgets last week without a clear understanding of how centralized dollars for professional development, after-school programs, and more will affect their schools, she said.

“Folks don’t know what’s going on — and sometimes that’s me,” she said. “There has to be greater visibility and transparency and true overcommunication.”

Martinez said that since releasing the school budgets last month, the district has added some additional dollars for academic coaches and other staff and partially reversed some cuts after principals made a case that they went too far. He said the outcry over the cuts has not accounted for additional resources the district budgeted in centralized funds campuses will tap.

The schools chief also argued that the protests fail to give his team credit for ensuring that all schools have art instruction and enough staffing to avoid combining students of different grades in one classroom.

And he stressed that, with the district adding about 1,600 teaching positions, it’s unlikely any educators will lose their jobs next fall.

Chalkbeat Chicago requested updated school budget data reflecting the additional resources and tweaks the district has made. But officials said that because these adjustments are ongoing, the district likely will only release updated school budgets when the complete district budget comes before the board this summer.

The Chicago Teachers Union and a coalition of parent advocacy nonprofits held protests before Wednesday’s board meeting to call on the district to reverse the cuts. During the meeting, union president Jesse Sharkey acknowledged the school budgeting issue is complex and said he understands that the district will likely rehire special education and other teachers facing layoffs at other schools with stable or growing enrollments. But he said he worries that other districts might snap up some of those educators before they are assigned new positions.

“School communities will be thrown into turmoil and there will be lots of turnover,” Sharkey said.

Martinez said he will work to make the process of switching schools smoother. With the positions the district is hiring, he said, “There’s no reason anyone will lose their jobs.”

He also pushed back against the suggestion that the district was sitting on unspent federal COVID relief dollars, including $1.8 billion from the American Rescue Plan alone. Officials said last month the district has spent 7% of this money, though a plan for making use of the dollars before the fall 2024 deadline is forthcoming.

“Every single ESSER dollar is being spent or is being committed,” Martinez said, referring to the acronym for Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, the catch-all name for that federal funding.

Todd-Breland said board members have heard from school leaders and Local School Council members concerned about the fallout from the cuts. She commended Martinez for his engagement with principals, but said the district did not do enough to explain the budget and seek input from other employees and families. And, she noted, the board has not yet gotten a full accounting of how the district has spent its federal pandemic relief money — an update officials promised is coming later this spring.

Martinez said he will keep getting the word out.

“We want to make sure everybody has the facts and the complete information,” Martinez said, adding, “When the dust settles, this budget will be much more equitable.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan bills would de-emphasize test scores to account for pandemic disruptions

2022-04-27T17:04:09+00:00

Standardized test scores wouldn’t be a factor this year in educator evaluations or decisions about whether third-graders can move up to fourth grade, under proposed legislation to loosen state education requirements to account for disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The proposals introduced last week recognize the pandemic’s effect on instruction over the past two years, and the stresses of switching between remote and in-person learning as waves of COVID infections forced building closures and quarantines. Those disruptions are becoming less frequent, but the effects of the chaotic 2020-21 school year are lasting, said state Rep. Lori Stone, and students and educators shouldn’t be punished for them.

“Students didn’t get to choose the circumstances of their education for the last couple of years. Teachers and administrators didn’t get to choose those circumstances, either,” said Stone, a Warren Democrat who is shepherding a package of bills that would waive what she views as punitive measures. “We need to show grace around education.”

Under current law, results of standardized tests have important consequences. For teachers and administrators, student scores weigh heavily in teacher evaluations, which are used in decisions about tenure, staff reductions, reassignments, and promotions. For students, they influence whether they receive extra help or, in the case of Michigan third-graders, whether they have to repeat a grade.

The bills have several Democratic co-sponsors. Only one Republican, Rep. Bronna Kahle of Adrian, is on board, and only for the legislation waiving test scores as a factor in teacher evaluations. She is the primary sponsor of that measure.

Sponsors will need more GOP support for the legislation to advance in the Republican-controlled House. They say they’re optimistic it will come.

“We’re not all the way there yet, but I think we can make some headway,” said state Rep. Brenda Carter, a Pontiac Democrat. “The pandemic hit every child. It caused mental anguish throughout the whole education community.”

The proposals reflect concerns that holding teachers accountable for test scores after a tumultuous two years adds a layer of stress for teachers already feeling burned out by the challenges of the pandemic.

“It seems shortsighted to enact punitive measures for our third-graders, for our teachers, and for our administrators when we know instructional practices didn’t necessarily follow typical expectations,” Stone said. “They had to adjust on the fly in [difficult] conditions and we want to hold them to the same expectations?” Stone asked.

Ben DeGrow, director of education policy at the conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said he opposes the bills, calling test scores an important, objective accountability measure.

Standards might not be the same in a pandemic year than a typical one, DeGrow said, but people can view the scores in the context of the pandemic and make their judgements accordingly.

Five bills are under consideration:

House Bill 5991 would exempt this year’s third-graders from the Read by Grade Three law, which says children cannot advance to fourth grade unless they read on at least a second-grade level or receive an exemption from their superintendent.
House Bills 5992, 5993, and 5051 would temporarily waive a requirement that districts consider student test scores in end-of-year evaluations of teachers and administrators. Normally, at least 40% of a teacher’s evaluation must be based on academic growth students demonstrate on standardized tests. Under the bill, evaluations would be based on other criteria such as performance goals, instructional improvement, and classroom observations.
A fifth bill in the package would temporarily waive a requirement that the Michigan Department of Education assign schools annual letter grades, from A to F, to help identify and improve struggling schools. A controversial 2018 law calls for letter grades based on student proficiency, academic growth, graduation rates, progress of English language learners, and performance compared with schools with similar demographics.

Michigan wouldn’t be the first state to loosen testing requirements this year. Florida, for example, waived a graduation requirement that high school seniors pass standardized tests in English and math.

MDE spokesman Bill DiSessa said the department has no official position on the five bills, but state Superintendent Dr. Michael Rice, in general, said he agrees with the premise of giving a grace year.

The American Federation of Teachers Michigan supports the legislation.

“Given COVID, while we are getting back to usual operations, we have not been there for the full year,” union spokesman David Hecker said in an email message. “Educators have gone above and beyond during the COVID years.”

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan coalition: Don’t neglect recess

2022-04-19T21:53:32+00:00

Reading, writing, and ’rithmetic are important, but one group of Michigan educators and business leaders wants to make sure schools don’t forget about a fourth R: recess.

Roughly one in five elementary school students gets less than 20 minutes of recess time each day, according to a new survey of school administrators conducted by the Coalition for Michigan Schoolchildren’s Right to Play.

In some districts, children get little more than a few minutes of playtime in the gymnasium after lunch, said Paul Liabenow, a member of the coalition and executive director of the Michigan Elementary and Middle School Principals Association.

The survey comes after two years of disrupted learning when quarantines and school closures forced children into virtual learning without opportunities for free play or in-person interaction with classmates during school.

That loss contributed to changes in children’s physical and mental health, said Rebecca Hasson, associate professor of kinesiology and director of InPACT, a University of Michigan project to promote physical activity in schools.

Children need recess now more than ever, Hasson said Monday in a telephone interview.

“It isn’t just fun, but there are actually many mental, emotional, and physical benefits that come with free time,” she said.

The Right to Play coalition, which formed last year, does not have comparative data over time, but Liabenow said he believes recess time has been shrinking as districts struggle to provide enough equipment and staff to supervise unstructured play.

Hasson attributes the contraction to many factors.

“You need equipment. You need staffing. You need to make sure there are precautions in place so children don’t get hurt. You need training on how to effectively monitor recess so it will be a positive experience,” she said.

In some small schools, the biggest obstacle is scheduling playtime around physical education classes that occur in the same spaces as recess, Liabenow said.

The pressure to improve test scores could be a factor, too, coalition members said.

That’s particularly true in districts where administrators are unaware of research showing that recess is associated with higher academic achievement, Liabenow said. He wasn’t when he was a principal in Cadillac Area Public Schools.

“For the first 20 years of my career, I would say we need to double down on instruction and set aside playtime, but research doesn’t support that idea,” he said.

Recess is not required by law in Michigan, although the state Board of Education in 2012 recommended that all public schools offer at least 30 minutes of vigorous physical activity outside of physical education classes, including at least 20 minutes of recess.

That’s in line with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations and with laws in several other states.

Coalition members have been talking with lawmakers about the importance of recess, but have focused on educating administrators to increase recess time without a state mandate.

“Our hope is we can [encourage schools to prioritize recess] simply by virtue of informing and offering ideas for how to make it work with schedules and staffing,” Liabenow said.

In Leelanau County, in the northwestern Lower Peninsula, Principal Ryan Schrock needs no convincing. His students at Glen Lake Elementary School get at least 50 minutes of recess per day spread across three breaks.

“That’s not negotiable. It’s important time for kids,” Schrock said. And it doesn’t mean they aren’t learning just because they’re playing, he said.

“When they’re engaging with each other, they’re using language in really meaningful ways, so giving them that time to be outside at recess” can lead to academic improvement as well, Schrock said — especially if certified teachers are monitoring recess and engaging with them.

Survey respondents included 964 educators and school board members from all areas of the state.

Six percent of respondents said their elementary school students had an hour or more of recess per day; 10% said 45-60 minutes; 29% said 30-44 minutes; and 26% said 20-29 minutes. Six percent were unsure, and 5% did not provide an answer.

Eighty-four percent of respondents said they would support a statewide policy requiring elementary schools to provide 20 minutes of outdoor recess per day; 4% said they oppose; 6% said they neither support nor oppose; and 6% did not provide an answer.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

Along with its survey results, the Coalition for Michigan Schoolchildren’s Right to Play issued guidance to schools:

Access to recess should not be taken away as a form of discipline.
Beyond recess, schools should offer at least 40 minutes of play per day.
There should be at least one adult on the playground for every 18 children.
Students should be made aware of clear playground rules and community norms.
Recess should be held even in inclement weather. It could be moved indoors if necessary.
Adult monitors should be actively engaged with children during recess.
Children should be given the autonomy and leadership to lead peers and select from a variety of games that are inclusive and fair.

The coalition was convened by Playworks Michigan, a nonprofit group that advocates for improving children’s health and well-being.

Tracie Mauriello covers state education policy for Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan. Reach her at tmauriello@chalkbeat.org.

Here are education highlights from New York’s state budget

2022-04-18T19:37:04+00:00

New York state lawmakers passed a budget over the weekend that will boost funding for New York City schools by about 4% per pupil next school year.

The city’s public schools will receive just over $12 billion in state funding. State funds represent roughly 40% of the city’s education operating budget.

School funding is usually a bitter battle among lawmakers and advocates during budget season. But lawmakers reached a deal last year to fully fund Foundation Aid, the formula that sends more dollars to high-needs schools.

As a result, even the most fervent school funding advocates shifted their attention to expanding other programs and initiatives. One of the largest pushes went toward expanding subsidized child care across New York.

The final budget deal calls for $7 billion in early child care funding over the next four years, which could pave the way for universal child care and greatly expand access for New York City families. But some advocates and lawmakers were disappointed by that level of funding and are frustrated that it still excludes children who are undocumented.

Lawmakers also passed legislation to mandate electric school buses and instituted some funding changes for private special education programs, which serve public school children with the most challenging disabilities and have been struggling to retain teachers.

Here are highlights from the state budget.

NYC schools get $56 million less than proposed

New York City schools will see about $475 million more in state funding next school year. That figure is $56 million less than what Gov. Kathy Hochul had proposed; it wasn’t immediately clear why the final budget sent less money to the city.

Unlike previous years, it was clear from the governor’s proposal in January that school districts would receive an influx of cash following commitments last year to boost Foundation Aid, which gives districts the most flexibility, including the ability to hire more teachers or create new programs.

Some advocates, however, were disappointed not to see a funding increase for career and technical education programs. The New York State Educational Conference Board, a coalition of large school organizations, including the state teachers union, had called for updating a three-decade-old formula that helps fund career and technical education. The state’s Board of Regents also asked for more funding.

“Completing high school should put every young person on a path toward success in adult life,” Charles Dedrick, executive director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents, said in a statement. “Quality CTE programs have proven to be an effective option for students, including those planning to enter the workforce, to pursue further education, or both.”

Thousands more NYC families will be eligible for subsidized child care

The state’s $7 billion, four-year agreement for expanding subsidized child care would make it more affordable for families earning up to 300% of the federal poverty limit, or around $83,000 for a family of four. Previously the upper limit was around $55,500 for a family of four, or 200% of the poverty level.

While the final deal did not make care free, keeping in place co-payments that advocates had hoped would be eliminated, those payments are now capped at 10% of a family’s income.

About 74,000 more New York City children under the age of 5 will be eligible for significantly subsidized care, for a total of about 290,000 children across the five boroughs, according to an analysis of 2019 Census data conducted by United Neighborhood Houses, which represents child care providers.

Children who are undocumented will not be included, leaving an estimated 5,000 children across the state excluded from the program. Because state and federal dollars are “co-mingled” for subsidized child care, covering undocumented children would violate federal law, according to a spokesperson for Hochul’s office.

But advocates believe officials could separate out state funds and use them specifically for excluded children. It could work like the state’s excluded workers’ funds, which provided benefits to New Yorkers who lost work during the pandemic but were left out of federal relief programs, said Gregory Brender, director of public policy for the Day Care Council.

Many advocates called the investment “historic” for the industry and for families desperately in need of support. But some who had called for even more funding said the plan will fall short and cause families long waits for subsidized care — leading at least one leading lawmaker behind the universal childcare push, Sen. Jabari Brisport, to vote against the budget.

New York City in recent years has significantly expanded free child care for 3- and 4-year-olds through free preschool programs, but families with infants have struggled to find and afford care.

It remains to be seen how many families will take advantage of more affordable care and how the rollout will work. In 2019, more than 93,000 families qualified, yet only about 8,000 were enrolled in publicly supported programs, according to public data analyzed by the Citizens’ Committee for Children, or CCC, a nonprofit advocacy group.

The annual cost of care is about $18,000 to enroll in center-based programs or about $10,000 for programs that are run out of providers’ homes. Many women who left the workforce during the pandemic have not returned, with 35% of those reporting lack of childcare as the reason, according to census data analyzed by CCC.

Providers, meanwhile, have struggled since well before the pandemic. Many operate as private businesses, while those that participate in public programs say the rates they’re paid do not come close to covering costs. COVID only made things more difficult, with more expenses and plummeting enrollment. Many were forced to close.

Districts will start purchasing electric buses

The final budget requires all school districts to use zero-emission school buses that don’t use gasoline by 2035. Starting in 2027, districts can only purchase or lease green buses, or they must require the same of companies they contract with for transportation services.

This follows a law passed by New York City Council in November 2021 requiring that all school buses in use are zero-emission by 2035. Roughly 10,000 school buses service New York City, according to the New York State Association for Pupil Transportation, or NYAPT.

Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had committed last April to changing 75 of 960 city-operated buses to electric by 2023, costing $30 million. The city contracts with other companies to run other school buses. An education department spokesperson said there have been no changes to de Blasio’s commitment.

Hochul had pitched the change in her budget proposal in January, earning pushback from NYAPT and other school advocates over the complicated logistics that could arise from the mandate. The groups worried about the costs that would come along with the mandate, such as building charging stations.

To meet the mandate, a district without any electric buses would have to convert close to 8% of its fleet on average annually in order to meet the new requirements by 2035.

NYAPT estimated the new mandate will cost at least $1 billion a year across the state, assuming about 4,000 new zero-emission buses are purchased annually. That organization had called for allowing districts to convert 5% of their fleets annually beginning in 2029, or pushing the start date of the mandate out to 2035, while letting districts choose a fleet of all-electric school buses or “a diversified fleet of school buses is more appropriate when considering the safety, environmental, and economic factors of their school district.”

A spokesperson for the association did not immediately share its response to the final budget.

The budget dedicates $500 million for zero-emission school buses in the state’s environmental bond act, a borrowing plan that must still be approved by voters this November. It also allows districts to apply for a two-year extension to meet the requirements of transitioning their fleets.

Dedrick, from the state’s superintendents group, said the $500 million allocation “will be a significant help to school districts.”

Private special education funding

Advocates and education policymakers had hoped for changes in how New York funds state-approved, privately run special education programs that serve thousands of school-age and preschool children with severe disabilities.

But those requests didn’t make it into the final budget.

Advocates welcomed a commitment from Hochul to boost funding for these programs by $240 million. But there was no final deal to freeze a complicated policy called “reconciliation,” which they argue could make the funding increase moot.

Under reconciliation, not only must programs return state funding they don’t use in a given school year, they also lose that funding in the following year. That means, for example, that if a teacher quits, and the school is unable to hire a replacement, then the school will not get the money for that position in the following year, said Chris Treiber, associate executive director for children’s services at InterAgency Council of Developmental Disabilities Agencies, Inc., which represents these programs.

“Our schools are so understaffed, they’re unable to recruit teachers, teacher assistants and clinicians,” Treiber said. “If they had to spend all this money in one fiscal year, they never would be able to.”

Last school year, 853 schools which serve school-age children had a teacher vacancy rate of 29%, while preschool programs had a vacancy rate of 33%, according to figures from Treiber’s organization.

The final budget allows these programs to retain a certain portion of unspent funding. Over the next three years, schools can hold on to up to 11% of surplus funding. That percentage would decrease to 8% in the 2025-2026 school year, to 5% the following year, and then 2% by 2027-2028 and annually after that. Treiber said his organization is still working to understand how exactly this would impact their programs.

Stagnant state funding has contributed to the closure of these programs and a shortage of seats for 3- and 4-year-olds with disabilities.

More than 22,000 New York City children are enrolled in these programs. Rate increases for the preschool special education programs stalled after the 2008 recession. Since 2015-16, the state has approved a 2% annual rate increase, which trails what public schools and programs for older children have received.

Hochul vetoed a bill in December that would have provided preschool special education programs with the same annual rate increase that school districts receive.

On Monday, State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa said she’s concerned about these programs closing due to funding issues, leaving children with the most severe disabilities with fewer options. Her team also requested just over $1 million to begin reviewing the tuition rate-setting methodology, but that, too, was left out of the final budget.

“While we are still looking at this issue, we do believe the tuition rate setting methodology is one that has to be addressed,” Rosa said. “We are hopeful we can continue the dialogue because there has to be a full understanding of the long-term implication this has.”

More mental health and tuition help

A total of $100 million in state grant matching funds will be available over the next two years to match what school districts are spending to address the fallout from the pandemic, including for student mental health and academic recovery. Hochul pitched this in her budget proposal in hopes of helping school districts address a youth mental health crisis spreading across the nation.

That funding will match what school districts are spending, including on extended day and after school programs and hiring mental health professionals.

The state will also spend $150 million toward New York’s Tuition Assistance Program in order to help cover tuition for 75,000 more part-time college students.

Christina Veiga contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: This story previously stated the state has expanded free child care. In fact, more families will now qualify for subsidized care, but families will still be required to contribute a co-payment capped at 10% of their income.

Memphis superintendent reflects on why this school year was his hardest

2022-04-14T14:32:14+00:00

Over the quarter of a century that Memphis-Shelby County Schools Superintendent Joris Ray has worked in education, he’s faced countless challenges. But none of them — not even a pandemic that forced instruction online — compares to the obstacles this school year.

“I told my team at the start of this year: This will be the hardest year we will ever have,” said Ray. “And it was.”

Within the first 30 days of school, which marked many students’ first face-to-face instruction in 18 months, MSCS faced a COVID surge fueled by the delta variant. The next month, a shooting in a stairwell at Cummings K-8 Optional School in South Memphis left a 13-year-old boy injured, another student in custody, and the entire community reeling. And then, in January, students’ return from winter break brought on yet another COVID spike due to the omicron variant.

Similar struggles at school districts across the nation have sparked concerns about a superintendent exodus: A recent RAND survey of 350 district leaders revealed that more than a quarter planned to leave their posts imminently. More alarming, according to the report: Leaders of urban districts like Memphis, which tend to serve mostly students of color who were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, are leaving in higher numbers than their suburban and rural colleagues.

Ray said what makes him determined to press forward are his daily visits to classrooms that remind him of why he got into education in the first place: children.

In a rare one-on-one interview with Chalkbeat on a recent Friday at Rozelle Elementary School, Ray shed light on how his personal struggles years ago as a Memphis student shaped his career and why he’s remained positive despite the hurdles he’s faced since the pandemic began.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: A lot of us thought it would be the return to normal this year, and it was not. What challenges or successes did you experience this year?

A: This was the first time all students were returning back to school after being out for a year for virtual learning, and you still had to mitigate for all the risks of the pandemic.

Students had to wear masks, they still had to social distance — they had to do all of that. You had the rise of delta and the omicron variants. You’ve got the national disciplinary issues with children being out of school for a year, and they’re coming back trying to acclimate themselves back into the school district. You have parents, teachers, and students still fearful.

“We highly politicize basic educational things.”

The basic needs are food, water, shelter, and safety. If your basic needs aren’t met, it is very difficult to get to the top of the pyramid [in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs], and that’s self actualization, right? And our students, coming back to an environment where they were very fearful — folks had on masks, teachers had to adjust the teaching styles — it was just very, very difficult.

And then the political polarization around everything was massive. You know, we’re having these debates on whether you should wear masks or not. … We highly politicize basic educational things — from books to critical race theory.

Joris Ray visits a classroom in Brewster Elementary School on Jan. 7, 2021.

Q: There have been reports and news coverage this year about low test scores. How have those reports and other things affected morale in the district?

A: Many teachers, principals, even parents, were upset about it ... . Our principals, our teachers, our students are more than a number, and it is my job to keep the energy high. It’s my job to continue to keep everyone focused on the task at hand. And it’s my job to just continue to lead through the moment and inspire others. And that’s what I’m going to do as a leader — I’m going to inspire us to take it to the next level.

Back in the late 1970s, early ’80s, and even the ’90s, Memphis was the city to go to in Tennessee. But look at it now, you know? Why is that? It’s because Nashville has really galvanized their support, and worked together with one another. And as I traveled the streets and just from talking to the citizens there, they had nothing bad to say about the city. They had nothing negative to say about the school district. It was about the beauty of Nashville and the growth of Nashville, and how they wanted to continue to grow and do more. And I think as a city, we can learn a lesson from that.

Q: Another big challenge schools have faced is teacher shortages. How have you tried to address that issue?

We work to remove barriers out of teachers’ way and allow them to do the job that they love to do. But also, I don’t allow certain organizations to create noise for teachers or to speak as if they’re speaking for teachers. I speak directly to teachers every day. Every single day. …I get phone calls, I get text messages, I get emails from teachers every single day. … And they’re usually uplifting messages or suggestions.

Here’s a prime example of how you uplift the spirit of teachers: It’s listening. … An instructional coach called me and she was talking to me about how to better prepare our teachers and she had a recommendation. …

“I wish we could prepare teachers better before they transition to the classroom so that, when they get to us, some of the basic things that teachers should know, they will know,” she said.

That’s how we started what’s called the New Teacher Academy in 2022: by listening to teachers and fellow administrators. …. That’s how you boost morale. That’s how you keep teachers excited.

But we also have to pay. We’re recruiting nationally, working with our colleges and universities, but also, we want to retain the teachers that we have. …We do everything we can, but our teachers are tired. They’re tired.

Shelby County Schools Superintendent Joris Rays presents to educators in the central office auditorium in November 2020.

Q: You recently kicked off the “Literacy is Life: Believe For It” tour. What prompted the event, and what’s the purpose?

A: I wanted a heavy focus on literacy. That’s my primary goal, that’s our number one focus: teaching children how to read at or above grade level by the time they make it to third grade. I’m committed to that. I know my team is committed to that. So that is what the Literacy is Life tour is all about. It’s about giving parents strategies on how to help their children at home.

“No matter how much we want to get things back to normal, things still aren’t normal.”

But also, it’s about telling the great things about this school district. It’s my job as the leader of this district to inspire others to greatness and to add fuel to the fire, so to speak. Our students are getting ready to take, yet again, another state standardized test in the midst of a pandemic. No matter how much we want to get things back to normal, things still aren’t normal. …

I’m just trying to create energy and excitement [in the city]. We have challenges, yes. We’re not shying away from our challenges, and we’re not shying away from our data. But we can chew gum and walk at the same time. Folks act as if, “Oh, they’re just focusing on changing the school district name.” No, it’s all in the big plan, a big strategy to uplift our children, uplift our district, and provide a world-class education. And then you’re gonna see the results are guaranteed.

Q: You said earlier this year that you planned to ask the Tennessee Department of Education to, for the third year in a row, not count standardized test scores for student letter grades or teacher performance evaluations. As we head into state assessment season, have you heard any more about that from the state?

A: Penny Schwinn, the commissioner of education, and I met, I want to say in February, and we did discuss it. And I know she’s working on some type of plan. And so I wanted to give her an opportunity.

And let me say this, the commissioner and I have a great working relationship. I respect her immensely. What she’s trying to do to provide equity across the state, she gets it, and I respect her for it.

Superintendent Joris Ray interacts with students in Carol Welch’s kindergarten class at Riverwood Elementary in March 2021.

Q: How did your own background shape your perspective on education?

A: I’m the youngest of seven children. My parents didn’t have a formal education. If you look at what research says about me, with both of my parents being high school dropouts, research says there’s a 50% chance I’m supposed to be a high school dropout. But through a quality education, and caring teachers, look at where I am today. …

“I want something more for our students, each and every day. They deserve it.”

My mom had a brain aneurysm when I was 12 and almost died. My pre-algebra teacher, Ms. Wright, looked at me and knew something wasn’t right with me. Every day she checked on me. Not only academically, but she checked on my well-being socially. She checked on my mental health. She hugged me. Teachers matter. That’s what shaped me in every decision I make — those moments, things that I learned. She wanted something more for me, and she understood what I was going through at home.

And oftentimes people don’t write about that, or they don’t think about the adversities our students bring to school with them. And I just think about that time period of my life, the adverse childhood experience that I brought to school, and it took that teacher — many of my teachers — wrapping their arms around me. ... So teaching goes far beyond what we can ever imagine. That’s what I bring to the table because I want something more for our students, each and every day. They deserve it.

Samantha West is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, where she covers K-12 education in Memphis. Connect with Samantha at swest@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan schools take advantage of broad discretion in COVID spending

2022-04-11T10:00:00+00:00

Editor’s note: The Michigan Department of Education this week said it had already rejected some of the spending plans mentioned below.

District and charter schools across Michigan have $6 billion in federal pandemic relief funds to spend — but some of the planned uses are not explicitly pandemic-related, according to spending proposals submitted to the state.

Among them: A playground ball pit, metal detectors, a food truck, and a nutrition room with smoothie service.

Schools have a lot of flexibility in using the influx of federal money — and just a few years to spend it. Proposed uses vary greatly among the more than 500 school districts and nearly 300 charter schools, and cover nearly everything from athletic fields to food trucks, according to a review by the Detroit Free Press in collaboration with Chalkbeat Detroit and Bridge Michigan.

When asked about non-COVID related spending, school district leaders said they believed spending on athletics and similar categories fit under the broad umbrella of student well-being. Others said they were making infrastructure and building improvements they’ve already waited too long to make, thanks to years of inadequate state funding.

“School districts and school administrators, really, we’re doing our due diligence to be responsible with taxpayer funding,” said Susan Tollefson, superintendent of L’Anse Area Schools in the Upper Peninsula.

Schools received three rounds of federal relief funding, starting in 2020 through the CARES Act, with the last and biggest round of funding in the American Rescue Plan last year.

Congress did not attach a lot of stipulations to the money, leaving schools quite a bit of discretion in spending. In signing off on the most significant and last influx of cash in the American Rescue Plan, Biden said he hoped the funds would, in part, help schools reopen amid the pandemic. Congress also stipulated that at least 20% of the third round of funds be used to combat learning loss sustained in the pandemic. Schools are also expected to meaningfully consult with stakeholders in their communities in developing spending plans, including students, families, and educators.

The last round of money needs to be spent by 2024. Plans for spending the money submitted to the state are still preliminary and could change. The amount of money allocated to districts and schools depended on a few factors, including the number of students enrolled and the number of students from low-income households. Districts with more of those students received more funding.

About this project

$6 billion.

That’s how much Michigan schools are receiving from the federal government to help students and staff recover from the pandemic.

But it isn’t entirely clear how this unprecedented amount of federal cash is being spent and whether it is having an impact.

Chalkbeat Detroit, the Detroit Free Press, and Bridge Michigan have teamed up to find out where the money is going, who is benefiting, and whether the money is helping students get back on track academically, emotionally, and socially.

Please share your thoughts — and tips — with reporters Koby Levin at klevin@chalkbeat.org, Lily Altavena at laltavena@freepress.org, and Isabel Lohman at ilohman@bridgemi.com.

Check out a few of the most recent stories from our series below:

Federal COVID relief aid to schools will dry up soon. Are districts ready?

Michigan school districts are flush with cash, but wary

COVID aid helps Michigan school districts plug deficits

How private schools are spending COVID relief cash

New MI ESSER tutoring programs have room to grow

Experts in school finance and administration caution that schools should strategize to spend this money carefully, and target their investments toward helping students academically and mentally. But, they added, there may also be room for new playground equipment. Guidelines attached to the money are loosely written, allowing for schools to come up with creative ways to spend it.

“We’ve got to invest our dollars in the things we know work and do that in a way where we’re making sure that those investments go to the students who need it the most,” said Karen Hawley Miles, president of Education Resource Strategies, a national nonprofit that assists schools with using resources wisely.

Security, wellness, buildings

Some of the most common non-COVID-related spending categories include security, athletics, playground equipment, and infrastructural improvement such as new HVAC systems.

But what exactly is considered pandemic-related is up for debate among schools.

In their proposals to buy security equipment, some schools wrote that they would use cameras for contact tracing. Hope Academy, a K-8 charter school in Detroit, for example, wrote in state records that interior and exterior cameras at the school “will be used to assist in the process of contact tracing (as needed) as well as to monitor the daily adherence to COVID-19 procedures and protocols at the school level.”

Hope Academy’s superintendent did not respond to an emailed request to explain the school’s contact tracing process.

Kalamazoo Public Schools is also using some of its $60 million in federal funds for pricey security equipment — three metal detectors estimated at $8,000 each and five X-ray machines at $22,000 each, according to state data. Superintendent Rita Raichoudhuri wrote in an emailed statement that the equipment is used for special events. Existing equipment is older and in need of replacement, she wrote. She did not say how the devices relate to the pandemic.

“The replacement devices will enable the district to continue its operations using newer equipment to keep our students and community safe,” she wrote.

Michigan schools also included playground, athletic, and wellness equipment in spending plans.

The River Rouge School District proposed at least $340,000 in athletics, playground and wellness spending out of the roughly $16 million the district received. About $10,000 would go to a nutrition room to make smoothies, according to River Rouge’s plan.

The room would “provide smoothies and other essential drinks to support the additional calories, carbohydrates, proteins, and a host of other essential nutrients for student athletes participating in rigorous after-school athletic conditioning and programming.”

River Rouge also proposed spending $120,000 to buy a food truck for a mobile culinary arts program for high school students and more than $200,000 on new playground equipment. The district did not respond to requests for interviews about its spending strategy, but wrote in the state documents that the playground equipment would benefit student well-being.

Spending on a playground, athletics or building repairs might even fit into a district’s strategic plan to spend the money, Hawley Miles said. Districts may have planned in the future to make those improvements, spreading out the expense over years. By spending the federal funds now, schools could be freeing up money later.

In that case, she said, “it could be responsible to spend money on a playground.”

Tollefson’s district, L’Anse Area Schools, planned to spend nearly $93,000 on installing new outdoor tennis courts. The superintendent believes the spending is COVID-related because it provides another option for student activities outdoors and addresses concerns parents have raised about students exercising indoors when face masks are required.

Tollefson added that the new courts aren’t just for tennis, and can also be used for pickleball and other racket sports, too.

“Our plan was to hold PE classes outside as much as possible,” she said.

And the decision to install them wasn’t made in a vacuum, she said. Parents and teachers had input on the district’s plan to spend the $1.7 million it received, which also included plenty of COVID-related items, like thermometers and hand sanitizer.

Building expenses

Schools are also spending hundreds of millions of dollars on building expenses that aren’t entirely pandemic-related — Detroit Public Schools Community District’s $700 million spending plan is one of the most stark examples. The district received $1.2 billion in federal funding and is relying on the majority, nearly $700 million, for its building projects.

Detroit’s school building problems are well-documented and persistent, including mold and asbestos issues. School leaders across the state say Michigan hasn’t adequately funded building needs, leading to broken HVAC units, roofing issues and more.

Just north of Detroit, Eastpointe Community Schools is also targeting some of its spending to take care of long-standing infrastructure problems. The district, with nearly $30 million in federal relief funding, proposed spending $500,000 to demolish Eastpointe High School’s aging swimming pool, now in disrepair. Robert Carlesso, director of finance with Eastpointe, said it would take $300,000 at least to make the pool operational.

The number of students attending Eastpointe High has declined dramatically since the high school was first built 100 years ago, he said. In the long run, it’s cheaper to demolish the pool and make the school smaller.

“If we were able to reduce the footprint of that building, we would have more money to put into classrooms long term,” he said.

Building improvements might not necessarily be COVID-related, Carlesso said, but the improvements will hopefully make the district “a place that people want to go to school.”

Similar to L’Anse, Alcona Community Schools, a small rural district in northeastern Michigan had an “existing list of needs” for both students and facilities. Superintendent Daniel O’Connor said the decision to replace 30-year-old playground equipment, at an estimated expense of roughly $200,000, balanced student needs in the pandemic, keeping them outside where it’s harder to transmit infection.

“We have $10 million, $20 million worth of needs that aren’t all as dire as some of the others,” he said. “We tried to really look at student data to guide our decision-making process and trying to be responsive to their needs.”

Strategic spending

Kobe Rochester, a senior at Sexton High School in Lansing, wants his school district to spend federal COVID relief money on facilities and security.

To Kobe Rochester, a senior at Sexton High School in Lansing, his school’s needs feel apparent. In a Facebook post in March, the 17-year-old wrote that his school’s bathrooms were a mess, missing soap for months on end and in desperate need for updates. He also believes his school needs more security.

“You’d think in the middle of COVID that soap in the bathroom would be a priority,” he wrote.

Principal Dan Boggan said in an email response to the Free Press that the bathrooms lack soap dispensers because the school was hit by a social media challenge that encouraged students to damage school bathrooms. The school placed hand sanitizer stations outside of bathrooms in lieu of soap.

Robert Kolt, a spokesperson with Lansing Public Schools, wrote that an upcoming bond vote in May includes $10 million to make improvements to Sexton High facilities, which Rochester said generally needs updates.

Rochester told the Free Press that the bathrooms sometimes don’t have toilet paper. He said it doesn’t appear like the district has poured any federal money into needs the students like him have identified, like security.

Leading experts, however, have cautioned school leaders to focus not just on infrastructure or miscellaneous needs, but also on academic and emotional well-being to help students truly recover from the devastating impacts of the pandemic. Early benchmark testing through last year showed more Michigan students fell behind their grade level in math and reading, with students from low-income families and students of color faring worse.

The Council of the Great City Schools, a coalition of more than 70 public school districts across the United States, recommends having “a coherent, instructionally focused, systemwide plan.”

The organization studied how districts used federal funding from 2009 following the Great Recession. The districts that used the funding more effectively and saw better results had coherent strategies for improving academics districtwide.

Hawley Miles said districts should be leveraging research-based practices, like high-dosage tutoring where students receive tutoring one-on-one or in small groups several times a week, as a part of those plans — and they should be capturing data, like results of routine student testing, to gauge the success of those interventions.

In some cases, she said, districts across the country are struggling to spend some of the funding on tutoring and hiring other employees for instruction because of the current competitive job market.

“We’re working in a place where they expected to spend $50 million on tutoring, and it was a big district, but they could only spend five,” she said.

But generally, catching up struggling students should drive district decisions, she said.

“Do they have the plans for how they’re going to assess what students know and where they need help to catch up? Do they have extra time for tutoring students?” she asked.

Lily Altavana is a reporter with the Detroit Free Press.

Budget cuts hit pandemic-weary Chicago elementary schools

2022-04-08T11:00:00+00:00

In 2022-23 school budgets across Chicago, pandemic-era enrollment losses are colliding with the urgent push to recover from the outbreak’s academic and mental health damage.

In Little Village on the city’s Southwest Side, Zapata Elementary will lose more than $894,000, or about 13% of its budget, next fall — a cut that could claim eight teaching positions and a preschool classroom. Cardenas is looking at $605,000 less, or a 6% reduction, and the resulting loss of four classroom teachers and a support staff member.

The cuts come on the heels of a steep enrollment dip: Little Village’s 14 elementary schools lost almost a fifth of their students during the pandemic, which accelerated a pre-COVID trend of shrinking Latino majority elementary schools throughout the city. Because fewer students are enrolled, the neighborhood’s campuses will actually get an average of $2,600 more per student next fall than they did the year the pandemic hit — despite getting less money overall.

Little Village is also one of the neighborhoods where COVID took the heaviest health and economic toll — and the district is slashing budgets as campuses try to bounce back from that profound disruption. The cuts also come as the district acknowledged spending just 6% of its $1.8 billion in American Rescue Plan dollars, the latest and largest infusion in federal pandemic recovery cash.

Chicago largely shielded schools from the financial fallout of declining enrollment for the last two years, but this fall, 40% of the district’s campuses will see leaner budgets. The district’s principals group says the rising cost of employee salaries and benefits could mean even campuses where budgets stayed relatively flat might need to trim to balance them.

District leaders say that declining enrollment has left some campuses with too many staff members for the size of their student bodies, stressing most schools got a funding boost even after the loss of 25,000 students districtwide during the pandemic. They note that additional help for schools will come from centralized funds for after-school and summer programs, professional development, and more — funds that some school leaders such as Cardenas principal Jeremy Feiwell say will power key staff and programs.

“There is no school where the budget is being adjusted unless the children are just not there — they are literally physically not in the building,” said district CEO Pedro Martinez in an interview.

But advocates fear the cuts could undermine efforts to recover from the pandemic and thrust once-bustling campuses in neighborhoods such as Little Village into a cycle of staff and program cuts that trigger more family defections.

“The school community is losing out,” said Jianan Shi of the parent advocacy group Raise Your Hand, “and that starts a self-fulfilling prophecy. It doesn’t stabilize the community.”

Raise Your Hand launched a social media campaign Wednesday urging parents to email the school board and Mayor Lori Lightfoot in opposition to the budget cuts. With other community groups, it is hosting a Friday press conference at Shields Middle School in Brighton Park. Parents and advocates in Little Village and other neighborhoods are also vowing to press the district to reconsider the cuts ahead of a summer school board vote on the overall district budget.

Some also plan to reach out to state legislators, noting that by the state’s own calculation Chicago schools remain underfunded so the district is trying to divide a pie that’s too small.

Major differences between per-pupil spending at nearby campuses remain

In their school budget announcement last month, district officials touted a $290 million increase in funding for schools. Some of that is going to central funds from which schools will draw to cover various expenses.

Based on data CPS provided last month, district-run campuses will see a net increase of about $60 million, following $225 million more last year, when 95% of schools saw budget hikes. On campuses where budgets will shrink — primarily neighborhood elementary schools — those cuts add up to a total of about $42 million.

Because of enrollment declines and recent budget bumps, only a handful of schools in CPS will see a decrease over pre-pandemic funding on a per student basis. Districtwide across grade levels, schools will receive about $12,800 per student on average, compared with about $12,000 in this school year’s budgets and with roughly $10,050 in 2019-20.

Little Village is a microcosm of the complex picture of the district’s school budgeting. With about $1 million in net cuts across all its campuses, it is second only to Avondale in total reductions, and followed closely by North Lawndale and Garfield Park, two other neighborhoods hard hit by the pandemic.

Elementary schools in Little Village will receive roughly $11,730 per student on average next fall. That’s an increase over last year because the schools serve many fewer students, but just slightly below the districtwide average. To local community leaders, that amount does not adequately reflect the neighborhood’s challenges.

A Chalkbeat Chicago analysis also shows dramatic differences in per-pupil funding between nearby schools with similar demographics here and across the city, often skewed by campus size: The 800-pupil Gary Elementary, for instance, will get about $10,400 per student. The 250-pupil Hammond Elementary will receive $15,250.

At a school board meeting after the budgets were announced, Martinez voiced dismay with media coverage that he said focused disproportionately on the cuts. He said it was more notable that at a time when 75% of schools had flat or shrinking enrollment, 60% saw funding increases — in some cases substantial ones.

The district ensured all schools had money to avoid combining students in different grades in the same classroom, Martinez said, noting that the total amount of district-issued grants to soften the impact of enrollment losses is increasing to $50 million, a $14 million hike over last year. The district also earmarked dollars for art instruction, physical education, and at least one intervention specialist on each elementary campus.

“We are setting a new standard for what every school has to have,” Martinez said in an interview with Chalkbeat.

In some cases, such as at Pilsen’s Orozco Academy, Martinez said, schools had money in their budgets for, say, a special education classroom with no students. Contractual salary increases were factored into the budgets, he stressed, and since the district released those budgets, some dollars have been added for academic coaches, high school athletic coordinators, and counselors.

The district said it is also working with some campuses that might need added help to make their staffing work for the number of students.

Troy LaRaviere of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, on the other hand, told the board that rising salary and benefit hikes account for as much as a 6% increase in staffing costs at many schools, so even campuses where budgets stayed relatively flat face cost reductions to balance their budgets. He urged board members to talk to principals and refrain from supporting the district’s final budget without more dollars for schools.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, LaRaviere said an analysis by his association suggests that even under a best case scenario in which campus staffing costs go up only 3.5% next school year, 324 schools out of roughly 500 total district campuses are facing a combined “stability shortfall” of more than $100 million.

He said recent investments in school budgets have not made up for leaner staffing on some campuses dating back to the district’s 2013 shift to student-based budgeting, in which enrollment plays a larger role. LaRaviere said he doesn’t fully understand how the district arrived at its proposed school budgets, with examples of schools that gained students but saw cuts and others whose budgets got a boost despite enrollment decreases.

In Little Village, Hammond, with enrollment down more than 18% over last year — the neighborhood’s steepest loss — will get a modest budget bump. Corkery Elementary, a 415-student school that only lost seven students, is facing a 3% budget cut.

“There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to these cuts,” he said. “They are especially mean and callous when you know the challenges schools are having as they try to help students reacclimate.”

The district should steer a larger portion of its roughly $9 billion budget directly to schools, LaRaviere said. Next year, about $4 billion is going into school budgets or central funds supporting schools, including $838 million for charter schools, according to the district. The rest will cover central administration, capital, debt service, employee pensions, and other expenditures.

LaRaviere and other critics said the district should tap its federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER, allocation to give schools stability as they navigate the pandemic recovery.

Officials have said that COVID surges, staffing shortages, and other hurdles have crimped spending on academic and mental health interventions through the district’s half-billion dollar Moving Forward Together initiative to just 12% of the two-year program’s budget.

“We have unspent money,” said Shi of Raise Your Hand. “We are in shock that we are going to cut millions of dollars from local schools during a pandemic.”

In Little Village, cuts went deeper than community leaders expected

At Cardenas, Feiwell, the principal, says class sizes in some grades on the 860-student campus will increase somewhat as it loses four of its teachers. But he sought to reassure members of his local school council that the leaner budget will not arrest momentum in Cardenas’ push to recover from the pandemic, with a redoubled focus on basic literacy skills in the early grades and building relationships with middle schoolers.

The school’s budget does not tell the whole story, he told them: The school will get two centrally funded teaching positions, offsetting what would have been a larger loss of staff. Also from central funds, Cardenas will get after-school, technology, and professional development dollars that will give teachers more time to plan jointly. He stressed the school, which lost 113 students last year, won’t cut programs or key support personnel such as its three social workers, made possible in part by an outside partnership.

“Will we lose great teachers? Absolutely,” Feiwell said. “We don’t have the enrollment to support these positions. But everything we have done before will still be in place.”

Alderman Michael Rodriguez, who represents a large swath of Little Village, said he and other community leaders, as well as some principals were bracing for budget cuts.

Little Village along with nearby Pilsen — another traditionally Latino area that grappled with overcrowded schools less than a decade ago — had some of the city’s steepest enrollment losses during the COVID outbreak. During that time, Latino enrollment losses for the first time outpaced Black student departures, which in the years leading up to the outbreak had been much sharper.

The reasons are complex: The population of Little Village has declined overall amid immigration and demographic shifts. The pandemic displaced families, causing some to double up with relatives in other neighborhoods or in the suburbs.

Still, Rodriguez said, “People are in a bit of a shock at how much some of these budget decreases are.”

Overall, elementary schools in the neighborhood will see about $2.7 million in cuts. Several elementary campuses got modest increases, with more substantial hikes for local high schools.

Rodriguez said the budget news comes amid high hopes that schools here might see enrollment rebound in the fall, as COVID fears ease and families become more comfortable sending their children back to school, especially if vaccines become available for those 5 and younger.

At Madero Middle School, principal Hamed Flores told his local school council this week that despite a loss of $134,000 from the school’s budget, the campus will keep all its staff. That involves covering the school’s International Baccalaureate coordinator with money for an academic coach budgeted centrally and tapping dollars for supplies and digital resources.

Still, some on the council said the school needs extra help rather than clinging to the status quo. The 260-student campus serves 44 students with disabilities and 111 English learners, including a growing number of recent arrivals from Central America with intense language and academic needs. It can use more classroom assistants to help them.

“I feel relieved because I’m always worried about cutting staff,” said Gabriela Oria, who serves on both Madero’s and nearby McCormick Elementary’s school councils, after the meeting.

But she said she wants to see more strategic investment to address the heightened social and emotional needs of students and to draw more students to Little Village campuses.

Astrid Suarez, the education director of the Little Village-based nonprofit Enlace Chicago, said she has heard from school administrators who are trying to determine whether these cuts might claim positions in counseling, academic intervention, or special education — positions they got this school year as part of the district’s pandemic recovery efforts.

Schools in the neighborhood, which have experienced historical disinvestment, need stability as they try to bounce back from the pandemic, she said. They are still working to re-engage families and students, particularly high schoolers who took on jobs during the pandemic to help with household budgets.

“Every penny we cut in our schools means losing positions and deepening the inequities in our schools,” she said. “And that’s very troubling.”

Suarez said Enlace and other advocates are hoping to make a case for rolling back some of the reductions before the school board approves its budget.

Across the city, at the 780-student Jamieson Elementary on the Northwest Side, some members of the Local School Council are looking into the implications of voting down a school budget that’s about $342,000 less than last year, or a 4.2% cut. Local councils have to take a vote on the budgets by April 19.

Jen Streicher, who serves on the council, says that after years of prioritizing lower class sizes in the early grades, the cut could mean the loss of three classroom teachers, a special education teacher, and a paraprofessional — and more students per classroom in some grades. The school, where about 70% of students are low-income and a third are learning English, could also lose one of its assistant principals.

“We have been asking, ‘Is there a way for us to take a stronger stance and advocate for more funding?’” Streicher said.

Kristin Blagg, a school finance expert at the nonprofit Urban Institute, said enrollment declines that are colliding with pandemic recovery efforts present a central challenge for urban districts across the country.

Districts need to tread carefully: Some students who sat out the non-mandatory preschool and kindergarten during the pandemic could return to public campuses in the fall — less prepared for school than their peers — leaving districts that trimmed budgets scrambling to adjust.

The $2,750 more per pupil Chicago schools will have next fall compared to 2019-20 is substantial. But schools are trying to address heightened student needs and handle a slew of new responsibilities, such as COVID testing — while inflation rose and compensation costs continued to increase.

“It’s such a push-and-pull tradeoff,” Blagg said. “You want to allocate funds in a way that reflects current enrollment. You also don’t want to pull funds from schools with high needs.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Name	Total budget	YoY change	Budget/student	YoY change
OROZCO	$3,666,724.00	-18.6%	$13,333.54	9.6%
CROWN	$1,991,393.00	-17.2%	$14,123.35	4.6%
GREGORY	$3,357,806.00	-15.0%	$11,823.26	-8.1%
WILLIAMS HS	$1,657,480.00	-14.8%	$26,309.21	44.7%
ZAPATA	$5,916,816.00	-13.1%	$10,680.17	-2.6%
ERICSON	$4,095,000.00	-12.6%	$10,111.11	-2.0%
MAYS	$3,224,983.00	-11.9%	$12,548.57	5.6%
REILLY	$6,642,771.00	-11.3%	$10,925.61	-0.7%
FISKE	$4,389,058.00	-10.8%	$12,363.54	-4.3%
CUFFE	$2,965,589.00	-10.4%	$13,180.40	-15.2%
JENSEN	$3,599,325.00	-10.4%	$11,997.75	6.0%
BLACK	$3,795,345.00	-9.9%	$9,832.50	4.3%
OGLESBY	$3,707,506.00	-9.7%	$13,630.54	16.6%
SMITH	$3,327,970.00	-9.5%	$12,014.33	3.2%
SALAZAR	$3,025,348.00	-9.2%	$10,050.99	-7.0%
AUSTIN CCA HS	$2,840,718.00	-9.1%	$17,866.15	34.3%
JOHNSON	$3,156,331.00	-8.7%	$11,910.68	13.0%
DAVIS M	$2,415,683.00	-8.3%	$15,892.65	7.3%
BOWEN HS	$3,709,459.00	-8.3%	$19,626.77	5.8%
HAY	$3,276,849.00	-8.0%	$12,227.05	-2.9%
MCDADE	$1,814,238.00	-8.0%	$9,449.16	-13.2%
DUNNE	$2,781,414.00	-7.9%	$13,837.88	-7.0%
SMYTH	$4,933,587.00	-7.8%	$12,715.43	-2.1%
SHIELDS MIDDLE	$4,864,190.00	-7.7%	$9,354.21	1.4%
LEWIS	$4,227,090.00	-7.7%	$10,541.37	4.6%
MCCORMICK	$5,380,191.00	-7.6%	$11,255.63	2.6%
LYON	$10,018,717.00	-7.6%	$9,066.71	-0.3%
AVONDALE-LOGANDALE	$5,674,602.00	-7.5%	$10,850.10	1.6%
YOUNG ES	$5,544,714.00	-7.4%	$10,829.52	6.5%
COURTENAY	$5,305,821.00	-7.4%	$25,508.75	21.1%
HAINES	$4,898,312.00	-7.4%	$8,639.00	-2.5%
FRAZIER PROSPECTIVE	$2,496,125.00	-7.0%	$15,220.27	11.1%
COOPER	$5,223,945.00	-6.8%	$11,430.95	-7.4%
GARVY	$5,770,900.00	-6.6%	$8,174.08	2.3%
RICHARDSON	$8,684,436.00	-6.4%	$8,888.88	3.9%
LAVIZZO	$3,754,677.00	-6.3%	$11,309.27	4.4%
CARDENAS	$9,170,605.00	-6.2%	$10,589.61	6.0%
DUBOIS	$2,713,988.00	-6.2%	$13,707.01	0.9%
UPLIFT HS	$3,288,789.00	-6.1%	$38,241.73	15.7%
GRIMES	$3,954,116.00	-6.1%	$10,061.36	2.2%
WARD L	$4,391,715.00	-6.0%	$15,355.65	10.4%
WADSWORTH	$5,058,523.00	-5.9%	$10,878.54	-10.6%
NIXON	$5,757,008.00	-5.8%	$9,790.83	6.8%
WARD J	$4,859,835.00	-5.8%	$9,117.89	0.4%
BEIDLER	$3,302,271.00	-5.7%	$10,791.74	2.9%
ADDAMS	$5,549,854.00	-5.7%	$9,635.16	0.7%
STAGG	$4,230,843.00	-5.7%	$11,373.23	3.4%
AZUELA	$6,286,117.00	-5.7%	$8,779.49	5.8%
MCDOWELL	$1,525,206.00	-5.6%	$13,379.00	21.7%
DVORAK	$3,578,564.00	-5.6%	$10,943.62	-3.0%
HEDGES	$5,102,158.00	-5.5%	$10,349.20	0.4%
CHALMERS	$3,266,699.00	-5.4%	$15,264.95	21.5%
WASHINGTON H ES	$3,287,754.00	-5.4%	$14,809.70	14.2%
HIBBARD	$7,522,972.00	-5.4%	$8,998.77	-1.0%
SANDOVAL	$7,148,370.00	-5.4%	$9,176.34	2.3%
GOUDY	$6,216,610.00	-5.4%	$11,180.95	5.7%
MANIERRE	$3,724,796.00	-5.4%	$14,002.99	3.2%
DIXON	$4,279,426.00	-5.2%	$8,541.77	5.5%
PHILLIPS HS	$6,160,098.00	-5.2%	$10,902.83	3.1%
BLAINE	$6,904,557.00	-5.2%	$10,274.64	5.3%
CASSELL	$4,041,098.00	-5.1%	$11,194.18	1.5%
MELODY	$4,250,847.00	-5.1%	$13,712.41	-0.2%
RAY	$5,602,258.00	-5.0%	$9,950.72	3.4%
EDISON PARK	$4,994,248.00	-5.0%	$10,740.32	5.1%
LARA	$4,773,819.00	-4.9%	$14,734.01	12.1%
SEWARD	$5,154,559.00	-4.9%	$10,649.92	10.6%
CLARK ES	$2,549,647.00	-4.9%	$14,323.86	-2.7%
HEFFERAN	$3,254,332.00	-4.9%	$14,528.27	8.3%
HALE	$7,608,272.00	-4.8%	$9,498.47	-3.2%
EDWARDS	$13,329,239.00	-4.8%	$10,253.26	-1.5%
HERNANDEZ	$7,800,650.00	-4.7%	$8,764.78	7.3%
PENN	$3,002,760.00	-4.7%	$13,587.15	1.3%
BRIGHTON PARK	$3,898,840.00	-4.7%	$11,743.49	5.9%
GARY	$8,432,292.00	-4.6%	$10,436.00	9.9%
CLISSOLD	$5,460,161.00	-4.6%	$14,036.40	4.3%
KIPLING	$2,935,939.00	-4.5%	$11,790.92	5.9%
MANN	$3,032,039.00	-4.5%	$10,348.26	-3.8%
CARSON	$7,965,601.00	-4.5%	$9,082.78	-0.4%
MADERO	$2,922,534.00	-4.4%	$11,028.43	9.7%
CHICAGO WORLD LANGUAGE ACADEMY	$3,878,210.00	-4.3%	$8,715.08	8.6%
MARQUETTE	$9,910,958.00	-4.3%	$10,102.91	-0.3%
JAMIESON	$7,734,965.00	-4.2%	$9,903.92	5.1%
ASHBURN	$4,684,524.00	-4.2%	$13,697.44	10.9%
PRITZKER	$5,276,170.00	-4.2%	$8,055.22	5.7%
NICHOLSON	$5,013,593.00	-4.1%	$11,191.06	-4.3%
EVERS	$2,822,805.00	-4.1%	$13,252.61	1.8%
PILSEN	$3,225,819.00	-4.0%	$14,086.55	9.9%
ALBANY PARK	$2,243,207.00	-4.0%	$9,269.45	-3.6%
CARROLL	$4,518,232.00	-3.8%	$11,735.67	2.4%
MORRILL	$5,838,166.00	-3.8%	$12,137.56	5.0%
PICKARD	$4,231,021.00	-3.8%	$13,305.10	12.6%
GALLISTEL	$6,637,237.00	-3.8%	$11,099.06	1.1%
SUMNER	$2,956,802.00	-3.7%	$13,563.31	3.8%
TUBMAN	$4,567,821.00	-3.7%	$11,622.95	12.9%
EBERHART	$10,579,021.00	-3.7%	$9,420.32	-1.6%
SAWYER	$10,087,322.00	-3.6%	$9,145.35	5.8%
GILLESPIE	$4,465,346.00	-3.6%	$11,135.53	3.1%
SABIN	$4,276,239.00	-3.6%	$11,433.79	14.7%
OKEEFFE	$5,311,247.00	-3.6%	$10,475.83	2.3%
SKINNER NORTH	$3,812,474.00	-3.5%	$7,733.21	-0.2%
COLES	$3,626,785.00	-3.5%	$11,930.21	3.5%
BRADWELL	$4,531,751.00	-3.4%	$10,115.52	1.7%
WHITE	$1,765,397.00	-3.4%	$15,622.98	-7.7%
VON LINNE	$5,769,383.00	-3.4%	$9,381.11	3.5%
HYDE PARK HS	$8,288,421.00	-3.3%	$11,641.04	4.5%
BURLEY	$4,048,390.00	-3.3%	$7,800.37	6.0%
PIRIE	$2,759,731.00	-3.3%	$12,487.47	-2.0%
WACKER	$3,078,647.00	-3.2%	$13,867.78	0.3%
DALEY	$4,870,656.00	-3.2%	$9,550.31	2.7%
SULLIVAN HS	$7,482,460.00	-3.2%	$13,035.64	0.7%
WHITNEY	$6,743,648.00	-3.2%	$9,975.81	4.3%
DURKIN PARK	$6,922,924.00	-3.2%	$10,195.76	0.2%
BURKE	$3,966,562.00	-3.2%	$14,745.58	-0.3%
HUGHES C	$2,796,881.00	-3.1%	$14,125.66	13.5%
PRIETO	$8,130,959.00	-3.1%	$10,318.48	6.5%
BURNHAM	$5,089,014.00	-3.1%	$11,725.84	-6.4%
WASHINGTON G ES	$5,859,344.00	-3.1%	$9,126.70	2.6%
BURROUGHS	$4,221,167.00	-3.1%	$11,108.33	6.6%
DEPRIEST	$6,087,683.00	-3.0%	$13,120.01	1.0%
CORKERY	$4,804,121.00	-2.9%	$11,576.20	-1.3%
LORCA	$6,753,115.00	-2.9%	$10,170.35	0.6%
MAYER	$6,076,564.00	-2.9%	$9,421.03	3.1%
PARK MANOR	$3,158,209.00	-2.8%	$12,996.74	3.2%
EVERETT	$2,437,199.00	-2.7%	$23,434.61	16.0%
STONE	$5,025,786.00	-2.7%	$9,171.14	0.5%
GRAY	$9,077,094.00	-2.5%	$9,077.09	2.8%
LENART	$2,415,007.00	-2.5%	$8,625.03	-3.2%
BRUNSON	$4,587,293.00	-2.5%	$11,000.70	-3.4%
HAMILTON	$4,146,772.00	-2.5%	$9,235.57	-0.1%
EVERGREEN	$2,887,613.00	-2.5%	$12,664.97	7.8%
LEE	$6,192,847.00	-2.4%	$9,312.55	5.8%
SPRY ES	$4,329,772.00	-2.4%	$13,322.38	10.8%
PRESCOTT	$4,311,206.00	-2.4%	$10,388.45	18.7%
CARNEGIE	$5,061,314.00	-2.4%	$10,224.88	11.8%
CHICAGO MILITARY HS	$4,154,376.00	-2.4%	$17,026.13	12.0%
SHIELDS	$5,562,960.00	-2.3%	$11,470.02	9.7%
BENNETT	$3,072,499.00	-2.3%	$11,295.95	-5.9%
BRONZEVILLE HS	$2,150,921.00	-2.2%	$35,261.00	39.4%
TONTI	$8,376,134.00	-2.2%	$10,055.38	-0.8%
SCHUBERT	$5,666,541.00	-2.2%	$10,228.41	1.3%
WOODLAWN	$2,203,752.00	-2.2%	$12,665.24	1.8%
OGDEN ES & HS	$14,728,902.00	-2.2%	$10,088.29	5.7%
HAUGAN	$9,082,499.00	-2.2%	$10,748.52	3.4%
CALMECA	$6,417,792.00	-2.1%	$9,650.82	3.8%
NORTHWEST	$4,783,139.00	-2.1%	$10,220.38	14.4%
NOBEL	$5,911,100.00	-2.1%	$9,802.82	4.4%
COLUMBIA EXPLORERS	$8,274,277.00	-2.0%	$10,513.69	3.8%
LINCOLN	$6,066,423.00	-2.0%	$7,371.11	9.4%
CARTER	$3,020,203.00	-2.0%	$10,942.76	5.8%
SKINNER	$8,465,076.00	-2.0%	$7,517.83	4.0%
EARHART	$2,143,286.00	-2.0%	$10,304.26	10.3%
DYETT ARTS HS	$5,581,213.00	-1.9%	$10,393.32	6.5%
JACKSON M	$4,321,507.00	-1.8%	$14,649.18	9.8%
FULLER	$3,632,201.00	-1.8%	$11,604.48	6.3%
CURTIS	$4,145,351.00	-1.8%	$10,494.56	4.9%
NEW FIELD	$6,441,253.00	-1.7%	$11,840.54	3.5%
COOK	$3,943,760.00	-1.7%	$13,234.09	10.2%
CLINTON	$9,421,440.00	-1.6%	$9,200.63	3.7%
SOUTH LOOP	$6,538,493.00	-1.6%	$8,183.35	-3.4%
LITTLE VILLAGE	$7,092,303.00	-1.6%	$11,293.48	5.5%
HERZL	$5,770,136.00	-1.6%	$13,804.15	10.9%
LLOYD	$8,188,289.00	-1.6%	$9,901.20	5.4%
NEW SULLIVAN	$6,034,882.00	-1.5%	$14,900.94	4.8%
MORTON	$2,938,413.00	-1.5%	$16,234.33	10.5%
CRANE MEDICAL HS	$4,530,168.00	-1.5%	$11,158.05	8.2%
BEASLEY	$10,211,193.00	-1.5%	$9,865.89	6.2%
NETTELHORST	$6,327,079.00	-1.4%	$9,373.45	4.3%
SUTHERLAND	$5,886,639.00	-1.4%	$9,713.93	11.9%
SHOESMITH	$3,058,190.00	-1.3%	$9,865.13	8.3%
LINCOLN PARK HS	$17,768,524.00	-1.2%	$8,600.45	1.2%
KANOON	$4,846,145.00	-1.1%	$11,039.05	4.9%
LAWNDALE	$2,767,705.00	-1.1%	$12,813.45	-5.2%
PULASKI	$7,286,607.00	-1.1%	$8,757.94	4.7%
EBINGER	$6,666,069.00	-1.0%	$8,911.86	12.1%
SAUCEDO	$9,166,355.00	-1.0%	$10,173.53	3.7%
HANSON PARK	$14,882,491.00	-1.0%	$12,665.95	9.9%
DE DIEGO	$6,297,168.00	-1.0%	$13,571.48	-3.1%
CARVER MILITARY HS	$5,215,592.00	-1.0%	$12,846.29	7.8%
BELDING	$5,145,811.00	-0.9%	$9,654.43	1.3%
STOWE	$6,470,984.00	-0.8%	$11,061.51	-0.9%
ELLINGTON	$5,232,725.00	-0.7%	$12,793.95	4.9%
RAVENSWOOD	$4,687,954.00	-0.6%	$9,085.18	2.6%
TWAIN	$8,376,433.00	-0.6%	$8,780.33	6.1%
MCCUTCHEON	$5,238,861.00	-0.6%	$16,954.24	4.5%
MCKAY	$7,159,510.00	-0.6%	$10,997.71	1.9%
NORWOOD PARK	$3,451,106.00	-0.6%	$9,034.31	11.1%
PETERSON	$8,141,871.00	-0.5%	$9,412.57	1.6%
NORTH RIVER	$2,876,184.00	-0.5%	$11,104.96	6.0%
BURBANK	$8,150,721.00	-0.5%	$11,029.39	3.9%
SOUTH SHORE ES	$4,629,536.00	-0.5%	$16,534.06	5.2%
FARADAY	$2,618,297.00	-0.4%	$14,229.88	12.0%
NIGHTINGALE	$10,071,226.00	-0.4%	$9,555.24	2.2%
BEAUBIEN	$8,364,388.00	-0.4%	$8,676.75	5.4%
NATIONAL TEACHERS	$6,595,025.00	-0.4%	$9,071.56	5.7%
STEVENSON	$11,923,293.00	-0.4%	$10,979.09	3.8%
BARRY	$5,063,106.00	-0.3%	$10,888.40	8.0%
GRISSOM	$3,099,155.00	-0.3%	$11,148.04	2.5%
FARRAGUT HS	$7,525,054.00	-0.3%	$14,871.65	6.4%
MURPHY	$5,738,028.00	-0.3%	$11,929.37	13.1%
ROGERS	$7,728,098.00	-0.3%	$10,674.17	0.1%
HEALY	$10,348,199.00	-0.2%	$8,154.61	5.6%
LOVETT	$3,241,188.00	-0.2%	$10,592.12	2.0%
JOPLIN	$4,023,411.00	-0.1%	$10,615.86	-2.7%
PRUSSING	$6,053,274.00	-0.1%	$9,428.78	7.4%
PROSSER HS	$11,826,382.00	-0.1%	$10,616.14	8.9%
ORIOLE PARK	$5,587,112.00	0.0%	$8,996.96	8.2%
SCAMMON	$6,010,866.00	0.0%	$9,205.00	4.9%
TARKINGTON	$8,601,599.00	0.0%	$9,536.14	2.0%
BOONE	$7,810,637.00	0.1%	$10,597.88	7.1%
WELLS ES	$3,915,467.00	0.1%	$12,509.48	11.9%
CAMRAS	$8,542,411.00	0.1%	$10,718.21	8.8%
IRVING	$3,924,332.00	0.1%	$13,213.24	4.5%
PERSHING	$5,333,841.00	0.2%	$10,997.61	8.9%
GREELEY	$4,637,525.00	0.2%	$12,466.47	19.6%
FALCONER	$9,258,753.00	0.3%	$10,310.42	8.4%
RICKOVER MILITARY HS	$5,308,239.00	0.3%	$11,901.88	0.5%
SCHURZ HS	$16,584,413.00	0.3%	$11,974.31	10.0%
GREENE	$3,759,319.00	0.4%	$12,126.84	16.9%
PULLMAN	$3,848,647.00	0.4%	$11,488.50	1.9%
MARSHALL HS	$3,201,572.00	0.4%	$15,030.85	7.5%
BROWN R	$3,300,461.00	0.4%	$11,499.86	6.0%
SHOOP	$4,921,739.00	0.5%	$11,262.56	-3.2%
FORT DEARBORN	$4,581,331.00	0.6%	$13,202.68	5.2%
CHOPIN	$4,846,479.00	0.7%	$16,828.05	9.7%
WEST RIDGE	$6,942,072.00	0.7%	$10,407.90	9.9%
COONLEY	$7,378,356.00	0.7%	$8,413.18	10.9%
WALSH	$4,351,283.00	0.7%	$16,997.20	18.4%
OWEN	$2,811,808.00	0.7%	$10,531.12	2.6%
DAVIS N	$6,990,062.00	0.8%	$13,238.75	11.0%
MARINE LEADERSHIP AT AMES HS	$8,764,073.00	0.9%	$11,235.99	7.2%
PHOENIX MILITARY HS	$5,826,778.00	0.9%	$10,691.34	7.0%
STEM	$3,697,769.00	0.9%	$9,554.96	6.1%
BARNARD	$2,967,738.00	0.9%	$11,327.24	2.5%
GRAHAM ES	$3,754,456.00	1.0%	$10,851.03	5.9%
FARNSWORTH	$6,995,825.00	1.0%	$13,427.69	9.7%
HALEY	$5,262,778.00	1.1%	$11,465.75	-1.6%
SWIFT	$6,664,203.00	1.1%	$12,138.80	9.4%
BELL	$7,761,758.00	1.2%	$8,586.02	9.8%
TILTON	$3,271,492.00	1.2%	$12,930.80	3.2%
HIRSCH HS	$2,117,055.00	1.2%	$27,141.73	16.8%
INTER-AMERICAN	$6,441,324.00	1.2%	$9,458.63	4.2%
ESMOND	$3,087,598.00	1.3%	$11,268.61	-11.3%
CHAVEZ	$8,539,535.00	1.3%	$10,401.38	3.2%
METCALFE	$3,762,315.00	1.3%	$11,264.42	-9.3%
DEVER	$6,818,418.00	1.3%	$9,079.12	-3.8%
TALCOTT	$5,216,359.00	1.4%	$11,748.56	-2.9%
BELMONT-CRAGIN	$5,823,357.00	1.4%	$12,826.78	-5.0%
HAWTHORNE	$4,927,681.00	1.5%	$8,555.00	0.2%
ARMSTRONG G	$11,239,447.00	1.5%	$9,250.57	2.0%
PEIRCE	$10,217,506.00	1.6%	$9,630.07	-2.3%
MARSH	$7,380,178.00	1.6%	$10,853.20	8.2%
HOLDEN	$4,124,213.00	1.6%	$10,010.23	5.3%
RUIZ	$6,020,387.00	1.7%	$13,468.43	18.9%
SPENCER	$4,817,366.00	1.8%	$11,125.56	2.7%
HENDERSON	$2,591,290.00	1.8%	$13,783.46	6.1%
MASON	$3,469,125.00	1.8%	$12,944.50	13.6%
HITCH	$4,864,027.00	1.9%	$9,926.59	7.9%
LELAND	$5,038,388.00	1.9%	$13,803.80	2.2%
MITCHELL	$3,485,485.00	2.0%	$9,369.58	0.9%
OTOOLE	$3,671,151.00	2.0%	$11,192.53	-3.9%
GUNSAULUS	$7,005,919.00	2.0%	$10,363.79	9.6%
ONAHAN	$5,758,089.00	2.0%	$8,698.02	4.3%
DISNEY	$12,624,105.00	2.1%	$8,605.39	7.0%
BOUCHET	$6,838,476.00	2.1%	$11,454.73	3.4%
DAWES	$10,325,181.00	2.1%	$10,325.18	-0.1%
JEFFERSON HS	$6,275,544.00	2.1%	$38,978.53	-8.7%
MCAULIFFE	$6,085,655.00	2.1%	$10,657.89	14.1%
BATEMAN	$8,467,523.00	2.1%	$9,633.13	3.0%
BUDLONG	$6,854,390.00	2.2%	$10,512.87	1.4%
POE	$1,814,498.00	2.2%	$8,938.41	-0.3%
BROWNELL	$2,152,125.00	2.2%	$12,810.27	6.4%
PASTEUR	$6,022,943.00	2.2%	$10,402.32	-0.1%
EDISON	$2,066,954.00	2.3%	$8,074.04	-0.1%
HAMMOND	$3,844,002.00	2.3%	$15,253.98	25.8%
GAGE PARK HS	$4,391,197.00	2.3%	$14,588.69	9.8%
HOLMES	$1,893,617.00	2.4%	$14,793.88	4.0%
CASALS	$4,023,276.00	2.4%	$11,397.38	8.2%
ORTIZ DE DOMINGUEZ	$5,437,443.00	2.5%	$13,730.92	7.4%
SMYSER	$7,550,153.00	2.5%	$9,792.68	9.9%
PEACE AND EDUCATION HS	$3,144,639.00	2.5%	$47,646.05	33.5%
MONROE	$7,500,830.00	2.5%	$10,700.19	6.0%
BASS	$4,641,333.00	2.6%	$12,246.26	3.1%
WOODSON	$3,683,784.00	2.6%	$12,790.92	8.0%
ROOSEVELT HS	$11,056,977.00	2.7%	$10,947.50	3.8%
CHICAGO VOCATIONAL HS	$9,320,876.00	2.7%	$14,079.87	15.0%
BURR	$4,012,062.00	2.7%	$8,204.63	3.4%
AIR FORCE HS	$3,074,921.00	2.7%	$17,671.96	15.7%
CAMERON	$6,649,649.00	2.8%	$10,471.89	5.5%
PICCOLO	$6,304,455.00	2.8%	$11,546.62	-2.3%
MCNAIR	$5,741,908.00	2.9%	$16,838.44	3.8%
DRAKE	$3,632,567.00	2.9%	$12,927.28	-1.5%
FULTON	$4,104,685.00	2.9%	$12,629.80	7.7%
FOREMAN HS	$7,937,365.00	2.9%	$13,949.67	9.3%
RANDOLPH	$4,259,975.00	2.9%	$12,033.83	11.1%
TALMAN	$4,412,393.00	3.0%	$12,642.96	6.8%
HAYT	$8,813,864.00	3.0%	$9,947.93	1.9%
PORTAGE PARK	$8,227,598.00	3.1%	$10,454.38	8.6%
NEWBERRY	$4,866,773.00	3.1%	$12,608.22	11.6%
LASALLE II	$5,778,530.00	3.1%	$9,962.98	2.0%
ALCOTT ES	$6,668,611.00	3.1%	$11,077.43	5.2%
LANGFORD	$2,581,187.00	3.1%	$14,834.41	16.2%
CHAPPELL	$5,682,371.00	3.1%	$10,782.49	8.6%
LOCKE J	$11,484,481.00	3.1%	$9,765.72	4.8%
DENEEN	$5,027,244.00	3.2%	$11,637.14	6.5%
SAUGANASH	$4,527,152.00	3.2%	$7,163.22	0.4%
CLEVELAND	$6,596,183.00	3.2%	$12,684.97	4.0%
BURNSIDE	$4,579,970.00	3.2%	$13,550.21	11.2%
TELPOCHCALLI	$3,268,874.00	3.2%	$13,180.94	-2.6%
POWELL	$5,296,615.00	3.3%	$10,225.13	4.5%
TAYLOR	$4,243,925.00	3.3%	$12,160.24	6.6%
DARWIN	$5,943,546.00	3.4%	$10,806.45	2.2%
COLEMON	$2,605,076.00	3.4%	$14,553.50	21.9%
CLAREMONT	$6,134,913.00	3.4%	$14,641.80	3.6%
MOUNT GREENWOOD	$8,677,378.00	3.4%	$7,558.69	11.3%
RABY HS	$4,050,811.00	3.5%	$20,458.64	28.6%
REVERE	$2,255,921.00	3.5%	$10,301.01	-5.0%
VON STEUBEN HS	$15,255,410.00	3.7%	$9,102.27	3.6%
DULLES	$6,627,703.00	3.8%	$9,192.38	2.6%
HURLEY	$7,127,736.00	3.8%	$9,737.34	7.5%
HOYNE	$2,351,618.00	3.9%	$11,145.11	8.3%
WELLS HS	$4,627,714.00	3.9%	$14,737.94	4.6%
BRIDGE	$8,972,289.00	3.9%	$8,585.92	5.7%
LANE TECH HS	$34,525,030.00	3.9%	$7,871.64	4.9%
LASALLE	$4,672,218.00	4.0%	$9,962.09	12.6%
VANDERPOEL	$2,628,281.00	4.0%	$10,306.98	6.1%
ARIEL	$4,775,379.00	4.1%	$11,849.58	14.1%
PEREZ	$3,634,130.00	4.1%	$12,662.47	10.3%
ASHE	$3,728,713.00	4.2%	$11,652.23	6.8%
STEINMETZ HS	$12,527,229.00	4.2%	$10,912.22	5.9%
DIRKSEN	$9,083,384.00	4.2%	$10,206.05	4.4%
MURRAY	$4,538,073.00	4.2%	$9,376.18	4.0%
MCPHERSON	$8,570,376.00	4.2%	$13,185.19	-0.6%
JUAREZ HS	$17,070,919.00	4.3%	$10,029.92	4.4%
SENN HS	$15,075,534.00	4.3%	$9,892.08	5.8%
EARLE	$3,776,111.00	4.3%	$14,037.59	18.6%
HAMLINE	$6,312,097.00	4.3%	$11,332.31	0.0%
WATERS	$5,083,905.00	4.4%	$8,069.69	7.2%
DEVRY HS	$1,916,343.00	4.4%	$11,829.28	1.8%
DETT	$4,927,271.00	4.4%	$17,108.58	14.2%
CANTY	$7,855,810.00	4.4%	$10,149.63	3.2%
YOUNG HS	$18,345,604.00	4.5%	$8,560.71	7.6%
KENWOOD HS	$18,364,716.00	4.5%	$8,154.85	-1.4%
HUGHES L	$6,303,784.00	4.5%	$13,674.15	-3.2%
ARMOUR	$3,798,231.00	4.5%	$14,836.84	3.3%
PAYTON HS	$10,399,876.00	4.5%	$8,717.41	6.6%
SHERWOOD	$3,704,381.00	4.6%	$14,997.49	11.3%
GRESHAM	$3,940,442.00	4.6%	$10,855.21	5.1%
CHICAGO ACADEMY ES	$5,688,030.00	4.6%	$10,139.09	4.6%
LAKE VIEW HS	$15,144,602.00	4.6%	$10,495.22	-1.9%
NASH	$3,205,073.00	4.7%	$14,502.59	9.4%
FUNSTON	$5,687,416.00	4.7%	$14,112.69	9.9%
HOWE	$4,220,930.00	4.8%	$10,850.72	1.3%
BARTON	$4,514,552.00	4.8%	$14,610.20	12.2%
CLAY	$6,359,070.00	4.8%	$11,059.25	-0.5%
CURIE HS	$29,853,587.00	4.8%	$9,756.07	2.5%
KING ES	$3,251,284.00	4.8%	$13,270.55	1.9%
KILMER	$9,019,588.00	4.9%	$12,597.19	8.7%
WESTINGHOUSE HS	$11,878,588.00	4.9%	$9,965.26	10.5%
HENRY	$5,318,379.00	4.9%	$10,510.63	6.8%
DEWEY	$4,375,166.00	5.0%	$14,731.20	2.9%
HARTE	$3,254,482.00	5.0%	$9,832.27	-9.6%
AMUNDSEN HS	$14,349,458.00	5.0%	$9,630.51	2.8%
WORLD LANGUAGE HS	$4,120,602.00	5.0%	$12,917.25	13.6%
GALILEO	$5,531,885.00	5.0%	$10,131.66	7.6%
HANCOCK HS	$9,388,149.00	5.1%	$9,213.10	5.1%
RUDOLPH	$3,640,873.00	5.1%	$37,534.77	-1.4%
ALDRIDGE	$2,786,109.00	5.1%	$12,839.21	-8.9%
DECATUR	$2,465,125.00	5.1%	$7,926.45	-3.3%
BROWN W	$3,637,813.00	5.2%	$19,453.55	9.1%
CULLEN	$2,083,080.00	5.3%	$11,768.81	10.6%
NEIL	$6,092,051.00	5.3%	$23,075.95	5.7%
CLARK HS	$7,059,750.00	5.3%	$13,498.57	5.5%
FAIRFIELD	$5,268,042.00	5.3%	$10,189.64	2.4%
SOUTH SHORE INTL HS	$6,448,711.00	5.3%	$11,061.25	1.3%
KELLY HS	$18,832,577.00	5.4%	$10,848.26	8.1%
TANNER	$4,285,871.00	5.4%	$13,870.13	5.0%
ROBINSON	$1,813,819.00	5.4%	$17,111.50	11.4%
MATHER HS	$16,680,527.00	5.5%	$9,669.87	-1.1%
MADISON	$2,732,097.00	5.5%	$14,532.43	6.1%
OWENS	$4,878,888.00	5.7%	$14,307.59	7.2%
KELLER	$1,892,356.00	5.7%	$8,926.21	8.2%
SOCIAL JUSTICE HS	$3,759,611.00	5.7%	$12,367.14	16.5%
WESTCOTT	$4,916,293.00	5.8%	$11,622.44	4.6%
PLAMONDON	$2,146,348.00	5.9%	$17,593.02	22.4%
DISNEY II ES & HS	$11,547,047.00	6.0%	$9,582.61	4.6%
NORTHSIDE PREP HS	$9,454,348.00	6.1%	$9,073.27	7.8%
BACK OF THE YARDS HS	$10,341,390.00	6.1%	$9,792.98	8.1%
FENGER HS	$3,724,232.00	6.2%	$15,263.25	24.5%
DOOLITTLE	$2,943,655.00	6.3%	$12,113.81	-2.4%
SIMEON HS	$13,624,587.00	6.4%	$10,032.83	11.2%
JONES HS	$15,807,965.00	6.4%	$8,065.29	6.6%
LINDBLOM HS	$13,627,854.00	6.4%	$9,818.34	7.1%
OTIS	$5,491,015.00	6.4%	$17,770.28	15.4%
FOSTER PARK	$4,692,458.00	6.5%	$14,663.93	7.1%
KINZIE	$7,533,322.00	6.6%	$11,277.43	8.7%
FRANKLIN	$3,243,937.00	6.6%	$9,010.94	7.8%
MCCLELLAN	$4,861,451.00	6.7%	$15,991.62	16.5%
VOLTA	$7,081,887.00	6.7%	$10,102.55	10.2%
COLUMBUS	$2,099,889.00	6.8%	$9,374.50	19.2%
BRIGHT	$4,182,211.00	6.9%	$17,140.21	13.0%
REINBERG	$8,796,437.00	7.0%	$11,903.16	2.9%
CHICAGO AGRICULTURE HS	$10,306,177.00	7.0%	$12,661.15	7.5%
HARLAN HS	$4,468,721.00	7.1%	$15,251.61	8.6%
MANLEY HS	$2,406,961.00	7.1%	$37,608.77	45.6%
HAMPTON	$5,565,119.00	7.2%	$11,474.47	1.2%
KELLMAN	$2,760,036.00	7.2%	$12,957.92	8.7%
SOLORIO HS	$12,858,556.00	7.2%	$10,270.41	6.0%
JAHN	$4,420,787.00	7.2%	$14,214.75	6.2%
KENNEDY HS	$15,219,667.00	7.2%	$10,065.92	4.5%
SADLOWSKI	$7,329,878.00	7.3%	$11,746.60	6.7%
WILDWOOD	$4,697,471.00	7.3%	$10,603.77	14.8%
PARKSIDE	$3,267,418.00	7.3%	$13,557.75	11.3%
NORTH-GRAND HS	$12,083,816.00	7.4%	$11,116.67	2.6%
GALE	$4,127,756.00	7.4%	$18,510.12	2.1%
HUBBARD HS	$17,997,896.00	7.4%	$9,883.52	1.5%
EDGEBROOK	$3,794,911.00	7.5%	$8,377.29	15.5%
JORDAN	$5,713,093.00	7.5%	$12,339.29	3.3%
LIBBY	$3,746,412.00	7.5%	$13,145.31	15.8%
SHERMAN	$3,225,700.00	7.5%	$12,311.83	1.4%
BEETHOVEN	$3,208,610.00	7.6%	$10,913.64	-13.3%
BLAIR	$5,521,918.00	7.6%	$25,329.90	-0.8%
WEST PARK	$5,488,154.00	7.8%	$11,223.22	5.1%
THORP O	$8,283,438.00	7.9%	$10,367.26	13.8%
GOODE HS	$10,084,138.00	7.9%	$10,548.26	5.6%
VAUGHN HS	$6,701,727.00	7.9%	$31,761.74	19.7%
DUNBAR HS	$6,239,242.00	7.9%	$12,655.66	-9.6%
CHRISTOPHER	$8,671,960.00	8.0%	$26,199.27	10.6%
LOZANO	$3,911,961.00	8.0%	$22,482.53	22.3%
KERSHAW	$4,048,012.00	8.0%	$16,388.71	5.4%
GOETHE	$6,622,161.00	8.0%	$9,071.45	9.5%
YATES	$5,171,318.00	8.1%	$17,123.57	15.2%
KING HS	$7,819,100.00	8.1%	$12,490.58	-20.0%
TURNER-DREW	$2,788,990.00	8.2%	$13,875.57	14.2%
BRENTANO	$5,920,038.00	8.2%	$8,849.09	-2.9%
FIELD	$1,785,594.00	8.3%	$12,754.24	6.0%
CHICAGO ACADEMY HS	$6,174,069.00	8.3%	$10,985.89	10.0%
CARVER G	$5,055,289.00	8.4%	$11,866.88	-5.4%
TAFT HS	$35,780,833.00	8.4%	$8,705.80	4.4%
CATHER	$4,904,871.00	8.5%	$14,641.41	18.5%
VICK	$4,509,147.00	8.5%	$16,456.74	3.4%
YORK HS	$6,617,004.00	8.5%	$40,103.05	13.1%
SOUTHSIDE HS	$9,698,014.00	8.5%	$26,140.20	-4.3%
FERNWOOD	$2,879,321.00	8.6%	$9,629.84	-5.2%
SHERIDAN	$4,930,750.00	8.6%	$9,303.30	12.7%
DORE	$8,004,412.00	8.6%	$11,132.70	10.1%
MOZART	$6,065,360.00	8.6%	$12,636.17	15.0%
RUGGLES	$4,039,074.00	8.8%	$12,239.62	18.7%
ENGLEWOOD STEM HS	$11,680,573.00	8.8%	$14,089.96	-10.7%
LOWELL	$5,052,597.00	8.9%	$16,246.29	13.4%
BROOKS HS	$9,550,264.00	9.0%	$9,666.26	8.6%
MOOS	$5,418,458.00	9.0%	$12,513.76	7.5%
GREEN	$4,532,925.00	9.0%	$13,904.68	7.0%
BEARD	$8,421,279.00	9.1%	$29,240.55	-26.1%
NINOS HEROES	$3,885,766.00	9.1%	$11,956.20	-2.3%
CLEMENTE HS	$9,112,271.00	9.2%	$13,400.40	9.9%
CHASE	$6,624,642.00	9.2%	$16,813.81	7.6%
KELLOGG	$2,952,988.00	9.2%	$10,622.26	8.5%
HIGGINS	$3,327,455.00	9.3%	$13,256.79	13.2%
AVALON PARK	$2,962,425.00	9.8%	$13,166.33	10.8%
GARVEY	$2,990,705.00	9.9%	$11,636.98	0.0%
WHISTLER	$4,169,439.00	10.0%	$14,681.12	21.6%
BOGAN HS	$9,269,529.00	10.1%	$12,375.87	8.1%
HEARST	$5,123,911.00	10.4%	$16,636.07	11.5%
HENDRICKS	$4,001,862.00	10.4%	$20,522.37	14.4%
PARKER	$5,032,996.00	10.4%	$12,806.61	13.0%
SOLOMON	$4,377,216.00	10.5%	$12,506.33	11.5%
WASHINGTON HS	$15,839,001.00	10.7%	$10,278.39	8.2%
MORGAN PARK HS	$11,843,776.00	10.8%	$10,407.54	5.0%
PALMER	$7,238,390.00	10.9%	$9,915.60	11.2%
FINKL	$4,062,275.00	11.0%	$18,298.54	20.5%
BYRNE	$6,445,198.00	11.1%	$10,514.19	12.5%
HARVARD	$5,278,235.00	11.1%	$14,000.62	4.3%
DRUMMOND	$3,309,938.00	11.1%	$10,608.78	23.6%
CALDWELL	$2,829,519.00	11.2%	$11,789.66	13.9%
JULIAN HS	$6,122,624.00	11.2%	$15,618.94	10.6%
ALCOTT HS	$4,408,717.00	11.2%	$12,349.35	3.8%
SUDER	$5,212,344.00	11.3%	$11,954.92	11.6%
WHITTIER	$2,695,361.00	11.7%	$15,142.48	10.4%
WARREN	$2,708,924.00	11.9%	$11,478.49	0.0%
INFINITY HS	$4,919,706.00	12.0%	$12,268.59	11.1%
MULTICULTURAL HS	$3,198,218.00	12.1%	$13,726.26	8.2%
THORP J	$4,584,885.00	12.1%	$15,809.95	7.8%
MOUNT VERNON	$2,874,408.00	12.3%	$11,780.36	5.4%
TILL	$4,109,367.00	12.5%	$13,128.97	11.0%
ORR HS	$3,523,294.00	12.6%	$16,311.55	27.7%
KOZMINSKI	$3,155,101.00	12.6%	$12,620.40	9.9%
COLLINS HS	$3,992,932.00	12.8%	$15,908.10	3.8%
SAYRE	$5,588,521.00	12.8%	$12,966.41	14.4%
STOCK	$3,808,441.00	12.8%	$15,802.66	-2.1%
PECK	$9,038,573.00	13.0%	$11,256.01	15.1%
WENTWORTH	$6,164,557.00	13.1%	$15,146.33	7.8%
MIRELES	$4,941,189.00	13.4%	$10,907.70	5.1%
BRENNEMANN	$5,886,773.00	13.8%	$13,595.32	-2.5%
MOLLISON	$3,364,340.00	14.1%	$11,289.73	9.1%
RYDER	$6,537,547.00	14.1%	$17,960.29	10.7%
CORLISS HS	$5,313,350.00	14.3%	$16,656.27	1.7%
DOUGLASS HS	$1,805,642.00	14.5%	$41,037.32	30.1%
KELVYN PARK HS	$6,612,841.00	14.6%	$13,523.19	-7.5%
JUNGMAN	$4,827,826.00	14.6%	$19,545.85	15.1%
GRAHAM HS	$6,068,377.00	14.7%	$29,601.84	2.9%
BRONZEVILLE CLASSICAL	$3,145,369.00	14.8%	$9,618.87	-5.9%
THOMAS	$3,195,111.00	14.9%	$27,308.64	14.9%
TILDEN HS	$3,668,402.00	15.1%	$20,267.41	29.1%
WEBSTER	$3,325,705.00	16.3%	$14,980.65	28.9%
REAVIS	$3,959,927.00	17.0%	$14,092.27	-0.9%
RICHARDS HS	$3,711,023.00	18.1%	$15,334.81	13.7%
SPRY HS	$2,879,066.00	18.7%	$32,716.66	30.9%
BOND	$4,238,279.00	19.9%	$18,347.53	23.5%
NORTHSIDE LEARNING HS	$9,152,552.00	20.3%	$35,892.36	12.7%
SCHMID	$2,891,062.00	20.9%	$15,296.62	10.1%
SIMPSON HS	$1,831,614.00	25.7%	$79,635.39	14.7%
AUDUBON	$6,078,959.00	40.2%	$12,406.04	49.1%
SOR JUANA	$4,102,352.00	42.4%	$12,941.17	13.6%

2022-23 Chicago school budgets

To teach is to martyr. The past two years have made that uncomfortably obvious.

2022-04-06T10:00:00+00:00

Liz is about to cry.

Our eyes meet above the fray of passing middle school students pushing their way toward their next class. Under the unforgiving glare of the fluorescent lights, I see the tell-tale signs of a teacher in distress: Her fists clenching, her shoulders hanging heavy, her eyes, equal parts vacant and panicked.

Katie Kraushaar

I recognize these signs because, last week, I was the one crying in the hallway of the middle school where we both work. And if you asked either of us what had happened, where would we even begin?

The pandemic has sapped so much from teachers. Masks and distancing protocols left us unable to be our authentic selves for our students. Remote learning reduced our creativity to a sad trail of Canvas assignments that we tried to liven up with colorful fonts and GIFs. Endless hot takes from politicians and parents trampled our dignity.

But one thing that all of the soundbites and school board commentaries miss is this: Schools are relying on the mental well-being of teachers, and there’s not enough to go around. These days, we have to take turns crying in the hallway.

Twelve years ago, though, if you had asked me what part of having my own middle school classroom excited me the most, I would have clapped my hands with the enthusiasm only afforded to a first-year teacher and declared, “Everything!” Back then, everything enchanted me: crafting exciting lesson plans, making locker signs, and decorating my first bulletin board. I lined up my colorful teacher pens next to my cheery teacher planner. I unfolded the pristine blanket of my mental well-being, intact and ready to tackle whatever this noble career would throw my way.

There was no way to have known that “everything” would become a constantly moving target. The pressure to join unpaid committees. The not-so-subtle messaging that it’s our responsibility to get 100% of parents in the door for conferences. The drive to update my classroom library, my lesson plans, and my teaching style in real-time to meet the needs of my students.

When the pandemic hit, things felt even more harried, haphazard, and traumatic. It reminded me of a Shel Silverstein poem that begins like this:

I asked for a hot dog

With everything on it,

And that was my big mistake,

‘Cause it came with a parrot,

A bee in a bonnet,

A wristwatch, a wrench, and a rake.

Even before COVID, teachers faced unrealistic expectations of being everything to everyone. Back then, I’d cry maybe once a year in the parking lot from the weight of it all.

But when we returned to in-person learning, I found myself crumbling regularly, unable to regulate my emotions as more things were added to my already heaving stack. I hoped that, when the fabric of my well-being finally, inevitably gave way, someone else would step in with support. And indeed, my colleagues have come through.

To teach is to martyr, a truth that the past two years have made uncomfortably obvious to me. I cover classes when no substitutes can be found. I write lesson plans for a colleague across the hall who is out unexpectedly when her kid tests positive. I answer emails late into the night from frantic students who don’t understand the assignments after missing weeks of school. I don’t even think about it anymore. I do it because that’s what teachers do: We care, even at our own expense.

When we returned to in-person learning, I found myself crumbling regularly, unable to regulate my emotions as more things were added to my heaving stack.

Pre-pandemic, I thought that I sacrificed solely for my students. “It’s for the kids,” I’d mutter to myself as I finished writing yet another crowdfunding request for books for my classroom. But the past two years have made something abundantly clear to me: I don’t just hold it together for the kids. I hold it together for other teachers. Because there is no love like that of a teacher for a fellow teacher who is crying in the hallway.

Back in the now-empty hallway, I stand next to Liz as she takes deep breaths, gulping in air to slow her snowballing emotions. She begins to speak about all of it: the sadness, the stress, the feelings of inadequacy. I listen. I hold space for her. I give her the comfort she has given me many times before. As she talks, I examine the tattered fabric of the remaining shred of sturdiness that I hold in my hands. At that moment, I know what I have to do. I take what little stability I have left (that all of us collectively have left) and turn it into a blanket to drape around Liz’s shoulders.

The passing period is over. The bell rings. Liz wipes her eyes and gives me a half-smile that says thank you without saying it. She walks into her classroom. As I close my own door, I can already hear her cracking jokes with her students. All is well for now. I wonder, for the thousandth time, how much longer the fabric will hold.

Katie Kraushaar is a middle school English teacher in St. Louis. She would be absolutely useless without the love and support of her fellow teachers.

With federal school lunch waivers set to expire, Illinois districts worry: How will we feed students?

2022-03-31T14:35:01+00:00

Even as the COVID pandemic closed schools and made it harder for students to eat together in cafeterias over the last two years, McHenry School District 15 was still able to provide meals. Students could pick up lunch and breakfast and the district distributed 15,000 meals to all of its 4,000-plus students last summer.

But that program will not continue this year – as federal waivers that gave school districts around the country the ability to offer free lunch to all students and to provide grab-and-go meals are set to expire June 30.

As a result, McHenry, where 41% of students are eligible for free or reduced price meals, will have to scrap its summer lunch program this year, said Kevin Harris, the district’s director of food services and president of the Illinois School Nutrition Association.

McHenry is not alone. Schools districts across Illinois – and around the country – are scrambling to adjust their summer lunch programs this year after Republican leaders objected to extending the initiative as part of a recent federal budget deal.

The waivers, issued in response to the pandemic in 2020, allowed schools to provide meals to students who were quarantined or when school buildings closed. Districts received a larger reimbursement and schools did not have to tap into education budgets to pay for food. The initiative allowed all students to receive free meals, regardless of eligibility for free or reduced price lunch – and gave school districts greater flexibility in how they operate meal programs.

The waivers will expire on June 30, as scheduled, school districts will bear the burden of paying more for food. The average reimbursement a school gets will drop from $4.56 to an estimated $2.91 for each meal served.

That will also present an additional burden for families already grappling with the rising cost of food, utilities, and gasoline and the loss of the expanded child tax credit, which ended in December. National data shows that the tax credit decreased child poverty and hunger when it was in effect.

Students whose families are eligible for free or reduced price lunch will still be able to access meals next school year and districts where 40% of the student population is eligible for subsidized meals can continue to use the Community Eligibility Provision program, which allows them to provide free lunch to all students under the age of 18.

But the ending of the nutrition waiver and the federal child tax credit means that some children might go hungry.

Some advocates such as Emily Warnecke, director of public policy at the Illinois Association of School Administrators, are concerned about students who don’t meet the requirement for free or reduced price meals, but whose families still face economic hardship.

“There are a lot of families who don’t qualify for [free or reduced lunch] who have been able to have a reduction in meal costs for their students over the last two years,” said Warnecke. “We are hearing a lot about inflation and the impact that it’s going to have on our families. We would have liked for the waivers to be extended for at least one more school to help them through that.”

National advocates say access to meals throughout the school day increases students’ academic achievement in classrooms and on standardized tests. The Food Research and Action Center has even called for “Free Meals for All” to get rid of the stigma attached to free or reduced price lunch and to eliminate lunch debt for those who have to pay for school meals.

Illinois school district leaders and food nutrition directors say they wish the federal waivers were extended this year because it gave them more flexibility to feed students. Some districts will be utilizing federal emergency funds to work with community partners to feed students, while others will have to cut their programs.

When Chicago Public Schools classrooms were closed from March 2020 to September 2020, the district gave millions of meals to students and expanded pick-up sites throughout the city. According to the state’s recent report card, the district has 78% of students who are eligible for free and reduced price lunch.

According to a spokesperson, Chicago will resume its summer LunchStop program, which allows anyone in the community under 18 to receive meals for free.

Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat, superintendent of Peoria School District 150, where 70% of students can receive free or reduced price meals, is optimistic about how many meals the school district will be able to offer students over the summer.

Last summer, the district had over 20 distribution sites at school buildings where students could pick up lunch and a partnership with the Salvation Army to drop off food at students’ front door. The district was able to provide 600,000 meals to 12,000 students.

This summer, Peoria plans to work with the Salvation Army, Park District, Boys and Girls Club, and other community partners to provide meals to students attending summer programs. The district will also operate 17 school sites for students to pick up lunches during summer

McHenry School District 15 plans to provide a snack to students who attend the district’s summer school program that lasts for three weeks. But the district does not have enough staff in the summer to open a school building to allow students to come in and eat, said Harris, McHenry’s school nutrition director.

Even if the district did open one building to feed students, he worries that many students would not show up because it would be too far for some families to travel.

“It is important but a meal is $3. Are you going to ride all the way across town to drop your kid off for lunch so they can have a $3 meal versus saving the gas and not drive 10 miles round trip?” said Harris. “It’s a tough decision for families.”

Sobering test scores show Newark students struggling to recover from learning loss

2022-03-30T15:33:16+00:00

Newark students have made scant academic progress so far this school year, according to sobering new test scores that underscore the severity of the pandemic’s toll on student learning and the extraordinary measures that will be required for students to recover.

Based on mid-year assessments, no more than 6% of students in any grade from 3-7 are expected to reach the “proficient” level on the state math tests slated to begin next month, according to data that Newark Public Schools officials shared last week. By contrast, 27% of students in grades 3-8 met the state’s benchmarks on the annual math tests in 2019, before the pandemic shut down schools and drastically curtailed learning.

Based on the results of a mid-year assessment, very few Newark students are on track to meet or exceed state expectations on New Jersey’s math test this spring. (Click on the image to expand.)

Reading scores on the mid-year tests, which students in grades 1-7 took in February, were only slightly higher. In each of the tested grades, about 10% of students or fewer are expected to meet state English standards this year, the data show.

Buoyed by an influx of federal aid and students’ long-awaited return to classrooms, Newark officials had hoped this school year would mark the beginning of a sustained comeback. But the latest data suggest that, at least in terms of test scores, students have made up little of the ground they lost during the pandemic.

“It sure doesn’t look like kids are catching up,” said Thomas Kane, an economist at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who at Chalkbeat’s request reviewed some of the data officials presented at last week’s Newark school board meeting.

The estimates of student proficiency in math and English are based on assessments created by nonprofit testmaker NWEA.

The data come from assessments — created by nonprofit testmaker NWEA — that Newark and districts across the country administer throughout the school year to track students’ progress. Newark students will take the NWEA’s MAP Growth tests again in June, which gives schools time to work on raising student achievement.

Stark learning gaps also emerged when Newark students took the same tests in spring 2021, which aligned with national data showing that the pandemic’s disruptions had slowed most students’ academic progress, with students who are Black, Hispanic, or from low-income families falling furthest behind. Kane added that in districts such as Newark, where families have faced incredible hardships during the pandemic and most students spent all of last school year learning remotely, the emerging data suggest the road to recovery will be even steeper than many anticipated.

“I think this is something that most school districts in the country have yet to grapple with: the magnitude of the losses and the scale of the effort that’s going to be required to eliminate those losses,” said Kane, who is working with NWEA to analyze how well schools’ academic interventions work.

Newark Superintendent Roger León has acknowledged the pandemic’s heavy toll on student learning. Before an official presented the mid-year test scores at the March 22 board meeting, León said the district is “taking the numbers very seriously because their implications are quite profound.”

“The road is long,” he said, referring to students’ academic recovery.

Newark’s results on the most recent NWEA tests were in line with national trends in the fall: Students struggled most in math, and students in the upper grades outperformed younger students.

This graph shows the percentage of Newark students whose test scores increased from October to February as much as expected, based on pre-pandemic norms.

The tests, which Newark students took in October and February, also showed that few students improved their scores as much during that period as would be expected in a typical school year.

In math, just 6.4% of second graders and about 20% of seventh graders made the expected amount of progress from fall to winter. In reading, the percentage of students who met growth projections ranged from 10% of first graders to about 22% of seventh graders.

This graph shows the change over time in Newark students’ average ranking, based on pre-pandemic national norms.

The projections are based on the amount of progress that similar students typically made prior to the pandemic. The estimates do not take into account the severe disruptions that have slowed learning over the past two years.

The Newark school district, which is set to receive more than $282 million in COVID relief money from the federal government, has taken several steps to jump-start students’ recovery. The district expanded summer school and tutoring programs, ramped up teacher training, and hired additional specialists to work individually with students, officials have said. Schools also added more mental health services and lessons on managing emotions, which educators say students need in order to learn at full capacity.

At an event Tuesday celebrating Newark’s recovery efforts, educator Janice Litterio said the federal funds helped the district enroll more students in its afterschool programs and revamp the curriculum so it connects to what students learn in class.

“We have seen much success with that,” said Litterio, an academic interventionist at First Avenue School who manages the afterschool programs at several schools.

Yet Newark, which is New Jersey’s largest district with about 38,000 students, has encountered many of the same obstacles that are frustrating schools nationwide and dampening hopes for a return to normalcy this school year, much less the above-average pace of progress that experts say will be needed to counter pandemic learning loss.

After in-person learning resumed in September, a surge in COVID cases late last year kept hundreds of students and employees out of school and forced the district to temporarily revert to remote learning in January. Even after classrooms reopened, more than 35% of students were chronically absent in February, according to district data.

At the same time, Newark has struggled to hire enough teachers and other educators, as districts nationwide contend with staffing shortages. León said Tuesday that the district has 115 instructional openings, nearly as many unfilled positions as it started the year with, forcing teachers to take on extra classes and administrators to become stand-in teachers.

Meanwhile, as many students process distressing or traumatic experiences during the pandemic such as housing insecurity or the loss of loved ones, some are having trouble readjusting to school. During a recent interview, León said “students are exhibiting behaviors unlike ever before,” which he called a matter “of great concern.”

Like other large districts, Newark is relying on voluntary programs such as after-school tutoring and summer school to catch students up. That approach avoids some of the challenges of universal programs, such a longer school day or year, which cost more and would likely require labor negotiations. But it also excludes students who don’t opt in.

In October, the district’s afterschool programs only served some 3,800 elementary school students per day, or about 16% of that population, according to district documents. León has said some schools also offer tutoring during the day, but it is unclear whether it is the “high-dosage” tutoring, with multiple small-group sessions per week, that federal officials have called for and research shows is most effective.

Wilhelmina Holder, the grandparent of several district students who heads the Secondary Parents Council, an advocacy group for the parents of high schoolers, said the district should share more information about its recovery efforts.

“How many kids are actually participating?” she asked. “We know what they say they’re doing, but what does that look like for students?”

Whatever form the academic support takes, she added, the latest data shows that it’s urgently needed.

“There’s a whole lot at stake here,” she said.

Seen in school: How COVID shaped two years of education

2022-03-29T12:00:00+00:00

The world was warned about a rash of pneumonia-like infections clustered in Wuhan, China, about a week into 2020. By March of that same year, the novel coronavirus was declared a pandemic.

Since then, COVID has demanded a wide range of responses, from stay-at-home orders and shuttered institutions to mask mandates and testing protocols. More than two years into the global health crisis, our nation’s schools — teachers, staff, and the students and families they serve — are still dealing with challenges.

Chalkbeat journalists have documented the difficulties school communities have faced and are still facing. We’ve shared with our readers the chaos of school closures and re-openings, the mental health struggles of grieving and isolated families, and the staff shortages that many districts are confronting. We’ve also shared stories of resilience, success, and joy.

Here is a collection of our stories and photographs documenting the lived experiences of school communities during COVID.

Newark: One teacher called, texted, and trudged through the snow to reach her students

Joicki Floyd and her daughter Donnell practice learning numbers on a chalkboard wall in their kitchen during Floyd’s break from classes.

Joicki Floyd, a ninth grade English teacher at Weequahic High School in Newark, watched COVID tear through the city where she was born. Floyd, 45, saw the disease strike down her neighbors and colleagues, adding to the list of COVID-19 casualties who were disproportionately Black and Hispanic.

Floyd kept teaching. She gave lessons over video, responded to students’ texts and emails late into the night, and trudged through the snow to track down teenagers who went missing. It became clear is that the skill she had sharpened over 20 years of teaching — her gift for connecting with students and drawing out their inner strength — had equipped her for this all-consuming crisis.

“This is what I do,” she said. “If I didn’t do it, I would feel frustrated. I would feel empty. I would feel like I’d be cheating my community and the children.”

Memphis and Detroit: Freshmen adjust to remote learning

Memphis high school student Jalan Clemmons (left) in his living room during a break from virtual classes. Detroit high school student King Bethel (right) was motivated after lessons about the history of redlining in his city.

Memphis student Jalan Clemmons struggled with remote learning during the pandemic. At one point, he discovered he was missing more than 70 assignments, but found a way to catch up after two months.

King Bethel, also a freshman and a talented singer and student at Detroit School of Arts, is used to being noticed for his voice. Inspired by a lesson about the history of redlining in Detroit, he used that voice to become a leader at the School of Arts, working on a speech for a public speaking competition called “Project Soapbox”

“I wasn’t trying to entertain,” he said. “I was trying to teach.”

Michigan: State’s ratings add stress for child care providers

A preschooler rides around on a scooter during playtime at Little Scholars child care center in Detroit.

Child care providers such as Linda Byrd and Shirley Wright were outraged that they didn’t get a reprieve from Michigan’s rating system during the pandemic, even as the state sought to pause accountability systems for K-12 schools. The state handed out fewer ratings overall — and fewer high ratings — to child care providers, our reporting found.

“My bills are not going to change because of this rating, but my money did,” said Wright, director of Little Scholars child care centers in Detroit, whose star rating dropped from a four to a three during the pandemic. “If education starts at birth, why do we treat early childhood education like it’s not education?”

Brooklyn: Internship pays students to tutor their peers

Alandinio Cineas works through an algebra problem with his tutor Chahima Dieudonne at Brooklyn High School for Excellence and Equity in Canarsie.

Brooklyn high school freshman Alandinio Cineas was stumped by an algebra assignment asking him to write and graph an equation showing how many different pieces of fruit he could buy with $15.

He shared the problem on his computer screen with senior Chahima Dieudonne. The students were in the same room, but divided by a cubicle and logged into a virtual meeting. With masks pulled over their noses, they were close enough to hear each other speak but kept their distance to limit the chance of spreading COVID.

Dieudonne read the problem a few times and thought out loud, in both English and Creole. Then she and Cineas spent the next hour figuring out his math homework together.

Dieudonne is one of roughly 15 students at Brooklyn Community High School for Excellence and Equity who is paid through a school internship program to provide one-on-one peer tutoring to students like Cineas who need extra help.

Chicago: Parents help their children learn to read

Leslie Trejo and her daughter Ariadne at Carole Robertson Center for Learning in Chicago. Trejo, like many Chicago parents, found herself spending extra time trying to teach her daughter the foundations of reading during virtual learning.

Leslie Trejo, like most parents, doesn’t like playing the bad guy. But she accepted the role, if it gets her kindergarten daughter the extra reading practice she needs.

At Trejo’s home in Little Village, that means taking 15 minutes on Saturday afternoon to practice memorizing words such as “of,” “to,” and “was” — all while asking her third grade daughter to play nearby. The lesson: Fun comes after flashcards.

When COVID-19 forced schooling into the home, Chicago families like the Trejos found themselves suddenly on the front lines: watching, coaxing, teaching, and sometimes, throwing up their hands in frustration as their children tried to learn the basic building blocks of reading.

Chicago: COVID widened education gaps for boys of color

Nathaniel Martinez bikes to school through the Northwest Side of Chicago. There is evidence that the 2020-21 school year has taken a greater toll on Black and Latino boys.

As the promise of spring hung over Chicago, three teenage boys tussled with insomnia, sifting through the fallout of a pandemic year’s interlocking crises.

Here and across the country there is growing evidence that the 2020-21 school year has hit Black and Latino boys — young men like Derrick Magee, Nathaniel Martinez and Leonel Gonzalez— harder than other students. Amid rising gun violence, a national reckoning over race, bitter school reopening battles and a deadly virus that took the heaviest toll on Black and Latino communities, the year has tested not only these teens, but also the school systems that have historically failed many of them.

NYC, Newark: A 360-degree look COVID’s impact on school communities

Children and parents work on a community garden in the Cypress Hills neighborhood of New York City.

Roseville Community Charter School students practice social distancing as they leave a music class.

Chalkbeat, in partnership with Univision 41, took a deep dive into two school communities: New York City’s P.S. 89, and Newark’s Roseville Community Charter School. These two schools, both in neighborhoods devastated by the COVID pandemic, became lifelines for the communities they serve even as their staff dealt with the same challenges and loss as their families.

Through the experiences of educators, families, and staff, we captured how these communities adapted to the upheaval brought about by the pandemic, and how they laid the groundwork for recovery and a return to school buildings.

Detroit: My senior year in pictures

Detroit student photographer Caria Taylor documented her journey through the pandemic, reflecting on milestone moments like her prom and graduation.

Through pictures and an original poem, titled “Fantasy Turns Into Reality,” Caria Taylor, a graduating senior at Detroit’s Cass Tech High School, gave a first-hand account of her journey in three parts: watching her creative voice blossom at the height of the pandemic, experiencing the joy of prom and graduation, and returning to some level of normalcy as she and her friends spend time together before they venture into adulthood.

Chicago: Graduation becomes a more significant milestone

(Left) Whitney M. Young Magnet High School graduate Elijah Warren during the school’s graduation at Chicago’s Soldier Field. (Right) Parents celebrate their graduating children at Simon Youth Academy’s graduation in Indianapolis.

Natasha Walker, Linda McDowell-Stagg Jr., and Reverend Earl Stagg Jr. celebrate their niece and granddaughter Nairobi Toombs as she crosses the stage during her graduation ceremony from Whitney M. Young Magnet High School.

“You made it through the pandemic,” Whitney Young Magnet School Principal Joyce Kenner told her students during their graduation on Chicago’s Soldier Field. “You can make it through anything.”

Across the country, graduating seniors from the Class of 2021 overcame unprecedented obstacles in receiving their diplomas. Our reporters documented these milestone events through students like Whitney Young Magnet senior Elijah Warren, and the graduating class of Indianapolis’ alternative high school Simon Youth Academy.

The Comeback: Aurora, Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Newark return to school

The comeback to the nation’s schools in the Fall of 2021 was a period of both excitement and worry in the midst of the COVID pandemic.

Chicago siblings Mila and Mateo leave for their first day of school at Talcott Elementary School after spending a year learning from their home.

Over a year after COVID closed school buildings, students returned to in-person learning. This comeback brought mixed feelings to many families, who felt both relief and trepidation amidst the uncertainty of the pandemic.

Our journalists watched this return unfold in several districts around the nation, seeing the joy of children, educators, parents, and politicians as they welcomed learners back to the classroom. For some students, it was a return to a routine they hadn’t experienced for over 18 months. For other students, it would be their first time in a school building.

Newark: Bus driver shortage leaves students with disabilities behind

Maryah Santos (center) colors a picture alongside her cousin, Isabella Santos (left), and her mother, Shannon Lutz-Santos at her home.

Maryah Santos, 14, listened as her mom tried to explain why she was stuck at home once again. School had started in early September and still no bus was headed to their home in Newark’s east ward.

“I love school so much, mommy,” Maryah said.

“I know, you love school,” Shannon Lutz told her daughter, whose intellectual disability makes it difficult to grasp why the bus hasn’t come and why she’s been home instead of reconnecting with teachers and classmates at school.

In New Jersey, where no virtual learning option was offered for the 2021-22 school year, 7,000 students like Maryah were either left without bus service or affected by last-minute changes to transportation caused by a shortage of school bus drivers that hit its peak in September, just as schools were reopening.

Colorado: Two Hispanic brothers wanted to go to college. Only one made it.

Luis Hernandez looks out the window on the train to MSU Denver. He dreams of one day having the ability to own a house with a big kitchen and living room for him and his family to live in.

Jimy and Luis Hernandez’s alarm wakes them before the sun rises.

The brothers try to move quietly about their parents’ northeast Denver home so they don’t disturb their siblings.

Luis, 18, might watch the news or help his mom prepare lunch before they head to the toner cartridge factory where he works part-time to help pay for college. He’s enrolled at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Jimy, 21, usually skips the kitchen as he hustles to get ready for his full-time job paving asphalt for a construction company. He wanted to go to college, but couldn’t navigate the path there.

The brothers’ divergent paths highlight the challenges Hispanic men face in getting into college — and in getting through.

Denver: How schools prioritize social-emotional learning

Denver Public Schools is requiring each school in the district to offer 20 minutes of daily social-emotional learning to help their students’ mental health.

The preschoolers in Natalie Soto-Mehle’s class have been talking about feelings.

“I’ve got some little cards with pictures, and we’re going to do a game with these,” Soto-Mehle, a teacher at Trevista at Horace Mann elementary school, explained to the 3-, 4-, and 5-year olds sitting on the rug. “But, before we do, we’re going to sing a new song.”

To the tune of “London Bridge is Falling Down,” she sang:

I have feelings, yes I do. Yes, I do. Yes, I do.

My body tells me how I feel,

Feelings in my body.

Lessons like this are what schools call social-emotional learning, which teaches students to be emotionally resilient, form supportive relationships, and develop healthy identities. As Denver Public Schools transition back to in-person learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the district is requiring each school to offer 20 minutes of daily social-emotional learning to help students face mental health challenges brought on by two years of pandemic living.

NYC: Parents accused of educational neglect for keeping their children home

Viviana Echavarria speaks with her kids about their upcoming return to in-person classes at her home in the Bronx. Viviana and her husband were among the parents of New York City school students that didn’t feel it was safe for their children to return to in-person learning during the ongoing public health crisis.

After spending last year fully remote, Viviana Echavarria’s two teenagers were excited to return to Riverdale Kingsbridge Academy and even went back-to-school shopping.

But then the Bronx mom and her husband decided to keep their two high schoolers home until their 11-year-old could get vaccinated.

Still, Echavarria was stunned when her husband called late last month while she was at work, as a director of operations for a nursing home, to tell her that an ACS caseworker was at their door. He hasn’t returned to work yet in order to stay home with their three school-aged children and 6-month-old baby.

When New York City opened its schools this fall for in-person learning, with no option for virtual instruction, families across the five boroughs opted to keep their children home. Families like the Echevarrias worried about the health of their children and vulnerable loved ones, and remained unconvinced it was safe to return to school.

Philly: Reading lessons at the laundromat

Iris Hernandez, a reading captain with Read by 4th, helps children to read “DJ’s Busy Day” at The Laundry Cafe in North Philadelphia.

On a cold Saturday afternoon, Iris Hernandez and Carmen Colon were helping six Morales children through the letters, sounds, and words in the book “DJ’s Busy Day,” about a bunny and his fun-filled adventures in ordinary places: the grocery store, on the bus, in his home. Their lessons took place in a local laundromat.

Hernandez and Colon are reading captains working with Global Citizen, which has been leading a community mobilization in partnership with the Philadelphia Public Library’s Read by 4th initiative, a citywide drive to help all children read proficiently by the end of third grade. Some research shows that early reading proficiency is linked to high school graduation.

The city still has a long way to go toward its goal. Before the pandemic, standardized tests showed that only about a third of children in district schools read at grade level by fourth grade.

Philadelphia: One school’s new normal in its second COVID winter

Ruth Llorens looks on as one of her kindergarten students hangs her jacket in her cubby at Cayuga Elementary School in Philadelphia.

Nearly two years into the pandemic, COVID often blends into the background at Cayuga Elementary School in North Philadelphia.

Other times, COVID is painfully obvious. In January, a little boy told kindergarten teacher Ruth Llorens he missed his uncle, who’d died from the virus over winter break.

“I just kind of listened to him more than anything else,” she said. “Really, he just wanted to talk about his uncle and what they used to do.”

Chicago: One high school’s year of uncertainty

Keshaun Arnold (center right) jumps for the possession of the ball against King offense during a varsity basketball game against King College Preparatory High School at Richards Career Academy in Chicago.

For schools across the country, this school year was supposed to be the moment to recoup academic ground lost during the pandemic and tend to the outbreak’s traumas before high school careers and lives got derailed. It was supposed to be a time to start reinventing public education for teens like Richards High School senior Keshaun Arnold and the other students Richards serves: half of them Black, another half Latino, almost all from low-income families, a third learning English as a second language, and another third without a stable place to live.

It hasn’t turned out that way.

At Richards, a tough comeback has overwhelmed the students and staff. Attendance is down. Behavioral issues are up. COVID has waned and surged, exploding any semblance of certainty.

Such setbacks have played out across the country, in district after district, at school after school. Here and elsewhere, amid a race to re-engage students in learning, the desire to find new ways of approaching school has collided with the need to just make it through another trying week.

Hiccups and hard lessons: What it takes to bring big new tutoring programs to America’s classrooms

2022-03-25T11:00:00+00:00

Teacher Kim Meaders has a singular focus when she steps into her Arkansas school just before 7 a.m.: keeping her school’s eighth and ninth graders from falling off track.

Meaders, a math teacher at Bryant Junior High in suburban Little Rock, is part of the Arkansas Tutoring Corps, which launched last year with federal COVID relief funding to help students plug pandemic learning gaps.

Since the fall, she’s been meeting with small groups of students at lunch or before school, helping them master two-step equations and memorize exponent rules.

“It’s definitely helping,” she said. Students who were afraid to ask questions in class are speaking up in tutoring. “That’s what was important to me, to make sure that the kids didn’t get farther behind,” Meaders said. When they do, she can prevent students from getting frustrated and giving up.

“Math is such a progression,” she said. “If we don’t address those issues quickly, it just compounds the problem.”

The Arkansas initiative is just one of at least a dozen new large-scale tutoring efforts started by state education departments and school districts across the country. They’re part of an unprecedented effort to help students recover academically after two years of disrupted schooling.

There are encouraging signs: Thousands of tutors like Meaders have gotten to work, and some say they’ve seen students make progress. But several initiatives are starting smaller or taking longer to reach students than officials originally hoped.

Chicago, for example, wanted 650 tutors in its corps this year, records show, but has 460. New Mexico hoped to place 250 “educator fellows” in schools this spring, but has 100 in schools so far. Arkansas wanted 250 tutors in place by winter, but has 219.

School officials are working hard to fill those slots. But the gaps are an indication of just how many students aren’t yet getting the help that officials think they need.

“The need was huge,” said Missy Walley, who’s overseeing Arkansas’ tutoring effort. The state has some 570 tutors in the pipeline, more than its goal, though 350 are still completing training and background checks. “We’re going to meet that.”

Smaller programs that rely on virtual tutors have gotten closer to their targets. Oklahoma, for example, wanted to bring on 250 virtual math tutors this winter and hired 210. State schools chief Joy Hofmeister said families reported on surveys that the tutoring had helped their eighth graders bring up failing grades and boost their confidence in math.

Other efforts still have a ways to go. In Houston, officials wanted to have 500 high school and college students tutoring in schools by now. They have 228 so far. That means the elementary schools they targeted for extra help have around four tutors per building, instead of the planned-for 10. (The district also has a separate pool of teacher tutors.)

Illinois education officials won’t say how many tutors they’ve hired so far, but the state pushed back the full launch of its initiative from this spring to next fall. Officials are looking for some 8,700 in-person tutors statewide — a much more ambitious goal than others have set.

“We’re certainly, as would be true in other states, experiencing challenges with staffing,” said Stephanie Bernoteit, a state official working on the initiative. “This type of project is fairly easy to describe. It is incredibly complex to implement.”

Dallas has turned to outside organizations to hire the 665 tutors who are helping students or are about to be assigned a school. Many are local, but some work virtually, Zooming in from as far as Montana. The district also has more than 40 additional tutors of its own on staff, though it is trying to get to at least 70.

“People are excited to have tutoring up and running — they know that students need it,” said Derek Little, the district’s deputy chief of teaching and learning.

Getting there, though, has required competing for tutors in a tight labor market.

Chicago, for example, was trying to recruit tutors at the same time as the school district was looking for substitute teachers and bus aides, positions with similar requirements and pay. It got to 460 tutors this month, and is looking to reach 600 by the fall.

Officials think they can get there with a refined recruiting strategy. They’ve learned to pursue candidates who are more likely to pan out: community members recommended directly by school principals and college students studying education.

Geography has posed another challenge. Tennessee’s tutoring initiative is ahead of schedule — they have more than 2,000 tutors working across 71 school districts, said Penny Schwinn, the state’s education commissioner — but rural school districts have had a harder time recruiting.

“Our very rural communities have struggled the most, especially if they’re doing after-school specific programs,” Schwinn said. Education officials are now meeting with rural districts to help them incorporate tutoring into the school day, a setup that can make it possible for more parents to serve as tutors.

In New Mexico, recruiting educator fellows has been easier than expected, said Amber Romero, who is overseeing the program. That’s in part because paraprofessionals and classroom assistants want these jobs, since the fellowship offers benefits and a stipend they can use toward a degree in education.

The interest has prompted some districts to delay their programs until the fall, when they will have backfilled those assistant roles. The fall start will also allow districts to hire high school seniors who are graduating this spring.

Scheduling remains a persistent challenge, too. Schools want tutors during the school day, several times a week — when they’re often shown to be most effective — but it can be hard to get tutors at that time.

William Solomon, who oversees the student tutor corps for Houston ISD, says it’s been difficult to get everyone’s schedules to line up as they try to match high schoolers and college students with younger peers.

“I definitely want to make sure that we’re starting earlier, and that we’re tapping into as many of those college students who want to test drive this career in education as possible,” Solomon said. “This is not something that’s going away, so the need for these near-peer tutors is going to continue.”

Another issue: It’s unclear whether the tutoring that is happening is truly helping students who’ve fallen the furthest behind. While all eight state and district initiatives that Chalkbeat spoke with for this story are keeping tabs on student progress, none had data to share yet.

Some initiatives have found that reaching students who most need help can be a challenge, especially if tutoring is optional and happens outside the school day.

In Oklahoma’s tutoring trial run, for example, just over a quarter of the 481 eighth-grade students who got extra help in math had been asked to attend tutoring based on their low test scores. The rest signed up on their own. As the state tries to expand to more grades, officials say they plan to reach out to targeted students earlier and more often.

Tutoring initiatives have faced logistical hiccups, too. In Chicago, the district recruited tutors before it finalized which companies would train them and provide them with tutoring materials. Officials thought they had a better chance of keeping tutors on staff if they paid them sooner. Plus, putting them into buildings quickly helped them build relationships.

But that left tutors like Darrell Hill, who started tutoring Chicago high schoolers in math this fall, to improvise. Tutors made up practice problems and tracked student progress informally.

All tutors eventually got trained, and Hill and other tutors now have lessons that correspond with what teachers are working on, along with a ready set of practice problems.

Hill and the three other tutors at his school have come up with their own routines, too. They all attend a morning math class together to make sure they understand that day’s lesson, grab copies of upcoming assignments, and then compare notes. Then they work through assignments and homework with students, who are seeing the benefit.

“We’re hearing initially ‘Don’t want to be here, this sucks, I want to go have lunch with my friends,” Hill said. But that turns into: “‘OK, now I get it. I didn’t get this before, now I do.’”

Kalyn Belsha is a national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Event: How the CRT debate and book bans impact Tennessee students

2022-03-24T16:40:01+00:00

Across the country, new laws targeting critical race theory and debated books are influencing the small but pivotal decisions educators make every day: how to answer a student’s question, what texts to read as a class, and how to prepare for a lesson.

Eight states now have widely varying laws restricting how schools can teach about racism and sexism. And recently, several state legislators have passed or proposed curriculum opt-out laws and book bans. Tennessee teachers who cross the line could lose their teaching licenses, and school systems that look the other way risk losing some state funding.

Plenty of teachers say they haven’t changed their approach, and there is little evidence that these laws have led to wholesale curriculum overhauls. But some teachers say the ambiguity of the laws, plus new scrutiny from parents and administrators, are chipping away at discussions of racism and inequality. And some students say the laws have the potential to stifle students and their knowledge of historical race relations.

This comes during schools’ efforts to better social and emotional support for all students. A renewed urgency to better help students navigate their mental health has been amplified by absenteeism, behavioral issues, and quieter signs of distress as many students grapple with the lingering pandemic and social unrest.

We want to hold a space to hear directly from students and educators about how these contentious conversations have affected school culture and classroom dialogue. How do students and teachers of color show up as their full selves at school? What are the actual implications of the bill in Tennessee classrooms? How can schools dialogue about race and other difficult issues in a way that’s safe, empathetic, and empowering?

Join Chalkbeat Tennessee and the Education Trust in Tennessee for a panel discussion with students and educators. Please RSVP for this event so we’re able to provide the webinar information and can hear your ideas for questions. This event is free to attend, but any optional donations will go to support Chalkbeat’s nonprofit journalism and events like these.

This event is the second in a four-part national Chalkbeat series titled COVID and Mental Health, which seeks to amplify efforts to better support the wellness of students and school staff during this challenging comeback year.

Mid-year teacher turnover, once rare, is now taking a toll on educators like me

2022-03-23T16:00:00+00:00

“He bought a bowling alley?” I asked Teresa, the human resources director at Highline Academy, our two-campus charter school in Denver. We were in the midst of summer teacher training, and school hadn’t started yet.

“I guess it was his big dream, the thing he always wanted to do,” she answered.

“OK, but you don’t buy a bowling alley just out of the blue. He must have been planning for this. Why did he sign a contract with us? Why did he start summer training?” She had no answers other than it had something to do with the pandemic.

Christine Ferris

It used to be rare for more than one or two teachers to quit during a school year. Teachers leaving mid-year because they were having a baby used to be the one exception; everyone else would stick it out for the school year at least. They did it for the students they had relationships with and because it could damage their reputation for another education job in the future. That standard has been shifting over the past 10 years, as competition for teachers in a time of shortage has intensified. But this school year, teacher turnover has been extreme.

By the time our doors opened in August of 2021 and students were back, some for the first time since March 2020, three teachers had already quit. During remote learning at our school (serving students in early childhood through eighth grade), everyone had been frozen in place, hunkered down for the duration. Even though it was hard to be teaching online, and then in person with COVID restrictions, we were all trying to figure out these new ways to do school. Over the summer, many people across fields pondered their life goals and reconsidered their priorities (see: The Great Resignation). Teachers were no different. Some moved to live closer to family, some pursued online teaching positions, and others left teaching altogether. But that was only the first wave.

Last school year, our in-person students were spaced far apart, each at a desk in its own masking taped box to keep six feet of distance between them. Each child had a small box of items meant only for them, no sharing, and they spent all day in the same group of 18 students never mixing with the other kids in their grade. One-third of our students were still only online, so our school building was smaller and quieter.

This school year, we were all still wearing masks and jumping on Zoom for adult meetings, but our kids were all in school and we didn’t have to keep them in small cohorts. They could play together, work in partners, and mix with students in other grades. It was clear that many of them had forgotten or never learned how to share, or how to function in a group instead of as an individual at home. It wasn’t a normal year, and it wasn’t an emergency anymore either.

In the early fall, there was a second wave of people leaving, but more teachers were also applying to work at our school. Some schools were offering large hiring bonuses or higher salaries with their extra federal funds. Teachers all over Denver seemed restless to find the right fit and sought out schools that were a better match for their own educational beliefs. As some teachers left us and new people came in, it exacerbated the discomfort, like we were all wearing new shoes that we could never quite break in.

Just keeping all the students safe was like solving a giant puzzle each morning with multiple pieces missing.

In November, there was a third wave of resignations.

“Almost all of the fourth grade team?” I was stunned. Two of our four fourth grade teachers had left, and the third was moving up to fifth to take over a class where another teacher had left.

“The kids are going to feel like it’s their fault,” the principal said, echoing exactly what I’d been thinking. We didn’t even post the jobs; we just looked internally and moved around some experienced teachers to fill the gaps and reassure these students. The intense needs of students with limited and disrupted school experiences and varying degrees of trauma from the last two years created classrooms the fourth grade teachers said felt like insurmountable challenges to them. They did not feel successful and no matter how we tried to support them it didn’t seem to help.

It has been really hard. Second graders need to learn kindergarten, first grade, and second grade academic and social skills. Sixth graders are grappling with fourth and fifth grade concepts while trying to master sixth grade. Every teacher has what feels like triple the workload within each child. For some people, teaching this year was just too hard and they left hurling hurtful words at colleagues and school leaders. The new applicants we had seen in September and October dwindled. Our vacancies went unfilled for months and the extra staff we had brought on so we could provide additional supports and interventions this year were drawn into covering homerooms and core content classes.

In January, we came back from winter break holding our breath, expecting additional departures. Instead, we got hit with omicron. Over the first few weeks, we had between seven and 14 staff members, well over 10% of our campus team, absent every day. Just keeping all the students safe was like solving a giant puzzle each morning with multiple pieces missing. Teachers covered for each other during their lunches and prep times. School principals, teaching assistants, and office staff stepped into classrooms and we kept our doors open. Students were safe and cared for even if learning wasn’t happening quite like it normally would. Omicron cases started to fall in mid-February, and we thought now we can settle into teaching again.

Then our district lifted all COVID restrictions all at once at the beginning of March. No more masks, in-person adult meetings were back on, kids can eat together in the cafeteria, musical performances and indoor sports games returned. Parents can volunteer in the school. All the safety precautions we’d been practicing for two years were ripped off like a band-aid. Some teachers were relieved to take off their masks, and others felt vulnerable without them and chose to keep wearing them.

Then a teaching assistant in the fourth grade that lost three teachers earlier in the year decided he had to quit. When he told the kids he was leaving, many of them started to cry. As adults, we have our own lives, our own reasons to do what we do. For the kids, it’s another grown-up leaving them. Teaching assistants are the ones finding an extra snack for a hungry student, helping to solve a problem between friends during recess, and providing support when a student is struggling with a new concept. Teaching assistants also make up the best candidate pool for new teachers. Yet they are disappearing like a puddle in the spring sun.

We have had 25 people leave since last August. That is over 16% of our staff. Students are still catching up and educators are still exhausted, but maybe, just maybe, we are starting to see the light. As I plan our budget for next year, I am adding in positions to provide small-group academic instruction for students, staff to support behavior needs, instructional coaches to support our teachers. I know these positions will better meet students’ needs, will make the teacher workload lighter, and help everyone to feel more supported. I am grateful for the additional federal dollars to fund these positions at least for one more year. But I wonder if we will be able to find enough people to take these jobs. And if we do, will they stay?

As COVID protocols end, young students and new teachers adjust

2022-03-21T16:08:48+00:00

The last lesson that Alexis Kashman taught before COVID closed her classroom was fractions, with her students making diagrams out of tape on the floor.

A recent college graduate, she had started her teaching career at Chapel Glen Elementary School in Wayne Township just three months earlier, and found herself going back to her textbooks to translate the fraction lesson for remote learning.

“We were taught the most important thing is to gather your kids at the carpet and read to them,” she said. “And then as soon as I started, the pandemic hit and everything I had learned up until that point, we had to throw it out the window.”

After two years of disrupted lessons, Kashman has come full circle as Indiana schools return to a pre-pandemic state, with no masking, distancing, quarantining, or — teachers hope — major upheavals midway through the year.

For veteran teachers and older students, this is a return to normalcy. But for some young students and new teachers like Kashman, this is among the first times they’ve experienced in-person learning without restrictions or interruptions. And schools like Chapel Glen are tasked with helping both groups adjust.

The solutions range from a mentorship program for new teachers, to incorporating new and old-school learning strategies, to practicing patience and experimenting with new ideas.

“We all have learned that we really can do hard things,” said Principal Shatara Smith. “When we think outside the box, and we come together and problem solve, it’s not as bad as you think.”

Schools like Chapel Glen Elementary have adopted new programs and strategies to help teachers and students adjust to in-person learning.

Learning classroom expectations

Like schools across the country, Chapel Glen closed and reopened several times over two years as it weathered COVID cases and shifting health guidelines.

During building closures, the Indianapolis district offered an online program where teachers taught alone from their classrooms while students followed along at home.

Alexandra Offutt, who started at Chapel Glen teaching virtual students, described her first few months as a little lonely.

When teachers and students were able to return to their classrooms, they found changes. Gone were the staples of elementary education, like circle time and morning high-fives, replaced by spaced-out desks and elbow bumps.

Offutt’s students had to remain in pods, spending their day doing activities with the same four or five peers in order to aid in contact tracing. Masking and distancing made critical early literacy lessons a challenge, especially for students who were learning English as a second language.

“For kindergarten, it’s hard because you’re learning how to form your mouth when you’re learning these letters,” Offutt said.

“We’d have to be like, alright, back up and pull your mask down and tell me what you’re saying,” Kashman said.

Alexandra Offutt started out teaching students virtually at Chapel Glen, and found that masking and social distancing created challenges with early literacy lessons.

Simultaneously, students also had to learn stamina, focus, and interpersonal skills that had fallen by the wayside during at-home learning. And once the school went mask-optional, Offutt also had to teach students to respect their friends’ choices to wear a mask or not.

“How you speak at home is not necessarily how you can speak at school,” Offutt said. “And you can’t just bump and push and grab something, because you’re going to hurt another kid if you do that.”

Now, with restrictions lifted, Offutt’s kindergartners took advantage of their freedom to move around the room with their friends on Thursday, while dancing to a St. Patrick’s Day song.

Then Offutt gathered them on the rug to sound out words. On “cove,” some students made the leap to a more familiar word.

“No, not COVID,” Offutt said.

“Ewww,” the students said.

Teachers learn from each other

Chapel Glen’s newest teachers are also learning the ropes.

The school’s mentorship program, dubbed the New Teacher Academy, matched new teachers to veteran ones in an effort to ease them into the school and the expectations of teaching in-person, said Smith, the principal.

“Many of our new teachers not only started remotely, but had their student teaching practicum remotely,” Smith said. “Looking at classroom management, procedures, a lot of the necessary foundational things that are needed for starting, we thought, ‘How can we help address some of these areas of concern?’”

But mentees noted the pandemic has also led to a two-way street with mentors, whom they may not have met otherwise.

“I’m helping a veteran teacher create an assignment online, but the veteran teacher is helping me figure out what’s going to work for one of my specific learners,” Kashman said.

Chapel Glen has a mentorship program called the New Teacher Academy, which pairs early career teachers like Kashman with veteran educators.

The way forward likely combines the experiences of both new and veteran teachers, as they all work to address the skills that lapsed during the pandemic.

Teachers of all types are grappling with helping fourth graders who may read at a first-grade level, said Megan Graybosch, a reading interventionist and mentor.

“There’s probably some hesitancy to want to pick up a book that they know they can be successful with,” Graybosch said. “Those books may not look like what their peers are reading.”

Graybosch said she helps new teachers consider how to incorporate “old-school” activities into 21st-century classrooms.

Time-tested strategies like small group reading and rotating centers can supplement the online curriculum and personalized lesson plans that have come to define pandemic learning, she said.

There are other pandemic-inspired changes that the school would like to keep as it steadily returns to normal.

Virtual parent-teacher conferences and drive-thru awards ceremonies are here to stay by popular demand, Smith said.

All Chapel Glen students now have a tablet or laptop, and spend some time each week refreshing the skills they had to learn during virtual schooling.

“I joked that they have trouble holding a pencil, but man, they can cut and paste, they can upload documents,” Smith said. “The skills that we may have introduced them to probably a little later, they were introduced to and did really well.”

Preparing for the future of the pandemic

Chapel Glen students watch a movie during indoor recess. Their principal, Shatara Smith, feels like her staff is more prepared to deal with unforeseen challenges after two years of a pandemic.

As Kashman prepared to send her first graders to recess on Thursday, an unexpected announcement came over the school’s public address system: Recess would be held indoors due to lingering smoke from a nearby fire.

Kashman pivoted, offering Play-Doh, coloring pages, and time to watch “The Secret Life of Pets,” conscious that her students would be spending their whole day indoors.

“They’ll get antsy by the end of the day,” she said.

Her students said they didn’t mind staying inside.

“Because you get sweaty outside, and I don’t want to get sweaty,” one student, Aaliyah, said.

It’s difficult to predict how COVID will affect schools in the future, but it will likely involve a series of adjustments.

Principal Smith said Chapel Glen has plans in place for future school closures, whether due to COVID, snowstorms, or other unforeseen circumstances. After two years, her staff feels more prepared to weather uncertainty, she said.

With case counts low, and pandemic protocols over, teachers feel cautiously optimistic about the next school year, said Graybosch, the reading interventionist.

“I’m no virologist,” she said, to laughs from her peers. “But I think next year is looking pretty good.”

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

As cases remain low and schools relax their COVID protocols, many teachers feel cautiously optimistic about the next school year.

As schools try to recover, COVID’s toll lingers: ‘We haven’t seen fine, ever’

2022-03-19T10:00:00+00:00

This story is being co-published with The New York Times Sunday Review.

As class ended on a recent Tuesday, Ana Barros, a middle school teacher, signaled for a seventh grader wearing Crocs to hang back. Minutes earlier, he’d stormed into the hallway, slamming the door in her face.

“Walk me through that moment you just had,” she said.

Ana Barros, a seventh-grade social studies teacher, says more students are asking to see the counselor at her Tulsa school this year.

Barros, who teaches social studies at an Oklahoma charter school, listened with patience. The student had struggled to manage his emotions before the pandemic. A year spent at home when classes were fully remote without the neutral ground that school provided had intensified his anger.

“When you’re mad, when you’re feeling that rage,” she said, “you can’t slam the door.”

“Sorry,” the student replied softly, trying to keep his feelings in check.

“It’s OK,” Barros said. “But we’ve gotta find a way to channel those moments when you’ve got rage. We’re on the same team. I’m not against you. I want to help you.”

In some ways, this is typical middle school teaching. But the pandemic has upped the volume and intensity of students’ needs and raised the stakes for schools trying to meet them.

The cascade of new challenges started with the onset of the coronavirus in 2020, which closed school buildings and plunged teachers and families into the unknowns of remote learning. The year that followed was a patchwork of remote and in-person instruction, with school districts around the country varying wildly in their policies.

Many hoped this would be the comeback school year, when schools would focus on recovery. The last schools that had been operating remotely fully reopened. COVID relief dollars poured into districts. The availability of vaccines for teens, and then children over 5, created hope.

But just as the pandemic’s emotional and academic toll on students grew clearer last fall, staff shortages hobbled schools. When the virus seemed like it was under control, the omicron wave of cases brought half-empty classrooms or temporary returns to virtual learning. It’s been a year of survival and triage for teachers, school leaders, students, and their families.

Now a shift is underway. Mask mandates have largely lifted, and more Americans say they are ready to leave the pandemic in the rearview mirror. But teachers like Barros are still grappling daily with issues that COVID has left in its wake, most of which defy easy solutions.

“I really feel scared to say that we’ve turned a corner,” she said. “The things that we were struggling with, even outside of COVID, are just still there.”

Barros found herself scrolling through job listings earlier this winter, but like most teachers, she’s sticking it out. “I’m choosing to stay because I love this,” she said.

In Barros’ classroom at the Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences, many students require intensive support. One boy didn’t attend a single virtual class as a sixth grader or return when the school building reopened last spring. It’s her job to keep him tethered to school.

When another student started clutching a stuffed toy shaped like an avocado, Barros didn’t press her for a reason. And when one of Barros’ top students started having panic attacks in class, she helped come up with a plan to calm her heavy breathing. Her school has noticed an uptick in thoughts of self-harm, negative self-talk, and meltdowns. More students are asking to see the counselor.

Two years into the upheaval, teachers are depleted. On top of the needs in their classrooms, teachers and their unions have faced scrutiny over school shutdowns, vaccine and mask mandates, and COVID safety protocols, leading to labor strife in Chicago and elsewhere.

Some teachers have begun having doubts about their ability to keep going. As three colleagues departed midyear for higher-paying jobs outside the classroom, Barros, who has taught for four years in Tulsa, found herself scrolling job listings earlier this winter. Like most, she’s sticking it out. “For a while, I was in that victim mentality of ‘woe is me,’ but I do have choices,” she said. “And I’m choosing to stay because I love this.”

But America’s schools remain fragile. As teachers catch their breath after the latest wave of COVID cases, many are teetering between cautious optimism and lingering exhaustion.

Across the country, teachers like Neelah Ali are trying to help students who are struggling emotionally and keep them on track academically after two years of stop-and-start learning.

Ali teaches freshman biology at Denver’s South High School, where she is also a teacher coach, an assistant track coach, and a sponsor of the dance team, Jewish Club, and Black Student Alliance. She’s the kind of teacher who knows nearly everyone and will hop up on a table to help students understand a lesson.

Ali much prefers in-person teaching to what she called “the abyss” of virtual learning. Students had the option to return to classrooms part-time last spring and have been learning in-person all of this school year, though COVID cases meant attendance was spotty until recently. There are signs of genuine joy in school: students giggling together in class, cranking pump-up music in the weight room, and eating pizza off trays in the hallways.

But Ali says her students have less academic stamina than she is used to. Before the pandemic, all of her freshmen would most likely have finished their lab, which involved flipping pennies to determine the odds that two parents’ offspring would have dark hair or freckles, in a 50-minute class period. This year, only one pair of students did. More students are asking for breaks during class, too.

“I’m having more conversations with kids about not liking school,” Ali said.

Neelah Ali, a biology teacher at South High School in Denver, has noticed that her students have less academic stamina than they typically did pre-pandemic.

Students also seem more attached to the digital world. Despite posted signs prohibiting cellphone use, nearly all of Ali’s students on a recent day had their phones out at some point. A few used them in ways that were arguably academic, walking up to the white board and snapping a photo of the lesson on chromosomes and meiosis to copy it onto paper. For others, the phones were a distraction.

Ali knows that taking a student’s phone is likely to upset them deeply. That wasn’t as true before the pandemic, she said.

“Now it’s like, if I take the phone, it threatens their identity,” she said. “If I take it, that’s going to damage our relationship so much that I don’t even broach the topic.”

Despite the difficulties, Ali said she was getting through the curriculum, partly because the pandemic meant fewer guest speakers and field trips. But student absences because of COVID or COVID exposure have been another complication. In each of her classes, several students were on their laptops doing makeup work instead of the penny lab.

The absences, a national challenge this year especially during the omicron wave, pose a daily dilemma. When should teachers reteach a lesson that some students missed and when should they move on? The answers matter, as ninth-grade success is seen as a key predictor of whether a student will graduate from high school in four years. Last year, graduation rates dipped nationwide and more ninth graders fell behind on credits in some states.

“A lot of teachers are struggling with: Do we make it up or do we not make it up?” Ali said.

The little boy arrived in Kendra Barclay’s kindergarten classroom on a chilly Detroit morning wearing a white mask so big it was hanging off his face.

“You need a kid’s mask!” she told him, scurrying off to find one.

Mask adjustment is still part of the job for Barclay, who spent much of that morning transitioning from lessons on letter sounds to gentle, and at times stern, reminders about classroom COVID safety.

“Ch says chuh, chuh, chuh,” Barclay said as she surveyed the students sitting on the rug in front of her. “Kamryn, you’ve got to cover your nose.”

Though schools in most of the country have lifted their mask mandates, Detroit district leaders are still weighing a potential change. For now, Barclay continues navigating the physical logistics as well as the emotional toll of teaching in a community that lost thousands to COVID.

“How do you keep 5-year-olds socially distanced?” she said. “They love being near each other. A lot of them need that contact. They need to feel nurtured.”

At Detroit’s Spain Elementary-Middle School, kindergarten teacher Kendra Barclay navigates the physical logistics of social distancing with young children that long for close contact with their classmates.

Barclay finds a way to do both, and her classroom at Spain Elementary-Middle School in the city’s Midtown neighborhood includes plenty of dancing and singing. When she needed her students to see how their tongues should sit between their teeth as they make the “th” sound, she moved to the far side of the room and pulled her two masks down for a few seconds.

Back in September, the stress of wanting to serve the students who needed her while avoiding getting sick herself got the best of Barclay, a South Carolina native who has taught in Detroit since 1999. On the school’s first in-person day, the principal, Frederick Cannon, popped his head in her classroom door before the kids arrived and asked how she was doing. Barclay burst into tears. “It was just the fear,” she says.

Barclay is optimistic about the progress of her kindergartners, though she worries if enough of them will be prepared for first grade.

Months later, as she was beginning to feel more comfortable, a new wave of cases disrupted everyone’s lives again. Schools in the district went remote for weeks as the omicron variant spread and again for winter storms, briefly severing the connection between Barclay and some of her students. A couple of children signed in daily, but never turned their cameras on or responded when she called on them.

Barclay remains optimistic about her students’ progress and was grateful recently to be among a group of teachers who received recognition from the district for their work during the pandemic. She knows her students aren’t all where they should be academically, though. She has found herself reteaching lessons from the fall, like how to write words on the correct lines of their handwriting practice paper.

“I’m still committed to coming in every day, trying to push and pull the greatness in and out of them,” she said. “I just still worry. How many of them are going to be prepared for first grade?”

“I have to realize this is just what it is in the world right now, and I am doing all I can.”

After a winter of emotions that rose and fell with COVID case rates, the nation’s teachers and families are looking to what comes next. Whether their fatigue will stretch on through the spring and even fall. Whether their schools can turn a fragile grip on stability into a firm grasp.

This pandemic may become less acute, but its effects on schools will linger: the children coping with the death of their caregivers, the fissures that remain over how to keep kids healthy and safe, the kindergartners struggling with their ABCs, the seventh graders tamping down anxiety, the high schoolers fretting over their diplomas.

Schools are now spending big on mental health programs, tutoring, and other academic recovery efforts — work that is likely to stretch past the three years they have to use their federal relief funds. “Our hardest and most important work lies ahead,” the U.S. education secretary, Miguel Cardona, said recently.

For Ali in Denver, that work looks like a full school day followed by a three-hour virtual training on a new science curriculum that’s more inclusive and culturally relevant. The changes are important to her, but “burnout feels like it’s a lot closer than it used to be,” she said.

It’s the same for a lot of teachers she talks to, she said. The rising stress “feels like it’s more at our chest than at our feet.”

For Barclay in Detroit, the work means connecting with her students — whether by listening intently to a retelling of the plot of a “Transformers” movie or offering hugs even when they go against social distancing guidelines.

“I figure, you wouldn’t ask for a hug or a high five if you really didn’t need it,” she said.

Barclay helps one of her kindergartners with letter writing. She’s had to reteach some handwriting lessons from the fall as she works to keep her students on track.

And for Barros in Tulsa, the work looks like this: grading assignments on Sundays, spending her planning periods in meetings with families whose children are struggling, and mentoring a new teacher partly to supplement her comparatively low Oklahoma teacher’s salary.

She hopes she’s pushed past the worst of her exhaustion — when she was out sick for seven school days with COVID in January, wracked with guilt, waking up each morning to record a video lesson so her students wouldn’t fall behind.

Now the end of the school year feels within reach. Come fall, she won’t be as in the dark about where her students are, academically and emotionally, as she was this year.

Other challenges aren’t going away. Barros goes without adequate staffing support even in a normal year, helping translate for the school’s Spanish-speaking families as one of the few bilingual staff members. Her school also serves a disproportionately high share of students with disabilities. Without other teachers or aides in the room to help, it’s Barros who slips a pillow under the foot of a student with autism to soften the sound of his tapping foot, and Barros who pulls aside a student with dyslexia to read tricky passages aloud.

After months back together in the school building, she’s seen her students make real progress — reading full chapter books, building friendships with classmates. But they’re still dealing with the ramifications of the COVID years. It will take a wider network of support to truly give her students what they need, Barros says. To her, that includes greater investment in Tulsa’s under-resourced neighborhoods, stronger bonds between schools and families, and more counselors and therapists.

“We haven’t seen fine, ever,” she said. Pre-pandemic, many of the students with disabilities and students of color at her school were “already so underserved.”

“I feel like I’m a piece of the puzzle, and I see myself as a piece of the puzzle,” Barros said. “And sometimes it’s like, damn, some of those pieces are taking a long time to get here.”

Kalyn Belsha is a national reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org. Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. Contact her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org. Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering Denver Public Schools. Contact her at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Inside a Chicago high school’s year of uncertainty

2022-03-18T11:00:00+00:00

The first game of the 2021-22 boys varsity basketball season was not going well for Richards Career Academy, and Keshawn Arnold, the team’s star player, paced by the bench.

He was too wired to sit as the gap on the scoreboard widened.

“Put me in!” the 18-year-old, in a crisp white Warriors uniform, pleaded with Corbin Leeks, his coach and the dean of students at the 240-student high school in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the Southwest Side. “Put me in for just two minutes.”

Leeks barely shook his head, eyes on the game.

Keshawn and Leeks both knew the senior, one of the team’s top scorers, could shift the course of the game. But they also both knew why Keshawn was sitting that November evening.

He had struggled to regain his stride academically that fall amid Chicago Public Schools’ high-stakes return to full-time in-person learning — lackluster attendance, lackluster grades, and a blowup with Leeks over wearing a face mask at school that almost scuttled his basketball season. Then again, nearly everyone at Richards has struggled this school year, from the hard-charging principal, Ellen Kennedy, to the especially restless freshman class.

Students like Keshawn Arnold, a standout basketball player for the Richards team, have struggled to regain their momentum with in-person learning.

For schools across the country, this school year was supposed to be the moment to recoup academic ground lost during the pandemic and tend to the outbreak’s traumas before high school careers and lives got derailed. It was supposed to be a time to start reinventing public education for teens like Keshawn and the other students Richards serves: half of them Black, another half Latino, almost all from low-income families, a third learning English as a second language, and another third without a stable place to live.

It hasn’t turned out that way.

At Richards, a tough comeback has overwhelmed the students and staff. Attendance is down. Behavioral issues are up. COVID has waned and surged, exploding any semblance of certainty.

By Thanksgiving, two students had been shot in the neighborhood. Staffing shortages turned each day into “an intense puzzle we have to solve really quickly,” as Kennedy put it that November.

August: Richards braces for the unknown

At the start of the 2021-22 school year, Ellen Kennedy gathered her faculty and staff in a room off the main office. Kennedy, in a Black Lives Matter face mask and ripped jeans, had already drained her large cup from Dunkin’, the only shop she trusts to serve coffee without the caffeine she does not need. Her PowerPoint slides mentioned “elevating our game” and “achieving a vision” — her appeal for that lofty goal of reimagining education.

But standing before her team, she worried she had no clue what the coming weeks would bring.

For Chicago Public Schools and other districts, the school year’s start was meant to be a milestone of normalcy restored. Instead, they grappled with the delta variant, the push to launch testing and vaccination programs, and thousands of children and families who had disengaged from school.

That day, Kennedy told her team they had to help our students catch up, but shouldn’t charge ahead as though the past 18 months didn’t happen.

“First, we have to figure out how to function together again and do school,” said Kennedy, who was tapped four years ago to lead Richards.

Principal Ellen Kennedy and her team have seen improvements in several areas since her arrival in May 2018, but the chaos of the pandemic has slowed the school’s progress.

Kennedy, who had been an assistant principal at Tilden High School, arrived at Richards in May 2017. She found a case study in the disinvestment and dysfunction that have plagued high schools across the city’s South and West Sides: low staff morale, a chaotic campus culture, and enrollment losses that had chipped away at the school’s academic offerings. One seemingly minor issue summed up what she describes as “a school on life support”: No one had set up the bell to ring automatically, so the clerk had to do it manually. She often forgot.

Kennedy and a close-knit team she assembled sought to build a healthier school culture, strengthen academics, and shift the school’s reputation. On the eve of the pandemic, work remained: The school’s graduation rate had improved, though it still lingered shy of 60%, well below the 80% district average at the time. But enrollment had inched up, and the bell now rang automatically.

Then the last, largely virtual school year slowed Richards’ progress. Case in point: Keshawn.

He had been a promising sophomore when COVID hit, with low grades that often did not live up to his smarts but with strong connections to teachers and staff. Last year frayed those bonds. He was an extrovert marooned at home with three younger siblings, his mom a harried nurse assistant who pleaded with Leeks to make sure Keshawn logged on to class.

By the spring, Keshawn wasn’t doing so for days at a time, though he never disconnected completely. The school went all-out in the battle against student disengagement: gift cards for families, virtual school assemblies, weekly home visits by security guards turned “attendance ambassadors.” Leeks enlisted Keshawn’s cousin Gerlia Baker, also a basketball standout and junior at the time, to nudge him to step up his school game.

Even the return of basketball that February did not inspire Keshawn to catch up on school work and improve his grades. He knew he wouldn’t be allowed to play otherwise, but the prospect of getting back on track was too daunting. When Chicago high schools reopened for optional part-time in-person learning that April, Gerlia was there, but Keshawn and more than two-thirds of the school’s students stuck with virtual learning.

Now, in the early fall of 2021, Kennedy confessed to her staff she, too, was daunted by the unpredictability ahead. She had no road map for recovering from the disruption.

She clicked on her last slide. It read “Whoa! It’s here. It’s happening. Let’s be great.”

Senior Gerlia Baker had returned to Richards craving a sense of normalcy. What she got instead were masks, quarantines, and classmates who were struggling to remain focused on school.

October: Students search for an elusive normal

Gerlia Baker sat in the Richards gym, where staffers had arranged rows of chairs for an awards assembly, one morning last October. The senior’s earbuds muffled the commotion of students filling up the room – her effort to ward off anxiety.

“Please check your face mask,” called Taryn Miller, the student special services advocate, into a microphone at the front. “Let’s protect each other.”

Gerlia, whose red-tinged locks fell down to her seat, watched as Kennedy took over the mic.

“We made it to the end of Quarter 1,” said Kennedy, who wore a blue Richards basketball jersey. “We had highs. We had lows. All of us deserve that deep breath, that pat on the back.”

As “Celebration” by Kool & the Gang poured out of the loudspeakers, students with perfect attendance marched to the front to collect a medal and a Richards blanket to applause from classmates.

Gerlia sat still, chin cradled in her hand, gazing straight ahead. She had come back craving normal. What she found was not what she calls “normal-normal.” Instead, there were masks, quarantines, students tuning in and out of school.

On the Wendy’s job she got earlier in the pandemic, Gerlia kept landing the closing shift, working the fryer, washing dishes, or taking drive-thru orders until 1:30 a.m. She sometimes dozed off in second period math. Assignments piled up. She lagged on college essays. Her senior seminar teacher, Thomas Conley, gently prodded her: Which of her many interests might she pursue after high school? Basketball? Cosmetology school? Studying journalism?

Many of Gerlia’s classmates felt more rudderless than usual, having missed out on 18 months of hashing out plans with friends and teachers in person. As Conley summed it up, “How can I prepare for life after high school when I don’t know what next month will look like?”

At the assembly, the student-of-the-month recognitions celebrated small victories: “participated even when he’s sleeping,” “not afraid to ask questions,” “consistent effort for being on time,” “more engaged in the past couple of weeks.”

“I need to wake up,” Gerlia chided herself, too nervous to open her report card. “This is senior year.”

Then, Kennedy announced the Principal’s Scholars – the straight-A kids – who marched to the front to collect certificates and track jackets.

Kennedy called the next name to loud applause.

Gerlia Baker.

But the teen remained completely motionless, her face impassive. She did not get up to collect her award, loath to draw even more attention to herself.

She was still on track to be valedictorian, but the pandemic had taught her how easy it was to fall behind in school.

Senior Gerlia Baker receives an academic award during a school assembly in February. Despite the challenges of the school year, she is on track to be her school’s valedictorian.

Early December: Basketball season raises the ante

In first period culinary arts class, Keshawn scrambled to add sugar, flour, and margarine to a mixer. Students in chef Mark Soltis’ kitchen were making batter for gingerbread houses, and Keshawn was cutting it close to the end of the period. He pulled up his disposable face mask and got to work. He was trying to be on his best behavior.

When he walked back into Richards several months earlier, Keshawn had hoped the return would set everything the pandemic had broken right. But a year and a half of remote learning seemed to have drained him of the stamina to make it through an in-person school day. Even the simple routine of getting up, getting dressed, and getting to school was hard to recapture. He often showed up late — or not at all.

He and other students chafed at the masks required by the district and the state, that inescapable reminder that normal remained elusive. In hallways where Enya crooned soothing tunes during passing time, Miller, the special student services coordinator, who sometimes wore a Superman mask, would reach out to pull face coverings up from chins, intoning, “Masks! Masks!” Reminders came constantly over the PA system, in every classroom, at each school gathering.

Then, Keshawn and Leeks, the dean of students, got into an argument over Keshawn’s refusal to mask up. Keshawn raised his voice, blustered for a while, and stormed out of the building.

What Keshawn didn’t know: Leeks would tear up at times when he thought about Keshawn, his charisma, his energy, all the momentum the COVID outbreak arrested. In Keshawn, Leeks saw himself as a teen growing up in Englewood: flush with potential but bent on living in the now.

Student Keshawn Arnold was optimistic that the return to school would fix the challenges he and fellow students faced during remote learning, but it drained him instead.

With Keshawn, Leeks was firm: He was not sure if he could allow the teen to play basketball that season after the disrespect Keshawn had shown him in front of his classmates. But alone in his office — with a towering 2016 freshman girls basketball champions trophy and a wall calendar clinging to the long-lost normalcy of August 2019 — the coach worried about losing scarce leverage if he kept Keshawn off the team.

Now, in culinary arts class, Keshawn rushed to finish his batter as the bell rang. Soltis walked over to inspect the mixture.

“Perfect,” he said. “Everybody, this is the way it’s supposed to look — over here in Keshawn’s bowl.”

Keshawn glanced down at his bowl and smiled.

Later in December: Principal feels ‘a March level of exhaustion’

One evening right before winter break, Kennedy sat on a bench in the Richards gym, taking in the varsity boys basketball game against Catalyst Maria, a charter school.

She looked over at Keshawn, who sat across the gym, hugging a basketball and leaning into the court. After making him sit out the first game and watch his team lose, Leeks let him play this one. But he still kept him on the bench for the opening minutes — his way of keeping his player on notice.

A few minutes into the game, and with the Warriors down by 10, the coach put Keshawn in. Kennedy cheered as the senior glided across the court, driving to the basket. He got fouled, and Kennedy held her breath as Keshawn, his eyes on the hardwood floor at the foul line, dribbled the ball three times, shutting out all distractions.

Then, he looked up and sent the ball sailing into the net.

Richards would go on to lose the game by just three points, but Keyshawn was back on the court and playing well. Despite sitting out the start of the game, he wound up scoring 24.

Keshawn Arnold returned to the court after sitting on the bench during the first game of the varsity boys basketball season. He scored 24 points as the team lost by three.

The principal hung on every pass and each point, though her mind often drifted to the break ahead. It was pajama day at Richards, and Kennedy was wearing candy cane-patterned plaid bottoms. Only three months into the school year, she already felt a “March level of exhaustion.”

After a string of pandemic-era departures in positions that were tougher to fill than ever, she was down three teaching assistants, a bilingual teacher, a science teacher, a security guard, and a custodian. Teachers were out sick, home with a quarantined child, or tending to surgeries postponed earlier in the pandemic.

Most days, Kennedy had to spend two and a half hours substitute teaching and pulling lunch hour security duty in hallways. She helped a custodian clean before the Friday vaccination clinic. When new substitute teachers arrived, she asked if she could fetch them something to drink — desperately needing them to come back.

During the new virtual meetings, district CEO Pedro Martinez hosted with principals twice a month, Kennedy and other school leaders pitched the idea several times of drafting central staffers to substitute teach or handle other campus duties. But the district was short-staffed too: Some 250 central office employees had resigned or retired since July.

Kennedy had to juggle her other duties with the ongoing battle against COVID. By November, the district’s voluntary testing program was finally up and running after a rocky start. But at Richards, only five out of 240 students and 20 out of 65 staff members had signed up for weekly testing. Roughly only a third of students were vaccinated, despite the in-house vaccination clinic. These challenges reflected deep districtwide disparities in vaccination rates and testing buy-in, with rates at whiter, more affluent North Side schools dramatically higher than those at campuses on the South and West Sides. And the struggle to get students to mask continued.

Principal Ellen Kennedy has spent the school year juggling multiple duties including working to fill staff vacancies, ramping up COVID testing, overseeing the school’s in-house vaccination clinic, and dealing with some students’ resistance to masking.

Kennedy remained focused on her students. The school’s bookends classes struggled the most: By late November, freshmen had racked up more than 130 conduct code infractions, including fights, a marked uptick from the previous pre-pandemic fall. Too many Black boys in that freshman class hovered in the “D club.” Seniors, on the other hand, had seen their attendance dip below 70%, a good 10 percentage points lower than before the outbreak.

Earlier that year, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona told CNN that billions in federal stimulus dollars would allow schools to “really reimagine education and make it better than it was in March 2020.” Randi Weingarten, the head of the country’s largest national teachers union, spoke of a “renaissance in America’s public schools.” And shortly before he was named Chicago schools chief in September, Pedro Martinez said: “It’s not enough to go back to normal. We have to be better with a capital B.”

But if Kennedy heard talk about “reimagining” education one more time, she felt that she might scream. Across the country, evidence of any wholesale overhaul of how public schools serve vulnerable students was still scarce. School leaders and educators had little energy and brain space amid a string of daily crises, large and small. And school systems stayed set in their ways, ringing that period bell manually simply because that’s the way it has always been done.

Why not a half-day schedule for teens teetering on the brink of dropping out as they juggle school and jobs?, Kennedy wanted to know. Why not more virtual coursework for the handful of kids who actually thrived during remote learning?

“Overall, we have lacked the courage to do things differently,” Kennedy said in December. “Here we are — back to the old ways. Our imagination is stifled, and our courage is failing.”

A historic influx of federal dollars for school pandemic recovery — including roughly $2.8 billion for Chicago Public Schools — had bought Richards two math tutors, with one more slated to start in January, and a full-time college and career coach. But, so far, the money had not been a game-changer.

Just when it felt like it was all too much, last fall threw even more at the school. A student was shot in the leg a couple of months into the school year, and another student was shot over Thanksgiving break. The day of that December basketball game, Kennedy got a call from the husband of a custodian known for her upbeat, bubbly personality. She had died of COVID.

Kennedy urged her staff to think of the school year in manageable chunks: Can we make it through the next week together? The next three weeks until winter break?

January: A standoff over COVID protocols shuts down classes

During winter break, standing at the Wendy’s fryer with a basket of chicken nuggets, Gerlia had been seized with anxiety: What if the district reverted to remote learning amid the omicron surge?

The return to classes that January had heightened her fears. At Richards, more than a third of students did not show up on the first day after the break. Neither did 17 teachers and staff members. Then a standoff over COVID protocols between the district and its teachers union shut down classes just two days later.

Gerlia Baker and fellow student Terrell Clark prepare red velvet cupcakes in culinary arts class at Richards. Gerlia worked at a Wendy’s while Chicago schools were closed due to the standoff between the district and the Chicago Teachers Union. She also took care of her four younger siblings.

Gerlia worked while school was canceled, but didn’t take on many extra hours beyond the 25 a week she usually put in. She had to help take care of four younger siblings who were also out of school during this stretch and wanted to be ready when classes started again, though nobody seemed to know when that might be. Students missed five days of school by the time the district and union worked out a new safety agreement.

Gerlia worried about students like her cousin Keshawn, who were just regaining a fragile foothold at school. She worried about missing out on the final months of her high school career. She worried about depression creeping up on her again, that feeling of “I’m over everything. It’s a lot in life.”

As another Wendy’s shift ground on, she decided she would no longer give Keshawn a hard time about his grades or his tardies. She told herself: “Everybody’s going through something.”

February: Some students catch their stride

As the second semester — with its “back-to-school” buzz — got underway, Kennedy took a breath. She considered the headway her team had made and what still needed to be done:

Leeks, the coach and dean of students, was spending less of his time holding peace circles to mediate conflicts between students, often freshmen. But attendance had slipped to 73%, far off the school’s 85% goal and decidedly worse than before COVID. He wondered out loud, “Is behavior actually getting better, or are the students just not here?”

Richards head coach and Dean of Students Corbin Leeks found himself spending less time mediating student conflicts as school attendance dipped.

Still, the students who were coming were more engaged, and the school was starting to restore a sense of community. The freshman class was almost all deemed “on track,” meaning they had failed no more than one core course.

With 50-some students on the first semester A and B honor roll, there were too many names to print and hand out certificates at an early February awards assembly — “a happy problem,” Kennedy said.

Gerlia and Keshawn were also looking to the future.

Gerlia is still on track to be valedictorian. She secured academic scholarships to several colleges and was leaning toward Western Illinois University, where she hoped to play volleyball as a walk-on and study journalism.

A wrist injury marred the final games of Keshawn’s basketball season, a reminder that he couldn’t count on the sport to bail him out after high school. He pledged to bring a new focus on showing up and doing the work. So far, his attendance is still spotty, but he passed all his first-semester classes and is on track to graduate. Leeks and Monica Wright, Keshawn’s mom, were talking about college options.

At Richards and other schools, the pandemic upheaval has changed how educators and families think about school, with more grace for students, a new regard for mental health, a deeper empathy for both teens and employees. But Kennedy’s heart was “still heavy for the seniors.” And she was still waiting for public education to be reimagined.

Despite the grueling school year, principal Ellen Kennedy has not given up on seeing a bolder reimagining of the public education system.

Two years after COVID shut down schools and shined a spotlight on stubborn inequities, that much-heralded rethinking largely remains a vague idea. In district after district, the status quo persists: traditional class schedules and calendars, piecemeal efforts to ramp up hiring a more diverse workforce, few bold initiatives to bolster the most vulnerable students.

Still, Kennedy has not given up on bigger changes. Perhaps the coming months — with the latest COVID surge receding and Martinez signaling a new three-year district plan — will finally set the stage for that promised reinvention.

In the meantime, Kennedy and her team will keep focusing on just getting through the week.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Michigan students push for filling gaps in school mental health services

2022-03-17T00:33:45+00:00

Brittyn Benjamin-Kelley and Thyaba Mymuna have little faith in the system now in place to support student mental health in Michigan schools — a gap, they say, that must be filled.

What’s needed to address student mental health are more therapists and psychologists, they said during a panel discussion Wednesday co-hosted by Chalkbeat Detroit, Bridge Michigan, and the Detroit Free Press. Watch the full conversation here.

Brittyn, a senior at Cass Technical High School in Detroit, said her school, which enrolls 2,400 students, has only a handful of counselors. “That’s stressful for everyone,” she said. “I feel like we need more people for that in our school and other schools.”

Poor mental health among teens has been a growing issue, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than one in three high school students had experienced persistent feelings of hopelessness in 2019, a 40% increase since 2009.

Leading pediatric associations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and Children’s Hospital Association last year declared a national emergency in children’s mental health, citing the pandemic’s ongoing toll.

Districts across the state have $6 billion of COVID relief funding to spend, which some schools are using to address the youth mental health crisis. That level of investment can range from hiring social workers and counselors, creating curriculums focused on student well-being, and purchasing therapy dogs.

Thyaba, a junior at Cousino Senior High School in Warren, said prioritizing the mental health needs of students should be on par with the emphasis placed on physical health and fitness in schools.

“We already have nurses and doctors, at least at our school, to help students physically because they really give importance to athletes. But if you’re giving importance to athletes and students, they should also give importance to their mental health,” Thyaba said.

The discussion follows a January poll that showed Michigan residents overwhelmingly support increased mental health resources.

The event was the first in a four-part Chalkbeat series entitled “COVID and Mental Health,” which seeks to amplify efforts to better support the wellness of students and school staff during this challenging comeback year.

Elizabeth Koschmann, executive director of a University of Michigan program created to make mental health services accessible to students, said the solution to supporting student mental health during the pandemic may not require hiring more professionals. Instead, equipping current school employees with the needed “tools, resources, and professional development” may be what will help address their students’ mental health.

“We have already seen that even with incredible funding opportunities, a lot of positions in schools go unfilled because the positions are incredibly demanding, they’re hard, they’re often under-salaried, they’re emotionally taxing,” she said.

“We have got to reframe our understanding of who these individuals are working in our buildings, and ensure that we’re not setting them up for failure and burnout and exhaustion.”

Increasing student input and feedback in school decision-making, Brittyn said, should be a main priority. Usually, she added, students go to their peers for advice about how to cope with stress, or direct each other to outside resources or professionals they can go to for support.

“I feel like the students and the youth, they raise awareness, they try to come up with their own programs, their own resources,” Brittyn said. “We’re working together because we feel like there’s no one else who can do something for us.”

Amanda Holiday, a Detroit parent and early childhood program director at Congress of Communities, suggested school districts send students home with a list of resources for mental health services available in or outside of school.

The organization found in a recent survey of primarily Latino families in southwest Detroit that many overwhelmingly wanted to talk about mental health support for their children. The priority among parents, Holiday said, was for schools to “meet [student] needs before they become emergency level.”

Thyaba said she believes that acknowledging and listening to students should be the goal of school leaders as they consider how to spend their COVID relief money.

“I don’t think it’s too much to expect people in power to support us, especially when it comes to mental health,” she said. “There’s so many people struggling with mental health and I see every day on the news and all over social media people killing themselves, and it all just hurts me so much because I’m just like, they could have been helped, but they weren’t.”

The next event in the Chalkbeat series on COVID and mental health will be hosted by Chalkbeat Tennessee and the Education Trust in Tennessee on March 31. For more information and to register for the event, click here.

Ethan Bakuli is a reporter for Chalkbeat Detroit covering Detroit Public Schools Community District. Contact Ethan at ebakuli@chalkbeat.org.

COVID money shores up budgets at Denver schools with declining enrollment

2022-03-17T00:03:12+00:00

About a third of Denver’s district-run schools are using federal coronavirus relief money to backfill their budgets due to declining student enrollment this year, next year, or both.

Denver schools are funded per pupil, and fewer students means less money to pay for teachers, mental health workers, and other staff. The pandemic has hastened enrollment declines, and the district is in the midst of coming up with criteria for when to close small schools.

Denver Public Schools currently serves approximately 90,000 students in preschool through 12th grade, which is about 3% fewer than it served two years ago.

Elementary schools have been particularly hard hit, and they make up the bulk of the 57 schools that received what the district calls budget assistance — a one-time cash infusion that has long been available to help Denver schools weather enrollment dips.

But the number of schools requesting budget assistance and the number that received it is higher than before the pandemic, with the district setting aside $8 million in federal education relief funding and another $1.6 million from the district’s general fund to help meet the need this year and next, said Chuck Carpenter, Denver Public Schools’ chief financial officer.

Usually, the district spends just $2 million to $3 million each year on budget assistance, he said.

“This reflects a much larger amount of money that we’re putting out there to deal with the volatility that COVID has brought on,” Carpenter said.

Preventing staff cuts at schools due to declining enrollment is just one way Denver Public Schools is spending the $302.8 million it received in the second and third rounds of federal education relief funding, which it must use by the end of the 2023-24 school year. The district must pass along $97.8 million of that to its independent charter schools, leaving $205 million for district-run schools.

The district is doling out a portion of those funds directly to schools to use as they see fit. Most schools are using the money — a total of $16 million this school year and $11 million next year — to pay the salaries of teachers, paraprofessionals, nurses, psychologists, social workers, counselors, interventionists, and other staff, according to a district tally.

Denver is also investing in districtwide initiatives, including social and emotional learning, math and literacy tutoring for students with learning gaps, and a virtual learning program.

Samuels Elementary School in far southeast Denver received about $167,500 in budget assistance this year and is set to get another $189,000 next year.

This is the first time in Principal Cesar Rivera’s eight years at Samuels that the school has had to request financial help, he said. Whereas Samuels enrolled nearly 500 students before the pandemic, the district is projecting enrollment will drop to 389 students next year, about 25 fewer than it has right now.

“We had a lot of positions that were in danger because of the numbers,” Rivera said.

With the budget assistance, Rivera said he was able to preserve several jobs, including paraprofessionals, a library technology specialist, and a restorative practices coordinator who helps students resolve conflicts.

District officials didn’t grant him all the money he requested, however, and he had to lay off a special education teacher and a part-time kindergarten teacher who shared a class with a teacher who coaches other teachers half time.

Rivera hopes more students will enroll at Samuels next fall and he’ll be able to use the extra per-pupil funding to hire back the part-time kindergarten teacher. If he can’t, a teacher who currently helps English language learners will have to teach the kindergarten class part time, setting off a ripple of consequences for some of Samuel’s most high-needs students.

“Without any of these positions, without this money to schools, children’s basic needs educationally — whether it’s literacy or math or social emotional — are not going to be met,” he said.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

In Chicago school budgets, federal COVID relief pays for existing staff

2022-03-16T20:15:24+00:00

At Perkins Bass Elementary on Chicago’s South Side, principal Carolyn Jones has welcomed an infusion of federal COVID relief dollars that brought a second school counselor, a new social and emotional learning curriculum, and classroom technology upgrades.

But at some Chicago schools, principals are questioning why a good chunk of the $2.8 billion in federal funding the district received for use over three years is paying for existing staff — and what the district is doing with the money it is saving as a result.

Data obtained by Chalkbeat shows the district swapped out millions in these federal pandemic relief dollars for state and other funds previously budgeted for educator and support staff salaries and benefits. The district has previously spelled out plans to pay for existing positions with the money. But the campus-level data through January from the district’s accounting system is the first glimpse at real-time spending midyear, and it took some school leaders by surprise.

District officials have said that steering federal relief dollars toward teachers and other staff allowed it to pump more money into campus budgets this school year. Some principals say they have felt and appreciated the extra budgetary breathing room they got despite steep enrollment losses, which typically would result in cuts to their school per-pupil allocations.

As Jones notes, the staffing expenses are only a portion of more than $1 billion in federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER, funds the district budgeted this year, which are also going toward academic and mental health interventions, COVID mitigation measures, and other support.

But other school leaders say too much of this historic influx of federal funds meant to help schools bounce back from the pandemic’s disruption is going toward run-of-the-mill staffing expenditures. As the district gears up to unveil its campus budgets for the next school year, leaders said they crave a larger infusion of flexible dollars to address pressing needs and ensure students don’t fall further behind.

“There is an unbelievable, heartbreaking need in our schools — right now,” said one elementary principal, who like some of his colleagues spoke with Chalkbeat anonymously because they did not have the district’s permission to discuss the issue. “This money was supposed to give us more, but instead it’s giving us the same.”

Overall, despite the enrollment declines, the district’s fiscal outlook remained fairly stable this year, leading some educators to ask whether it needs to use much of its COVID relief dollars to supplant previously planned staffing expenses. Some wonder if it’s socking away some of the money for looming financial uncertainty, or giving CEO Pedro Martinez, who arrived after the start of the school last fall, more flexibility to tailor his own spending plan. He said last week he will soon unveil a new three-year vision for the district.

The data Chalkbeat obtained does not offer a complete picture of spending. The district budgeted a major portion of the funds this year in central pots from which schools draw, but it appears that this spending is not yet classified as ESSER expenditures in accounting system data. The district said a fuller campus-by-campus picture of spending will emerge at the fiscal year’s end.

Federal relief dollars cover big portions of some school budgets

Based on the data, the district put $446.2 million of the almost $1.1 billion in ESSER dollars this year directly into its schools’ budgets. Schools got a fraction, about $47 million, as flexible “unfinished learning” dollars last summer for principals to spend as they saw fit. The bulk of federal dollars in school budgets arrived later last fall, replacing previously budgeted funds for staffing and other essential expenditures.

Another $403 million was budgeted for various districtwide departments. Charters got almost $53 million, and the district was required to pass on a small portion of the money to private schools.

Overall, the district and its campuses had spent $381 million on salaries and benefits — mostly existing positions — by midyear, including a small portion for substitute salaries. Other, much smaller categories are $27 million for equipment, with the biggest chunk going toward computers and other technology, and supplies, at $26 million.

Spending appeared to be proceeding at a different pace from school to school. Some campuses had spent almost all their budgeted ESSER dollars while others, including district-run and contract alternative high schools, had barely started spending.

District leaders have noted that anticipating the influx of federal dollars, Chicago put $225 million more into school budgets last spring, despite marked pandemic-era enrollment losses. In applications for the latest two rounds of federal funding the district submitted to the state, it said it would use about $764 million to pay for existing instructional positions. It would also cover some support staff and pre-kindergarten personnel with these dollars.

Still, several principals who reviewed the data for their schools said they were surprised to see how much of their staffing budgets is now covered out of the district’s ESSER fund.

The Chicago elementary principal said he strongly agreed when district leaders cautioned last summer against hiring many new staffers with the money. Schools would be forced to let those new employees go when the money runs out in the fall of 2024, causing disruption to students and school communities.

But he said his thinking on the issue changed as the school year got underway and his campus faced the profound academic and mental health needs of students returning from 18 months of disrupted learning and trauma.

The return to full-time in-person learning amid staffing shortages, COVID surges, and other setbacks has been more challenging than many educators expected, he said. Bringing in more adults, even if it’s only in the short term, can help kids bounce back.

In mid-October, Chicago Public Schools told principals it would shift some of their schools’ budgeted spending to the district’s COVID relief fund. The shift was in keeping with the district’s multi-year strategy to make use of those dollars, the note said. Their budgets wouldn’t change and they didn’t have to do anything.

Still, that principal said it was jarring to see more than $1 million in ESSER dollars replacing other funds previously budgeted for existing staff and supplies in the Chalkbeat data he reviewed. That amount surpasses other help his school got with the federal dollars: COVID mitigation measures, student reengagement funds, and a new social and emotional learning curriculum that arrived after the school year started.

He would use the money to hire a social worker or other support staff, reduce class sizes, and place more special education classroom assistants in the school.

“This makes me so angry,” he said. “The idea that there could be more people helping in our schools right now, and there aren’t, just kills me.”

Another elementary principal, who also expressed surprise that the district had replaced previously budgeted staffing funding with ESSER dollars, wishes more of the federal money was flexible.

School communities have a much better handle on their students’ needs than they did on the eve of this school year. The principal said would like to steer more dollars toward ongoing efforts to re-engage students, including by giving them more of a voice in school decisions. She said schools like hers are still scrambling to address students’ social and emotional needs so they can tackle academic catch-up in earnest.

“I don’t think people realize just how dire some of the situations we have seen can be,” she said.

Some principals tout ‘quality investments’

But other principals said the district is doing a good job stewarding the federal resources.

At Perkins Bass, more than $1 million in ESSER dollars is now in the school’s $3.4 million budget, largely to cover existing positions.

But Jones, the principal, says the school separately received much more help through the federal funding influx. As part of the district’s two-year Moving Forward Together pandemic recovery initiative, the school got a second counselor — one of 64 new counselor positions the district is adding this year and next.

Perkins Bass also got three early literacy tutors — part of a new Tutor Corps the district launched this fall — and an academic interventionist to guide their work. Although it took a while to hire and train that team, the effort will be in full swing this semester. Also new: a post-secondary counselor, 250 new devices to replace those lost or damaged during remote learning; and upgrades to classrooms.

“All these materials were provided without touching any of our building dollars — things that are invaluable resources,” Jones said. “There have been some thoughtful, quality investments made on our behalf.”

The school also used the flexible “unfinished learning” dollars in its budget for reengagement efforts earlier in the school year: family events, book bags, and Friday attendance incentives such as ice cream and popsicles for students.

“This money went to bring back the j-factor — the joy of school,” Jones said.

One principal at a high-needs high school said that besides the dollars covering existing staff at his school, he can only point to a few new investments with these federal COVID funds.

But he said this has also been a largely worry-free year when it comes to his school’s budget. Despite a drop in the school’s enrollment last spring, the campus did not take a budget hit, giving it some breathing room as it serves fewer students with slightly more dollars.

“They could have taken away per-student money, but they did not,” he said. “That has helped a lot. They let us off the hook for a while to regroup and rebound. I’m in a really good spot financially.”

The district provided a brief statement in response to questions from Chalkbeat.

“Chicago Public Schools is committed to making the best use of all funding aligned to district priorities, eligible expenses, and timing constraints,” the statement said in part, explaining that reclassifying expenditures in various district funds can happen routinely throughout the school year.

Chicago faces financial uncertainty

Experts tend to agree that no simple, foolproof prescriptions exist for making use of federal COVID relief dollars — a major windfall for districts, but ultimately onetime influxes that they must spend by fall of 2024.

Ralph Martire of the Illinois-based Center for Tax and Budget Accountability notes the federal government gave districts a lot of discretion on how to spend the dollars. One suggested use is retaining employees who might face looming layoffs. But he notes that Chicago’s teachers and other staff did not appear in danger of imminent layoffs this year. The district’s state revenue dipped, but that decrease was more than offset by an increase in local tax revenue. However, projected expenditures rose as well, including for employee salaries and benefits.

“I don’t see how you can make the argument that you need to use this money to avert layoffs because there was no dip in district revenue,” he said. “The federal money is freeing up state and local revenue for other purposes. If this is supplanting, what’s happening with the other revenue?”

Laura Anderson, associate director at the Edunomics Lab, a research center at Georgetown University focused on school finance, said districts’ reluctance to go big on new hires they might not be able to afford in the long run is understandable.

Still, Anderson said that at some schools that serve students from low-income families, bringing in more staffers in the short term to address pressing student needs might be a valid approach — as long as officials are clear that these are two-year temporary positions. But she cautions that these educators and other staff would still build relationships with students that would eventually have to be severed unless those new staff can fill positions left open by attrition.

“I understand the argument of, ‘We need to get the adults in the building, with all the credentials — now,’” she said. “Communication is the key point. But in the end, it’s still going to hurt.”

Another Chicago elementary principal said he appreciates that the federal dollars might help ward off per-student budget cuts. But he worries the backfilling can create a false sense of complacency. In addition to underwriting existing positions, his school got math and reading coaches through an outside vendor as part of Moving Forward Together.

The district must have an unflinching discussion with school leaders about what budgets will look like in 2024 without an enrollment reversal and without any more federal funds, the principal said.

Schools need to kick off enrollment campaigns to try to get back students lost to private schools and home schooling, especially in the early grades. And they need to start having tough conversations about adapting to a shrinking student body, including the possibility of sharing some programs and support staff positions, the principal said.

“There are just not enough kids in the district any more to justify the budgets schools have,” he said. “The district can’t just say, ‘We’ll have a reckoning down the road.’”

There’s also the question of what will happen with unspent ESSER funds this year.

Jones, the Perkins Bass principal, and other school leaders noted schools also received significant allocations earmarked for after-school and summer programs — more than many campuses will likely be able to spend.

Jones said the ongoing pandemic hampered efforts to beef up after-school programs amid staffing challenges, lower family interest, and student quarantines. Between the ESSER out-of-school time dollars and a separate grant for after-school programming, the school got almost $450,000.

“Right now, we’re really in a state of what’s to come because it’s almost budget time, and we have no clue if this money is going to roll over into next year,” Jones said. “If it does, it would make budget season joyous and celebratory. If not, we’ll be back to biting our fingernails to figure out how to make everything fit.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

To find joy in teaching again, I needed to grieve

2022-03-10T13:00:00+00:00

I had high hopes for this school year. After two school years disrupted by COVID, I needed a fresh start. I redecorated my enrichment classroom, painting giant words in silver glitter to inspire my students: “dream,” “create,” and “wonder.”

I tried to absorb the hopeful messages, but it wasn’t easy. This school year has been hard and strange in previously unimaginable ways. Even as routines become more normal, I don’t feel normal. Many days have felt like a slog.

Inga Puffer

I wondered how I could reclaim my spark and even contemplated switching careers. I knew if I was going to continue to teach, I needed to find a way to heal my mind and rediscover the joy that teaching had long brought me.

First, I committed myself to self-care — dropping by the microwave a few times a day to warm up some green tea and bringing a hot lunch instead of the trail mix I was used to reaching for. I started every class with three deep breaths to calm myself and my students. It all helped, but not enough.

So I started planning exciting new classroom activities. I incorporated more games, brain breaks, discussion, and movement. I’ve added working memory exercises and calming activities like jigsaw puzzles. When I saw my students open up to one another or make it through a class period with sustained attention, I felt success. But something was still missing.

I Marie Kondoed my classroom. I simplified my wardrobe, choosing comfy work-appropriate outfits to wear on repeat (e.g., pink pants on Mondays). I decluttered my classroom. I arranged my class time into structured blocks to make planning easier. Inspired by the book “Atomic Habits,” I tried to get kids into the healthy habit of learning one new vocabulary word a day and trying one tough math problem for five minutes. Teaching them that small, consistent effort pays off has been much more effective than repeating the mantra “persevere” to an unreceptive audience.

I practiced gratitude, taking the time to think through what I did well each day and what blessings I had. There are so many.

And yet, despite all of it, last Monday, I came home frustrated and tired. Nothing terrible happened. I just felt frustrated that small setbacks were impacting my mood so much. So instead of reading and going to bed, reminding myself that I would feel better tomorrow, I slipped out on the back porch to gather my thoughts.

Alone in the quiet, I began to cry, and I kept it up for two hours. When I finally went to bed, I cried myself to sleep. I felt so dramatic with my soaking wet pillow. But crying felt so necessary.

I came to school Tuesday hoping I could make it through the day without crying. I used three tissues on my commute to school. But then something unexpected happened. As I unlocked my classroom, I smiled at the children in the hallway. In that moment, I felt happy. My smile was more genuine. And the rest of the week, even in tough moments, I felt just a little lighter.

I felt so dramatic with my soaking wet pillow. But crying felt so necessary.

I’ve been reading a ton of self-help books on my quest for joy. Ironically, I think I’ve been numbing my emotions by reading about them incessantly. It wasn’t until after I cried that I realized my tears were a phenomenon I’ve been reading about but not putting into practice. In “Rising Strong,” the writer Brené Brown teaches, “We run from grief because loss scares us, yet our hearts reach towards grief because the broken parts want to mend.”

I hadn’t realized I was feeling grief. I am a rare, lucky person who didn’t lose a close family member during the pandemic. My privileges are too many to list. My teaching job is a dream — I have the freedom to teach creatively, and I love my students. Why should I feel grief? Just the thought of it makes me feel guilty.

But I did feel it. I cried for the teacher I was before the pandemic, for all the days when I played a read-aloud on YouTube instead of gathering on the carpet, reading the dialogue with silly voices and pointing at the pictures up close. I cried for all of the hugs not given, for all the worry that I would make one of my sweet students sick, for all the inadequacy I felt teaching virtually while I knew some kids were playing video games.

I wasn’t thinking as I cried that night; for once, I was feeling. I’ve spent the last few years coping. Along with the literal barriers that kept us safe during COVID, I built up emotional walls to make it through each day. I don’t think I’m completely healed from one night of crying. But I learned a valuable lesson: Sometimes, the best self-care is to let myself crumble. When my walls begin to crack, light can find its way through.

Inga Puffer has been teaching for 16 years in Greenville, South Carolina. She has taught middle school English, third and fourth grade, and now teaches gifted and talented and enrichment classes. She loves to teach, read, and spend time with her family.

Uptick but no exodus: Despite stress, most teachers stay put

2022-03-09T12:00:00+00:00

This story was co-published with the Associated Press.

Teachers have been working longer hours. They’re more stressed out. And many say they’ve considered quitting. Yet the vast majority of teachers have stayed in the profession throughout the pandemic, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of the latest data from a number of states and large school districts.

Teacher resignation rates actually dipped after COVID first hit schools. As this school year approached, the data show, departures generally returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Together, the numbers indicate that a feared teacher exodus has not yet come to pass — although concerning signs about the health of the profession remain.

“I still worry,” said Gema Zamarro, a researcher at the University of Arkansas who has studied teacher turnover. “Teachers are stressed and burned out. Even if they don’t leave, that could be bad.”

Comprehensive national data on teacher turnover is not available. The federal government does not keep annual records, and neither do some states, including California. Others, like Texas, release data on a yearlong lag.

But data obtained from five states and 19 large U.S. school districts, including New York City and Houston, shows that turnover going into this school year was comparable to rates before the pandemic.

In Maryland, teacher attrition hovered between 9% and 10% from 2011 to 2019. In 2020, it fell to 7.3%, but it ticked back up to 9.3% ahead of this school year, according to data provided by state officials.

“Our retention rates overall are holding steady,” said Mohammed Choudhury, Maryland’s state superintendent. “It is not some kind of broad-stroke, red-alert type of concern.”

Elsewhere, turnover was a bit higher than usual, but still near rates before the pandemic.

In Washington state, 9.2% of teachers left teaching in public schools in the typical year before the pandemic. In 2021, that rose to 10%, according to a new analysis of state data.

Recent turnover figures were also comparable to pre-pandemic numbers in Hawaii, Massachusetts and South Carolina. That was true of a number of large school districts, too, including Dallas, Houston, and Clark County, Nevada – home to Las Vegas – though Detroit and Chicago saw bigger increases.

In New York City, about 6% of teachers left the district in each of the three years before the pandemic. After the pandemic hit, turnover fell, then rebounded to 5.8% in 2021.

In Philadelphia schools, the teacher turnover rate was 9.3% in 2021, up from 2020 but slightly lower than it was in 2019.

“2021 — it doesn’t look worse than before the pandemic. If anything, it looks like other years,” said Zamarro, who reviewed the data compiled by Chalkbeat.

Survey data shows more teachers have considered leaving the classroom during the pandemic than before it began. One poll by the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union, found that more than half of its members said the pandemic made it more likely they would leave the profession early.

Tom Keiser, a middle school math teacher in Missoula, Montana, is among the teachers who have pondered quitting. He’s been concerned about the bitter debates locally about masks and the rise of laws restricting teaching about racism.

Keiser even consulted with friends who had left teaching and briefly scanned a job-search website. Ultimately, he decided to stay.

“What would I do? How the heck would I even figure out what that is?” he said. “I’ve worked 12 years to try to get better at this job.”

Like Keiser, most teachers who ponder leaving end up staying put, since doing so mid-career often means entering a new field and giving up retirement benefits. One recent study, using data before the pandemic, found that only about a third of teachers who said in a survey that they “definitely plan to leave teaching as soon as possible” actually left the following school year.

The economy also plays a part in whether teachers exit. Across 14 states, teacher turnover fell by a percentage point in 2020, according to a new study. “This likely reflects teachers hunkering down after the 2019–20 school year in the midst of the uncertainty of a pandemic,” wrote the researchers who studied turnover in Washington state.

The economic and pandemic conditions have changed, though, and it’s not clear what that will mean for turnover moving forward.

For Kathleen Sannicks-Lerner, a veteran elementary school teacher in Philadelphia, this school year proved so taxing that she went on sabbatical in January. It was challenging to make sure students kept their masks on, to fill in for colleagues when substitutes didn’t show up, and to work in a school where morale was low and resources were limited.

“It’s just been very, very difficult to do the work that we are required to do without the support and the tools that we need,” she said. “I was done. I throw in the towel.”

Philadelphia has seen an increase in teachers departing midyear, although that remains rare.

Even small increases in turnover could be worrying. Research has linked teacher churn to lower test scores, particularly if it happens in the middle of the school year, and high-poverty schools tend to see higher quit rates.

Schools also aren’t in a position to handle more departures. Schools have had a particularly hard time finding substitute teachers and bus drivers this year, and some have struggled to recruit new teachers.

Regardless of whether teachers decide to leave, their heightened stress still matters — for them, their schools, and the future of the profession. Interest in teaching among high school and college students has been declining for years, and dissatisfied current teachers could dissuade would-be educators from entering the classroom in the first place.

Choudhury, of Maryland, said the state has recently run an advertising campaign trying to persuade high-achieving high school students to pursue teaching.

“Not a lot are biting,” he said.

Johann Calhoun contributed reporting.

Matt Barnum is a national reporter covering education policy, politics, and research. Contact him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s how NYC schools are spending $7 billion in COVID federal relief

2022-03-08T23:10:11+00:00

With a stalled economy and projections of plummeting tax revenue, elected officials feared last winter that school budgets across New York would have to be slashed. Then, the federal government approved billions of dollars in relief to local governments and school districts, including more than $7 billion for New York City schools.

Families and educators dreamed big. Many called for smaller class sizes. They wanted more social workers and reading specialists. They wished for new after-school programs and devices for children, according to readers responding to a Chalkbeat survey last spring.

Some of the funding will cover many of the items on the readers’ wishlists, as well as providing funds to cover the costs of keeping school buildings operating and academic recovery, according to an analysis by the Independent Budget Office, or IBO. But the largest chunk — about $1.9 billion — will be for an expansion of the city’s prekindergarten program for 3-year-olds over the next several years.

A little less than half of the total pot is being spent this school year, with the rest earmarked for initiatives through the 2024-25 school year. Mayor Eric Adams, who took office in January, inherited spending plans outlined by his predecessor, Bill de Blasio. He signaled last month that he supported the pre-K spending but could change other plans before the stimulus funds run out.

“We’re going to examine the dollars we have remaining to spend and make sure that we spend it correctly,” Adams told reporters. “Would I have done some things differently? Yes. But we have to look at what’s in front of us right now.”

Advocates and parent leaders say there is still confusion on how the nation’s largest school system is using this windfall of COVID relief, as well as what it means at the school level. The publicly available data doesn’t show how individual schools spent their portions of COVID relief — and much of the money is being spent centrally.

“Parents are actually really interested, especially when they hear the dollar amount,” said Jasmine Gripper, executive director of Alliance for Quality Education, a school funding advocacy group. “They’re asking, ‘How do I see what my school got or what my school is doing with it?’”

Chalkbeat looked at the top line funding breakdown to spell out how the money will be spent this year and down the road.

Where the money is going this year

New York City’s education department has earmarked 43% of its stimulus money for covering expenses during this fiscal year, which ends June 30. To date, the city has spent about half of that $3.1 billion, per an IBO spending tracker.

The single largest piece of the pie for this year — about $820 million — is propping up “existing costs that might otherwise have required budget cuts if we had not received federal aid,” according to an education department spending plan. Asked for more details, a department spokesperson said this money includes “supporting custodial workers who helped keep school communities safe during these challenging times.” (Similarly, the first COVID relief package the city ever received — separate from the $7 billion in stimulus dollars currently in play — was used to cover paychecks for custodians.)

The city has also created various programs to catch students up this year, including its summer enrichment program before the start of this school year, assessments to screen for literacy, extra services for students with disabilities, and other academic recovery initiatives. Taken together, these programs add up to more than $750 million.

Part of this is $350 million that the city sent directly to schools to create their own after-school or weekend tutoring programs, provide extra support for English language learners, offer more professional development and boost arts programming. While they can spend the money to pay teachers overtime to run any programs they create, they can’t hire new full-time staff since the funding is temporary. But as some schools have found it difficult to persuade burned-out staff to work overtime, they may have to return unused dollars to the education department.

Roughly $200 million is being spent on a massive project to create a new universal math and English curriculum called “Mosaic,” meant to focus on the diversity of the school system’s students. That curriculum is expected to be in schools by the fall of 2023.

City leaders have planned to spend about $80 million on mental health this fiscal year. The money is covering hiring more social workers so every school has at least one full-time social worker or access to a school-based mental health clinic, according to officials. This funding also includes the cost for a new social-emotional screening tool, used to see where students may need more support in bolstering social skills after prolonged isolation due to the pandemic.

Category	Description	Funding
"Maintain current services"	Pays for "existing costs" that might have been cut without federal aid	$823M
Universal 3-K	Expanding preschool for 3-year-olds	$378M
Academic recovery	Money for schools to create extra tutoring programs, provide professional development, cover certain salaries and create more arts programming	$350M
Special education	After-school and weekend programs for students with disabilities, additional pre-K special education seats, extra support to eligible students ages 21+	$251M
Universal Mosaic Curriculum	Creating a new English and math curriculum that reflects "the variety of histories, languages and experiences that make up the city."	$202M
Miscellaneous	Variety of "smaller projects such as school safety training and professional development." (DOE did not provide further details)	$175M
Restoring enrichment programs	Restoring previously slashed programs for arts, Learning to Work, "Equity & Excellence" programming, such as AP For All	$172M
Backfill cuts for school funding	Held schools harmless for last year's enrollment drops	$150M
Reopening school buildings	Health and safety costs associated with reoopening buildings during the pandemic, including covering extra staff	$135M
Technology and devices	Buying more devices, expanding Computer Science For All, training 5,000 educators in advanced computer science	$122M
Summer Rising	Creating universal summer school in the summer of 2021	$100M
Fair Student Funding	Ensuring every school received 100% of funding through the city's formula	$95M
Social-emotional and mental health support	Hiring more social workers and buying a social-emotional screener for schools to assess their students	$80M
Building infrastructure	Updating buildings and making them more accessible	$70M
Early Literacy for All	A screening tool and training to evaluate K-2 students, hiring additional teachers and literacy coaches for interventions.	$49M
Restarting and expanding school sports	Creating more high school sports programming	$21M
Expansion of restorative justice programs	The DOE did not provide further details	$12M
College and career readiness	College counseling for all juniors and seniors, expanding college-credit courses, and mentorship opportunities for immigrant students	$10M
Expand community schools	Increase the number of community schools to 400	$10M

COVID stimulus spending for the 2021-2022 school year

Concerns for the future

The relief money runs out by the end of the 2024-2025 school year, and 56% of the city’s pot is being spent on programs that are expected to expire.

But the temporary cash infusion is also funding some long-term projects — like mental health support and the expansion of 3-K —that the city envisions continuing after federal funding runs out.

Those programs will require the city to pony up $802 million annually, starting in the summer of 2025, according to the IBO.

City officials have repeatedly said they expect city revenue to improve greatly with time as the economy bounces back from the pandemic.

The IBO is more cautious. “This optimism,” the IBO warned in a report, “is not reflected in the revenue outlook in the financial plan for the adopted budget, however, raising questions about the sustainability of these expanded DOE programs.”

The state required districts to explain how they’ll pay for long-term programs once federal relief funding runs out. The education department’s public-facing presentation has no explanation about this, and officials declined to provide further information.

“They do have the time to fix it if they’re willing to find the efficiencies elsewhere and prioritize,” said Ana Champeny, deputy research director for Citizens Budget Commission, a budget watchdog group.

Concerns about transparency

The rollout of the funding has raised questions about the transparency of the spending, as well as how education officials will measure success or progress of programs meant to help students catch up academically.

When creating their spending plan, education department officials solicited feedback from families last school year, receiving about 2,000 emailed responses, a spokesperson said. Officials held town halls in each borough, where they said they polled “thousands” of attendees to help the education department rank its proposed investments. But those meetings were overshadowed by discussions about building reopening plans and other COVID safety measures, parent leaders say.

Harlem resident Gisele Hearn, who is active with the PTA at Thurgood Marshall Lower Academy, where her grandson is a fifth grader, said she wasn’t aware of those town halls. Had she been, she would have advocated to fund tutoring parents and caregivers in math since their children turn to them for help. She also would have liked funding to address overcrowding at her grandson’s school.

When state lawmakers passed a budget last April, they required school districts to solicit feedback from the public and explain on their websites how they’re spending federal COVID relief dollars. The city’s education department has posted various details of their plan, but it’s not easily accessible on its website and requires some digging to find.

Gripper, from Alliance for Quality Education, wants data on how students are progressing through the year.

For example, her organization has been seeking an explanation from the education department on how they measured success in the city’s Summer Rising program, which for the first time opened summer school to all students who wanted a seat. The scaled-up program had a messy rollout but served as an important bridge to the fall for children who had not attended school in person since March 2020.

“We would like the city to be more intentional and more transparent about how students are doing,” Gripper said.

Andrew Rein, executive director of the Citizens Budget Commission, agreed. There’s a difference between outlining academic recovery costs, for example, and describing what the end goal is.

“Not only do we have to track the dollars, but we also have to make sure the dollars deliver what the students need,” Rein said. “How do we know that’s actually happening?”

The education department has required most students to take a battery of assessments in order to measure where they stand academically after two disrupted school years. They have not released test results, though some experts cautioned that information might not be useful because there might not be enough data to compare results, or because the variety of assessment options available to schools might complicate the data.

Education department officials did not share any specific benchmarks for the projects funded with stimulus money.

“At this time, our main focus and priority is on championing our school leaders and teachers to utilize the data found through screeners to understand students’ strengths and where supports are needed,” a spokesperson said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Federal funding and mental health: What’s working in Michigan schools

2022-03-08T21:40:48+00:00

Student mental health has suffered through the pandemic. Michigan districts are using federal COVID funds to implement new curriculums and programs focused on well-being, and are hiring social workers and counselors.

School leaders across Michigan have $6 billion to spend, the largest single influx of federal education dollars in state history. In some districts, new hires are already driving a big expansion of mental health services.

But other places are struggling to find trained workers to fill the open slots. Michigan parents overwhelmingly support increased mental health resources, according to a recent poll, and families are also looking for transparency about how their schools will spend this money.

As districts across the state work to better support their students’ mental health and hire more staff, we’d like to find out what’s working and what’s not. What supports have proven effective over time, and are schools investing in them? What do students and educators say they need?

Join Chalkbeat Detroit, the Detroit Free Press, and Bridge Michigan on March 16, 4-5 p.m. ET, for a panel discussion on these important questions. Please RSVP for this event so we’re able to provide the webinar information and can hear your ideas for questions. This event is free to attend, but any optional donations will go to support Chalkbeat’s nonprofit journalism and events like these.

This event is the first in a four-part national Chalkbeat series titled COVID and Mental Health, which seeks to amplify efforts to better support the wellness of students and school staff during this challenging comeback year.

Caroline Bauman connects Chalkbeat journalists with our readers as the community engagement manager and previously reported at Chalkbeat Tennessee. Connect with Caroline at cbauman@chalkbeat.org.

With masks optional, NYC schools react with shrugs, enthusiasm, and sometimes fear

2022-03-07T22:36:37+00:00

With New York City’s mask mandate ending for most public school students on Monday, Matt Brownstein began his day shuttling to a handful of classrooms to help students think through some of the questions that might have been swirling in their minds.

If I take my mask off, am I at greater risk of getting sick or infecting a family member? Does keeping a face covering on make others feel pressured to do the same? Should people who are comfortable not wearing a mask put them on around people who are wearing them?

Brownstein, an assistant principal at P.S. 330 in Queens, where nearly a third of students are English language learners and nearly all come from low-income families, said he wanted to head off any confusion or conflict that might arise on the first day of the new policy. His approach was to be vulnerable and acknowledge that it wasn’t just children who might struggle to think the issue through.

“We shouldn’t be judging, we shouldn’t be mean, and we shouldn’t be acting out of fear — we should be acting out of kindness,” Brownstein said he told the students. “I’m genuinely trying to figure it out as well, so I’m modeling that earnest intention because I don’t necessarily know what the right thing is either.”

About 80% of students and staff at the school kept their masks on, Brownstein added. He decided to keep his mask on in classrooms and the cafeteria, but took it off in hallways and outside.

Across the city, educators, teachers, and students are just beginning to figure out thorny questions about how to navigate the policy change, especially as public health officials have repeatedly said that masks are an important layer of protection to interrupt transmission.

With the backing of the city’s teachers union, Mayor Eric Adams lifted the city’s mask mandate after it was no longer required by the state and shortly after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new criteria that suggested it is safe to shed masks in New York City schools.

Still, fresh off the omicron surge, which infected at least 150,000 students and staff since late December, some said the end of the mask mandate felt abrupt. Even though case numbers have plummeted, some students and staff said they were wary of peeling back protective measures, especially those with medical conditions that make them more vulnerable or who live with young children who aren’t eligible to be vaccinated. Others felt shedding face coverings gave them a new sense of freedom and connection, as many students had not ever seen each other’s full faces before.

Some schools took a strong position on what decision students should make. At Brooklyn Collaborative Studies, a 6-12 school, administrators wrote an email to families that said, “We strongly recommend that students and staff continue to wear masks in school to keep everyone safe.” They emphasized that KN95 masks are required for those who became infected with COVID, isolated for five days, and are returning to campus on days 6-10 after testing positive.

Many schools took a more neutral stance. For students who trickled in and out of the five schools tucked into the former Erasmus Hall High School in Flatbush, the end of the mask mandate mostly came without much drama. Several students there said the mandate had not been particularly controversial and some weren’t even aware it had ended.

Brian Bautista, a junior at STAR Early College High School, kept his mask on because he has a lengthy subway commute (where masks are still required) and the school’s hallways feel packed with students.

“I don’t want to infect anybody else in case I have it because I still spend an hour on the train,” Bautista said. He said he’s vaccinated and had COVID over winter break.

Yonathan Delosantos, who also attends STAR, decided to ditch his mask because he said it makes his ears feel itchy, and it’s harder to breathe through it.

“It doesn’t really matter to me because I’m fully vaccinated,” he said, noting that most students kept their masks on but no one seemed upset with his decision.

Rosealee Magloire, a senior at STAR Early College High School in Brooklyn, decided not to wear a mask in school on Monday.

About 68% of students at the school are fully vaccinated, higher than the rate among other 6-12 schools, which stands at 63%, according to city data analyzed by Chalkbeat. Some students said they were required to be vaccinated to attend in-person classes at Brooklyn College, which has a partnership with the school. Delosantos said he hopes the city initiates a vaccine mandate for students, something Adams has suggested he’s open to, especially as he said some students still show up to school even if they’re feeling sick.

Polling suggests that most New York City residents have not been clamoring to end the city’s mask mandate. A Siena College poll conducted in mid-February found that 64% of New York City respondents felt the city should wait for data from early March to make a decision about school mask mandates. Just 26% said the mandate should have already ended.

The debate about whether to remove masks is complicated by the fact that there is no definitive evidence about how important they are in keeping coronavirus transmission down in schools. There is evidence that surgical masks (and other high-quality options such as N95s) are effective at reducing the virus’ spread in other contexts and little reason to doubt that would apply to schools as well. Research on any harms connected to face coverings is also slim.

Ten-year-old Priya Lee said she wished the city hadn’t rescinded the mask mandate because she has a seizure disorder that her family worries could flare up if she is reinfected with COVID (she was infected for the first time in December and experienced mild symptoms).

Most of her friends at Manhattan’s P.S. 19 took their masks off, as did three of her four teachers today. That made her feel left out.

“It made me miss life before the pandemic before we all started wearing masks,” Priya said. “I wish they could have kept the mask mandate because if the kids wear their masks the COVID cases will still be low.”

Still, Priya was happy to see her classmates’ faces and noted that her teacher also moved students’ desks closer together as social distancing guidelines have also been relaxed. That made it easier for her to hear her classmates, a move she welcomed.

A renewed sense of connection was also in the air at Brooklyn Frontiers High School, said teacher Eric Wilson.

“We’ve been seeing lots of smiling faces. I think a lot of people are happy to have the choice and the option,” he said. “It’s sort of like first-day-of-school vibes again.”

Wilson said about 75% of students continued to wear masks and about 90% of staff did. He experimented with taking off his mask Monday, but kept it on in situations where his co-teacher was wearing a face covering or if most of the students around him had their masks on.

He is hopeful that the mask-optional policy helps persuade students at Brooklyn Frontiers to feel more connected to each other and the school, especially since the school serves students who are behind in credits and are at risk of dropping out. But when informed of his school’s vaccination rate by a reporter — 35% are fully vaccinated — he paused.

“That actually gives me something to think about,” he said.

Denver is spending some of its COVID relief money on tutoring

2022-03-05T00:27:55+00:00

To give students an academic boost after two years of pandemic schooling, Denver Public Schools is spending federal and state coronavirus relief money on high-dose tutoring — three times a week for at least 30 minutes — for students in both math and literacy.

“It’s a big investment and meant to support students with learning recovery,” said Brittany Miller, the district’s senior director of expanded academic learning.

But she added that “by no means is tutoring meant to be the next silver bullet for education. This is to supplement what happens with strong teachers delivering strong core instruction.”

Test score data shows Denver students have gaps in their learning. For instance, just 46% of Denver students in kindergarten through third grade were reading at grade level or above this fall, according to district test data presented to the school board in December. That’s down from 56% in fall 2020 and 53% in fall 2019, before the pandemic.

State test data from last spring showed a similar trend. In literacy, 36% of Denver students in grades three through eight scored at or above grade level, down from 43% in 2019. In math, 22% of students scored at or above grade level, down from 33% in 2019.

Tutoring is one way Denver Public Schools is spending $205 million in federal education relief funding over the next 2½ years to try to fill those gaps. The district also recently won a state tutoring grant through a program created by state lawmakers to address pandemic learning loss. The grant awards Denver $2 million this school year, with the potential for more next year, a Colorado Department of Education spokesperson said.

Denver’s approach focuses on grade-level tutoring, meaning fifth-graders get help with fifth-grade math instead of going back and reviewing third- or fourth-grade concepts. Grade-level tutoring is in line with Denver’s philosophy of accelerating learning.

“We want to make sure we’re focused on what kids are learning in the moment and not what we think they might have missed in the past,” Miller said.

Not all Denver schools or students are participating. Schools can opt in to the tutoring program, which began in October with middle and high school math. In January, the district added math tutoring for fourth and fifth graders. Thus far, 840 students at 16 schools are participating in math tutoring, Miller said. That’s out of 90,000 students districtwide.

The students were identified by their schools, with an emphasis on serving students of color, students from low-income families, students with disabilities, students learning English as a second language, and students adversely impacted by COVID, Miller said.

The math tutoring is conducted virtually with tutors from a California-based company called Cignition, with local teachers serving as proctors. Most schools are hosting it during the school day, though Miller said some are doing it before or after school if that works better for them.

In a few weeks, the district will begin offering literacy tutoring for students in kindergarten through third grade who need help learning to read. The literacy tutoring will happen in person with local tutors hired by a Virginia-based company called University Instructors. Thus far, 11 schools and 640 students have signed up, Miller said.

For the first time ever, the contracts between Denver Public Schools and the tutoring companies are outcomes-based. The district is paying the companies 60% of their fee up front and the remaining 40% if students make a certain amount of academic progress.

For the literacy tutoring contract, for example, students must make an average of a year’s worth of growth as measured by a reading test called iStation after 36 hours of tutoring.

The cost of the tutoring varies by contract and depends on the number of students served. For instance, the literacy contract will pay University Instructors up to $2,400 per student for as many as 500 students for a total potential cost of $1.2 million. The district’s goal is to serve 5,000 students over the next three years, through the 2023-24 school year, Miller said.

The district is also running a smaller, teacher-led tutoring program for elementary students. That program, which launched in October, pays Denver teachers to tutor students before or after school and provides them 30 minutes of paid planning time for every hour they tutor.

Teachers who served on a district design group last spring suggested the district contract with outside vendors for middle and high school tutoring, but keep elementary tutoring in house, Miller said. But with ongoing pandemic challenges, including staffing shortages caused by the omicron variant, fewer teachers signed up to tutor than the district was expecting. Because of that, the district decided to contract for the elementary tutoring as well, Miller said.

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Detroit teachers have been through a lot. I’m still standing.

2022-03-04T13:00:00+00:00

When the pandemic forced us out of school, my 11th graders had just finished visual analyses of “Requiem for the American Dream,” Noam Chomsky’s documentary on capitalism in America, and the widening gap between the rich and poor.

My 10th graders, meanwhile, were exploring themes from Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.” Their large poster drawings still lined the walls of my classroom when we returned in the fall to a short-lived stretch of uninterrupted in-person school. Some posters were peeling at the edges from the heat; some did not hold up and lay dusty, folded over on themselves on the floor. They were confirmation of the unalterable change the pandemic brought on and an omen of the difficulties my students, my district, and I would face.

Dorothea Williams-Arnold

When I began my career, Detroit Public Schools had been taken over by the state, which subsequently crippled the district so badly that teachers had to sacrifice salaries, autonomy, and pride. My beloved school district — underfunded, racially and economically segregated — was facing possible ruin. The reality made me all the more determined that there was no way I would leave college and head out to the more affluent suburbs or a less regulated charter school. The thought of leaving the Detroit district felt like selling out. It felt like running away.

I wanted to teach in this place where the ashes from past disinvestment and racial tension were still smoldering because Detroit Public Schools had nurtured me and because Black teachers had a tremendous impact on my desire to learn and my ability to thrive. I was poor, apprehensive, and traumatized by an abusive home environment, yet my teachers recognized my strengths and worth. They saw me. I was determined to have that kind of impact on young people in my community.

Detroit is where our shared history binds us together in common purpose and struggle. It is a place that offered my grandparents promise, but redlining, segregation, and overpriced and inadequate housing cost them their stability. Detroit is comfortable and familiar; it is also full of reminders of the lingering, complicated history that fueled the district takeover.

I was poor, apprehensive, and traumatized by an abusive home environment, yet my teachers recognized my strengths and my worth.

Working while the district was under state control meant teachers faced intense scrutiny. Our salaries were frozen, and we were forced to reapply for our jobs. Meanwhile, our infrastructure crumbled due to continued disinvestment. So when, after about 15 years of state control, the school district moved beyond the disastrous clutch of state control, it seemed as though our worst days were behind us.

Then the pandemic arrived, forcing me to sink or swim in a sea of deadly virus, isolation, and feelings of inadequacy. I would have to reinvent my approach to teaching and adjust my expectations — for my students and myself.

Frantz Fanon’s analysis of colonization and its effects that once gave me a sense of purpose felt useless in the new online space, where many of my students were reluctant to turn on their cameras. How could I teach to blank squares on a screen? How could I adequately serve my students outside of the classroom space? Theories of liberation would not help my students if they refused to engage with me.

During remote learning, I struggled to help them understand that their ill-equipped school district was not a result of anything they did wrong. Jonathan Kozol’s book “Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools” rang as true as it did some 30 years earlier. I saw many of my students and their families lacked necessities like stable housing, internet service, and food, and my school district struggled to accommodate them. Against this backdrop, being tasked with closing the educational gaps felt like a blow to the chest. Disinterested students broke my heart. My idea of who I was as an education professional was at risk.

It’s been nearly two years since the pandemic forced me out of my comfort zone, and in that space, I have learned to adjust the length of my reach. These days, I pay attention to the small things, like the cadence of my student’s voices, and celebrate small gains. I try harder to connect and adjust more often. But unfortunately, since our return to school, constant interruptions have left me unable to cover as much material.

A large student body — along with vaccine and testing resistance — means we’re still operating on a hybrid schedule with students learning in person just two or three days a week. I am still unable to adequately address the needs of my struggling students when they are learning from home; as a result, many of my 190 students will continue to fall behind.

Before the pandemic, I felt a sense of shame when my students did not perform at the level I thought they should. Now, I have accepted that some things are beyond my control.

Admittedly, I am now feeling the wear and tear of the past two years. This fatigue has left me more resistant to feelings of inadequacy and less apt to lose sleep over district-administered evaluations and exams that do not take into full consideration the constraints we must manage. I won’t beat myself up over falling short despite my best efforts. Instead, I allow myself to be more spontaneous and take breaks to chat with my students, to create art, write poetry and prose on themes of their choosing, or to collaborate on a class playlist. I give them time to socialize with each other when they are in person. They shouldn’t feel pressure to make up for two years of academic setbacks. It is not fair to them or us.

Though I am exhausted and frustrated by the ways poverty and inequitable funding impacts my students’ education, I will continue to show up. I will continue to help them move towards more significant academic gains through culturally relevant instruction that leaves room for them to enjoy the limited time they have in the physical classroom.

Reflecting on the past couple of years, I have realized that the forces of change do not always have to make sense; but I must be sensible in my handling of them. And because I am allowing myself grace, my resolve has strengthened; my students are learning to work through their challenges, which helps me feel effective and productive.

I now realize that over the past two years, I also have been fighting for myself, my identity as a teacher, my means of survival, my soul.

Dorothea Williams-Arnold teaches 10th and 11th grade English Language Arts at Cass Technical High School in Detroit. She is a 15-year veteran of public education and a senior fellow at the Pulse Institute, an anti-poverty think tank.

‘Nearing a collapse,’ Indiana needs more special educators

2022-03-03T22:42:53+00:00

When her colleague resigned unexpectedly over Christmas break, special education teacher Lisa Whitlow-Hill took 20 more students under her wing.

In addition to coordinating a college and career program for young adults with disabilities, Whitlow-Hill now had to identify goals and create service plans for preschoolers to eighth graders, too.

As schools throughout the state struggle to fill special education jobs, their task will likely grow ahead of a July expiration date for about 1,200 emergency teaching permits.

“Education is so important, but we’re struggling,” Whitlow-Hill said. “We’ve lost so many people.”

Indiana doesn’t keep track of how many special education teachers its schools lack or will need. But many districts face vacancies, which squeeze their budgets and leave them vulnerable to lawsuits for failing to provide services guaranteed by federal law.

To help fill the gap, the state and school districts have earmarked millions in federal dollars to train more special education teachers. One pathway will offer a bridge for teachers whose emergency permits are expiring, while another focuses on working paraprofessionals.

But the programs will take one to four years to yield classroom-ready teachers, leaving concerns that at the moment, schools simply can’t find enough people to hire.

What’s driving special education shortages

The number of working special education teachers in Indiana declined around 4% from 2014 to 2021, while the number of students in special education grew 12%, according to the Indiana Department of Education.

A state job bank lists over 150 open special education teaching positions, but more openings likely exist. Not all schools list vacancies in the bank, department spokesperson Holly Lawson said.

At the same time, fewer students enter and stay in traditional teaching programs, while the educator workforce is aging, said Carey Dahncke, who leads a University of Indianapolis education center. Only about 16% of undergraduate education majors go on to earn their teaching licenses, according to one study. And candidates who want to teach special education must also obtain an addition to their teaching license.

Previously, schools could fill vacancies with substitutes, said Angie Balsley, president of the Indiana Council of Administrators of Special Education.

But finding substitutes has been more challenging during the pandemic, as schools need to fill in for educators out because of COVID, Balsley said. She said the general demand for workers, low wages, and a negative public perception of teaching also discourage people from pursuing a career in education.

“We’re nearing a collapse on the current trajectory because of personnel shortages,” Balsley said.

What the shortage means

Balsley, who also serves as executive director of Earlywood, a special education services co-op in Franklin, said four of its 85 certified staff members resigned in December alone, placing a heavy burden on those who remain.

For students who qualify for special education, services are a right, she said.

“In a classroom, unlike a fast food chain, we don’t get to just close for the day,” Balsley said.

That’s what left teacher Whitlow-Hill to take over the documentation duties for special education at a small private school, while a paraprofessional leads the classroom under Whitlow-Hill’s direction.

COVID considerations like exposures, masking rules, and contact tracing weigh heavily on educators’ minds, Whitlow-Hill said. But those worries may be even more acute for special education aides who risk exposure to COVID in the classroom and may not receive a paycheck if they have to quarantine, she added.

This in turn makes it harder to hire aides.

“You’re kind of taking on hazardous circumstances,” she said. “It’s a different level of stress.”

Pandemic restrictions and risks also have eaten into the ranks of the cadre of specialists — speech and occupational therapists, as well as psychologists — vital to special education. They face heightened risks traveling from school to school and being in close contact with multiple students.

After Earlywood lost one of its school psychologists in a tragic accident, Ashley Landrum stepped in to cover two districts with the help of an intern, which leaves her responsible for dozens of special education evaluations and a growing number of behavior assessments of children struggling with the stresses of the pandemic.

Because federal rules set a strict timetable for evaluations, Landrum said she’s working longer days to get them done. She said schools struggle to hire contractors to do that work, because they’re in short supply, too.

“Timelines haven’t changed. Deadlines haven’t changed,” she said. “Two years into the pandemic, none of our expectations have changed.”

State tries to fill gaps

With about 1,200 educators set to lose emergency permits after this school year, the state will grant provisional teacher status to those who are seeking full licensure.

Those permits will allow them to remain in the classroom for three years while working toward their license, said Lawson of the state Department of Education. The state is underwriting the tuition and fees for their studies by tapping about $4 million in federal relief funds through 2024.

“We’re seeing strong engagement so far,” Lawson said. “This is a really great program that covers costs and streamlines the process.”

About 170 teacher candidates have enrolled in the state’s alternative permit program, known by its acronym I-SEAL.

Most will earn a special education certification in one to two years, depending on whether they have completed prior coursework, said Dahncke, executive director of the University of Indianapolis’ Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning, which coordinates the programs.

“The idea is to try to inject 300 new special education teachers in the field,” he said. “But we’re only scratching the surface.”

Among the I-SEAL candidates is Drue Yates, a special education resource teacher working on an emergency permit at Greater Clark County Schools.

After graduating with an education degree in May, Yates started as a permanent substitute at Parkwood Elementary then quickly became a resource teacher. Instead of running a large classroom, Yates works all day with small groups of students on academic and behavior skills.

“Given the opportunity and how much I’ve fallen in love with the job I do, I decided it would be best if I tried it,” Yates said.

“Within the first month, I knew this was what I wanted to do,” he said.

Teaching is a challenging field, Dahncke said, and special education comes with amplified challenges, including the pressure to meet each child’s individual needs.

Districts want more people like Yates.

“We’re looking for someone who, this is the type of work they want to do,” Dahncke said. “It’s not helpful if a teacher gets into the field and turns around and leaves. We need people who are equipped to do this, who want to do this.”

Dahncke said the state may consider expanding licensing programs to those who don’t have bachelor’s degrees, through apprenticeships or pathways that offer both a bachelor’s degree and a teaching license.

Grow-your-own teachers

Bartholomew County Schools, partnering with St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, is doing just that.

It runs a pilot program with nine paraprofessionals who work in schools during the day, and take online classes in the evening in either secondary special education or elementary education with an add-on certification for special education.

The district is paying for tuition, books, and fees for students who commit to working for the district for two years after graduation, said Gina Pleak, the district’s assistant superintendent for human resources.

Pleak said the district started the program as a way to encourage more diversity in its teaching ranks — but the focus on special education is an added bonus. It costs around $12,000 per candidate per year, paid by COVID relief funds.

The aides take about four years to graduate, making the program a long-term investment.

“In education there is not a quick fix. If there is a quick fix, we’re probably sacrificing something,” Pleak said.

About 15% of the district’s special educators, or 17 people, are working on the emergency permits that are set to expire, Pleak said. Nearly all are on track to continue working in the classroom after the deadline.

Pleak said she hopes the state someday will allow greater flexibility for obtaining teaching licenses, by waiving some testing requirements if candidates have work experience, or offering tuition reimbursement if they enroll in an education program.

“They already see the day-to-day work, they feel connected, they have purpose,” Pleak said.

Alternative pathways to licensure are becoming more popular as school leaders recognize there are many barriers in traditional teacher prep programs.

“You have to quit your day job to student teach for 12 weeks. That’s unaffordable,” said Lucy Fischman, an independent education consultant who designed the Bartholomew program.

Teachers on emergency permits also may not be able to afford to complete their full license, Fischman said. And until the federal government said it would cease recognizing their licenses, they assumed they could simply renew their permits annually.

Fischman wants the state to commit to funding the programs after emergency federal dollars expire in 2024.

“There’s nothing more joyful than working with kids. … The variety you get each day is something you can’t find anywhere else,” Fischman said. “The camaraderie you see among special education teachers is unmatched.”

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

5 things to know about Memphis-Shelby County Schools’ decision to make masks optional

2022-03-03T15:13:26+00:00

The same day the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its school COVID guidelines, paving the way for many school districts to wind down mask mandates, Memphis-Shelby County Schools did so.

While Tennessee’s largest school district continues to strongly recommend masks in classrooms and school buildings, starting Monday, parents could opt their children out of wearing face coverings by filling out a school-provided form, administrators announced Friday.

After the first few days of the new, relaxed masking policy, less than 2 percent of students are going maskless in schools, according to the district. Yet some teachers are afraid of the potential consequences for their health. And the public’s reactions to the decision have varied significantly.

The new CDC guidance specifies that if new COVID cases and hospitalizations are low or moderate, and hospitals aren’t overburdened in the community, the mask requirements aren’t necessary.

Based on those metrics, Shelby County residents are among the estimated 70% of Americans who live in parts of the country where those metrics are now low or moderate, according to the CDC.

Nearly through the first week of no mask mandate in Memphis-Shelby County Schools, here’s what we know.

Few students have ditched masking … so far

As of Wednesday, just 1,408 students have opted out of masking, district officials said. That represents just 1.6% of the district’s roughly 100,000 students.

“Based on CDC guidance, options are appropriate at this time,” the district said in a statement. “Still, we acknowledge the science behind masking.”

Throughout the pandemic, Memphis-Shelby County Schools was one of the few in Tennessee to keep a mask mandate in place.

If Shelby County’s metrics change, the district may reinstate the mask requirement for all students and employees, officials emphasized on Friday.

Appropriate freedom or a ‘bad decision’? Social media reaction mixed.

The new policy, which also applies to teachers and other school staff, generated mixed reactions.

Some parents applauded the district’s decision, saying they should have the freedom to choose, or that many families are vaccinated and feel safe without school masking. They expressed excitement that their children would be able to see the facial expressions of their teachers and classmates.

Others criticized the move. One person on Facebook called the district’s shift a “bad decision” and added, “We are still in a pandemic!” Some worried about the district’s youngest students under age 5 who haven’t been able to get vaccinated yet.

And others expressed concern that it might make weary educators feel less safe. Many parents might be excited right now, but next week they’ll be complaining about teacher resignations and absences, one person said on Facebook.

Many remain unvaccinated in Shelby County

While Shelby County’s COVID levels have been low since the omicron variant surge subsided, many residents remain unvaccinated.

Just 52% of county residents were fully vaccinated as of Wednesday, the state health department reported.

And only about 20% of those ages 5-11 and 53% of 12- to 17-year-olds in Shelby County were vaccinated as of Wednesday, according to county health department data.

Some teachers are frightened, union leader says

Though relatively few parents have opted their children out of masking, some teachers are fearful — especially those who are immunocompromised.

“The pandemic is not gone and you’re in a classroom with 20 or more students,” said Anntriniece Napper, the president of the Memphis-Shelby County Education Association, one of two teachers unions in the district. “You can’t really spread the kids out when you’re in a closed environment like that.”

Asked how the district is helping keep teachers safe in the midst of the new mask policies, a spokesperson emphasized that the human resources team “has continued to address concerns of employees with extenuating circumstances,” but did not elaborate.

“It’s been very stressful,” Napper said of the environment for teachers. “You have to take care of yourself because if you don’t, you can’t take care of others. And that’s what we teachers do.”

Pediatrician: Keep wearing a mask if you’re worried

As the nation moves away from COVID shutdowns, the district’s decision to drop the mandate is a step in the right direction, said Dr. Sandy Arnold, the division chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis.

By now, Arnold said, most people have either been vaccinated or infected with COVID (or both), and Shelby County’s level of immunity is relatively high.

Still, teachers who have a pre-existing condition or live with someone who does should continue wearing a mask, Arnold said. The same goes for anyone still worried about the virus, she also said.

“It’s a new era and everybody’s going to have to figure out what they’re comfortable with,” Arnold said. “Only you can decide what’s OK for you.”

Samantha West is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, where she covers K-12 education in Memphis. Connect with Samantha at swest@chalkbeat.org.

How a hamburger emoji became a powerful teaching tool

2022-03-03T13:00:00+00:00

When COVID-19 hit, I was a fifth grade special educator teaching in a general classroom set up to support students with autism spectrum disorder. As is typical of children with autism, my students do really well with structure and knowing what to expect. When the pandemic arrived, my students had so many questions about what would come next — and we didn’t have the answers.

I remember sitting in “afternoon circle” with my students, asking them to share how they were feeling. They were scared about school closing. They were worried about not seeing their teachers and their friends. They were scared that members of their own families might die. This is heavy stuff for developing brains.

Christina Ramsay

As we shifted to remote learning, I did my best to incorporate as many in-person routines as I could into our virtual classroom to make it feel “normal” and positive. Yet despite our best efforts, things weren’t normal. I could tell some of our students struggled to connect, communicate, and come out of their shells.

One of my fifth grade students was learning several grade levels behind. Her family recently immigrated to America and did not speak English, so I used Google Translate and relied on another teacher in our school who spoke Russian to communicate with her.

This student wasn’t on the autism spectrum, but her family had recently immigrated to America, and she benefited from many of the same interventions as my other students. She was very quiet and shy, so I’d ask her if she understood the material, and I’d call her name to see if she had questions. Although we worked in small groups, she wouldn’t tell my co-teacher and me if she didn’t understand something.

I texted my co-teacher: ‘There’s a hamburger in the chat; I’m going to a breakout room.’

She stayed on her computer during lunch, and I began to build a relationship with her. Eventually, she told me, “I like learning in school better than I like learning online.” I asked her what was different about being in school versus online, what she liked about in-school learning, and what was hard about being online.

She said, “When I’m in school, the teacher walks around the room, and she can see what I’m working on. She can whisper suggestions to me, but you can’t do that online.”

I thought, “Maybe we can.” I told her we should brainstorm on a solution. We settled on choosing an emoji she could enter into our class chat. Only she and I knew what the emoji meant.

“It’s kind of like you whispering to me that you need help,” I told her. “When I see your emoji, we can go into a breakout room, and it’s just you and me. We can work together.”

The hamburger emoji strategy was born.

When she entered the hamburger emoji in the chat, I texted my co-teacher: “There’s a hamburger in the chat; I’m going to a breakout room.”

Because I was using Pear Deck, a presentation tool that engages students in individual and social learning, I could also privately view her activity on the interactive slides. I could see if she had (or hadn’t) started to answer a question. And she could use the tool to ask for help discreetly when she was stuck. By the end of the school year, she was my student who’d improved the most. She started the year below second-grade level, and she was achieving at a fourth-grade level by June.

To celebrate at the end of the year, I invited her into a breakout room and told her how proud we were of her work. She had the biggest smile on her face. Something as simple as a hamburger emoji made all the difference for her — not just for her grades but also for her confidence and sense of belonging.

Many students worry that their peers will overhear them asking for help. They worry about being judged. That’s where technology can come in — allowing students to connect with their teachers in private, judgment-free ways. This continues to be true in person; we now use Chromebooks and iPads in our physical classroom to inspire and elevate quieter voices. The lesson of the hamburger emoji will be with me for many years to come as I seek to create a more equitable learning environment for all of my students.

Christina Ramsay is currently a third grade special education teacher in New York City. She is passionate about teaching and social justice, and seeks to empower her students as well as to help them discover their strengths and talents.

Biden urges Americans to consider tutoring, mentoring in schools

2022-03-02T03:07:24+00:00

President Joe Biden has a message to Americans: Consider becoming a tutor or serving as a mentor at your local school.

“The American Rescue Plan gave schools money to hire teachers and help students make up for lost learning,” Biden said during the State of the Union address Tuesday. “I urge every parent to make sure your school does just that. They have the money. We can all play a part: sign up to be a tutor or a mentor.”

The President beseeching citizens to pitch in at schools is an unusual move, but reflects the tumult of the last few years, as the pandemic drove school staffing shortages and students fell behind academically. Children’s “lives and education have been turned upside down,” Biden said.

A number of states and school districts have been working to staff big new tutoring programs meant to help students catch up, paid for with federal COVID relief. At the start of this school year, Oklahoma was searching for 500 math tutors; Chicago was recruiting 850 math and reading tutors; and Dallas was looking for 1,800 tutors. Many planned to have recruits go through significant training, and a national labor shortage has contributed to hiring difficulties, making it unclear if many Americans will respond to Biden’s call or if schools will be equipped to take advantage of them.

There’s a solid evidence base to support expanding tutoring and mentoring efforts. Frequent, small-group tutoring has produced large learning gains, and mentoring in schools has been linked to better grades and an increased likelihood of attending college.

Schools have also struggled to stand up tutoring programs that rely on existing educators, many of whom are exhausted by pandemic-era teaching. In New York City, some schools had planned to use COVID relief money to pay teachers to tutor on Saturdays or after school, but haven’t been able to keep those programs fully staffed.

Still, a recent survey found that less than a third of district superintendents said they had a shortage of tutors. The most acute shortage areas were substitute teachers and bus drivers. In response, several states have recently loosened requirements for substitute teachers, while others are considering changing rules to encourage retirees to return to classrooms.

Detroit schools could lift mask mandate after spring break

2022-03-01T00:26:15+00:00

The Detroit school district could lift its mask mandate sometime after its weeklong spring break ends April 3, provided the pandemic doesn’t surge after break and all students learning indoors are being tested weekly.

“We plan to consider the removal of the mask requirement between mid-March and mid-April,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti told Chalkbeat Monday.

Detroit’s move would come well after many school districts in Michigan have already lifted their mask mandates. At the beginning of the school year, a majority of students were attending schools that required them to wear masks.

After an omicron-fueled surge of COVID cases in January caused schools to close campuses, Detroit’s case rates, hospitalizations, and deaths from COVID have steadily decreased. Last week, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines that said schools should mandate masks only when COVID cases and hospitalizations are categorized as high. Currently, Wayne County falls in the“medium” tier of case rates that the CDC does not recommend for mask mandates.

But in Detroit, even though case rates have declined, the district has other considerations.

“We currently agree with the Detroit Health Department that due to the city’s lower vaccination rates our mask removal date will be later than other districts’,” Vitti said.

Currently, about 48% of city residents have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine, compared with 66% statewide.

Two factors will help the district determine if it makes sense to lift its mask requirement. One has to do with student testing. On Jan. 31, a new rule went into place requiring students to be tested weekly for COVID, with their parents’ consent. The district will move students who lack parental consent for testing to the district’s virtual school. That move hasn’t happened yet.

“We are reaching nearly 100% of students consenting to COVID testing and when that occurs, and non-consenting students are transferred to the virtual school, we will be in a better position to allow for optional mask wearing for employees and students,” Vitti said.

The district will also be looking closely at what happens after spring break, which lasts from March 28 to April 3.

“We also want to ensure that the city does not experience another surge after spring break,” Vitti said in a statement. “It would be difficult to remove the mask requirement and then enforce it once again if a surge occurs near spring break when staff and students are not in school. Once those two obstacles are cleared we would consider lifting the mask requirement.”

The district’s letter of agreement with the Detroit Federation of Teachers, which established mutual guidelines for the reopening of school buildings for the current school year, says the district will “abide with the most current legally required” orders, recommendations, and guidelines from the CDC and the state health department.

NYC schools received a windfall in relief dollars. Some are struggling to spend it.

2022-02-28T18:43:34+00:00

The promise of more than $7 billion in federal COVID relief funding for New York City schools inspired some families and educators to imagine big changes in this year’s classrooms.

And while hundreds of millions of dollars have been distributed directly to schools to create extra tutoring, professional development, and more arts programming, some schools have struggled to spend the money.

There are varied reasons why some of this funding remains unused. Tutoring and enrichment programs require finding staff to work extra hours in a moment when educators feel overworked. Some parents and students have been slow to sign up for programs held after school or on weekends. In other cases, schools that already receive grants for arts programming are finding it difficult to spend even more money on the arts.

The result could mean schools leave money on the table. Any unspent funds “will not be rolled into next year,” according to a spokesperson for the city’s education department. City officials will review how unused dollars can be spent after this year, but a spokesperson declined to elaborate.

This could put principals in a tricky position, balancing burned out staff with the need to help students.

“People are tired, and it’s difficult to find people at this point that are willing to trade whatever little precious time they have — with families and at home — for money,” said Mark Cannizzaro, president of the principals union.

New York’s experience spending the cash seems to mirror national trends. Schools across the country have had trouble convincing existing staff to take on additional responsibilities, even for extra pay, following several stressful years.

Direct relief to schools

Much of the city’s COVID relief dollars will be spent centrally for school building operations, expanding pre-K for 3-year-olds, and other district-wide initiatives. But hundreds of millions have been sent directly to schools. In one pot, $350 million is slated for academic, arts, and social-emotional support for their students. Each school received between $75,000 to $600,000, based on enrollment and their share of high-needs students. One-fifth of these dollars must be used for arts programming.

The potential uses for the money are broad. Schools are required to use some portion for professional development and planning time for staff overseeing literacy instruction as well as for providing extra support to students learning English as a new language.

In addition to those requirements, schools can use the money to pay teachers overtime for overseeing enrichment programs, to buy supplies for enrichment programs, and to hire outside organizations to oversee extra support for students. And some can also be used to bolster academic recovery programs for students with disabilities, on top of $158 million schools received this fall to help those children, according to education department budget documents.

Schools cannot use their portion of the $350 million to hire full-time staff since it is temporary funding, but principals can spend it on part-time staff in certain areas, such as for art classes. (Officials have urged schools to use funding increases outside of COVID relief to hire more staff if they need.)

It’s unclear how much money city schools have spent. A department spokesperson said it is “too soon” in the school year to provide spending data.

But Cannizzaro, with the principals union, said a “high percentage” of schools have struggled to earmark all of their relief dollars, and he hopes the city will provide more flexibility. “A lot of schools feel they’re gonna end up giving money back,” he said.

Teacher burnout, student turnout

One Manhattan principal has been unable to get more than three teachers to sign up for a new Saturday tutoring program that offers English and math instruction as well as STEM-related activities. At the same time, student turnout has been low. Originally for students with disabilities, the program is now open to any students who need extra help. Separately, the principal used some of the arts funding to hire a vendor who could teach tap dancing.

“We’re not servicing as many kids as we would have liked,” said the principal, who requested anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the press. “If I can’t spend it all before the deadline, what can I do?”

Recognizing her teachers are burned out, one Bronx principal used some of the COVID relief money to create what she thought to be a low-lift for her staff: a program to tutor elementary students for one-and-a-half hours daily after school. The program serves students with disabilities, English learners, and children who are struggling with reading and math. But getting teachers on board has still been “absolutely insane.” She convinced five teachers to rotate shifts, but one of them quit several months in, she said.

The principal said she understands it’s been a hard year — as tough as a first year for many teachers — but still felt disappointed.

“They would just have to stay one hour with their kids and [I was] trying to make it as cush as possible, and they’re like, ‘Uhh I kinda can’t,’’ she said.

One Brooklyn principal used his portion of the dollars to partially cover the salary of one of the school’s teaching coaches, who work with early career teachers — one of the allowed expenses. But he said he’s struggled to spend the pot of money dedicated specifically for extra services for students with disabilities, which only became available to schools nearly two months after school started. Eight teachers have offered to work before or after school for about an hour with roughly 20 students with disabilities. But because of limited staffing, the school is offering the program in cycles over the course of the year and has about 40 students on a waitlist.

“We probably need 40 hours a week of people working,” said the principal, adding that he can’t provide the speech and occupational therapy parents are asking for.

To be sure, some schools have torn through the dollars. As of October, Bronx High School of Business had spending plans for 93% of its $172,000 slated for general academic recovery services, said Robert Effinger, a history teacher at the school who also sits on the School Leadership Team. But the school had only used about 11% of its dedicated arts funding, he said.

Effinger said he’s noticed many more “per session opportunities,” or ways teachers can earn extra money, he said. The largest of these opportunities is to help oversee extra support for students with disabilities, while another is tutoring and grading students who are trying to make up a course they didn’t complete last year, which he’s helping with. But he also noticed that none of his colleagues were rushing to sign up for a Saturday program the administration tried to launch about a month after the school year started. That program did not come to fruition, he said.

Despite the challenges of spending all her money, the Bronx principal thinks it might get easier as the year wears on. She’s noticed teachers becoming more open to considering overtime opportunities. She said she will find “creative” ways to spend the money, such as on more programming during the school day but she’s not sure about other principals.

“On my end, it will be spent, but I know I have colleagues who will not,” she said.

Inside Colorado’s kindergarten enrollment rebound: Simple numbers, complicated stories

2022-02-28T11:00:00+00:00

When Colorado’s kindergarten enrollment plummeted during the first year of the pandemic, people wondered: Where did the kids go and will they come back?

A year later, many young students have returned to public schools. The rebound hasn’t restored statewide kindergarten enrollment to pre-pandemic levels, but the trend line is positive. At the same time, first-grade enrollment continues to decline — partly because more families opted for kindergarten even if their children were age-eligible for first grade.

That dynamic is among several factors — from Colorado’s steadily declining birth rate to the launch of free full-day kindergarten in 2019 — that explain recent shifts in early elementary enrollment and provide a clearer picture of the state’s post-pandemic trajectory. Buried in the enrollment numbers are also deeply personal stories about parents and educators trying to figure out where young students belong and what they need after a disjointed or missing year of school.

Patricia Shirah, who lives with her daughter and her grandson Lucas just outside the Colorado Springs city limits, is still trying to find the right answer. In 2020 when Lucas should have started kindergarten, Shirah cared for him while his mother worked as a medical assistant. The house had no internet access and Shirah didn’t know where to start with remote learning, so they skipped it.

Last fall, Lucas started kindergarten, but after about a week moved up to first grade. He’s tall for his age, and his mother and Shirah wondered about the best fit.

“He’s a big boy. He needs to go with his age group,” Shirah recalled thinking. “I just thought, he’ll learn. He’ll pick it up.”

But now Lucas, who will turn 7 in a week, is floundering and may have to repeat first grade. Shirah is awash in questions. Does her grandson have dyslexia? Attention deficit disorder? Is he destined to struggle in school as his mother and aunts did?

“I wish I had never said anything,” Shirah said.

Enrollment roller-coaster

While kindergarten is not mandatory in Colorado, the vast majority of 5-year-olds typically attend. Last year, which began with remote learning in many schools, kindergarten enrollment dropped by 9% statewide. First grade enrollment also dipped, but not nearly as much.

There were a few outliers. For example, the suburban Mapleton district north of Denver, known for attracting out-of-district students, saw increases in kindergarten and first-grade enrollment last year and this year.

In addition, early elementary enrollment in 30 schools under the auspices of the Charter School Institute, a statewide authorizing body, grew significantly during the pandemic. Collectively, the schools — three of which were new last year — added more than 400 kindergartners and more than 300 first graders during the past two years, amounting to double-digit growth rates in both grades.

Terry Croy Lewis, the institute’s executive director, believes one of the reasons enrollment grew is because charter school leaders could react nimbly during the pandemic.

“Our schools are really serving small communities and they try as hard as they can to be responsive. … They have the ability and the agility to do that,” she said. “They’re not part of a bigger system that’s a little bit harder to maneuver.”

Overall, about 60% of districts gained kindergartners since last year. Many of those that didn’t are small rural districts where year-to-year fluctuations come down to just a few students in each grade.

Home schooling and redshirting

It’s impossible to account for every kindergartner missing from public school rolls last year, but it’s clear a sizable faction opted for alternative arrangements — home schooling, another year of preschool, or time at home with relatives.

Data from the state education department shows the number of home-schooled students at least doubled in every elementary grade last year and more than tripled in kindergarten — to nearly 1,500 children. The numbers have fallen off significantly this year, but there are still more home-schoolers than there were pre-pandemic.

Other families didn’t officially home-school, but elected to hold their children out of kindergarten last year — a practice often referred to as redshirting. Data from a sample of Colorado districts shows larger-than-usual contingents of kindergartners who are age-eligible for first grade this year.

Compared with two years ago, 60 more kindergartners are eligible for first grade in both the Adams 12 and the Greeley-Evans districts this year. There are 50 more in Colorado Springs 11, 40 more in Boulder Valley, and 25 more in Pueblo 60.

In four of the six districts, the same number or fewer kindergartners are repeating the grade this year than did two years ago. In both Greeley-Evans and Boulder Valley, about 15 more kindergartners are repeating the grade this year compared with 2019-20.

In Greeley-Evans, a 22,000-student district in northern Colorado, this year’s additional kindergartners helped push kindergarten enrollment above pre-pandemic levels, but also contributed to a 4% drop in the first-grade population.

District Spokeswoman Theresa Myers said of the larger kindergarten cohort, “It’ll just be a bubble of students who go through our system.”

Although the first-grade cohort could remain small, relatively speaking, district demographers are predicting overall enrollment growth in the coming years — “a good problem to have,” Myers said. In addition, the district is using federal COVID stimulus money to pay seven attendance advocates charged with tracking down students who went missing last year.

On the ground

Dozens more kindergartners may be eligible for first grade in many Colorado school districts this year, but the numbers are small at the classroom level.

Colorado District 11 has 190 such students this year, and Annie Pelt, a kindergarten teacher at Adams Elementary, has two of them among her 17 students. Six-year-old Lucas was also in her class before he moved up to first grade.

Pelt said kindergarten is a critical stepping stone, where children get lots of hands-on activities and learn basics like tracking words from left to right in a book and blending letter sounds. Having students who are a year older than other students, and often more socially sophisticated, can be a plus — providing classmates with a good role model.

But the phenomenon cuts both ways. Pelt also has seen first-grade-eligible kindergartners who misbehave a bit more, sparking copy-cat behavior from other students.

Nine miles away in Virginia Stewart’s kindergarten classroom at Scott Elementary, three of her 24 students are eligible for first grade. Two, including one who moved to Colorado from another state, are repeating kindergarten because of parent preference, and one stayed in preschool last year instead of enrolling in kindergarten.

Stewart was anxious at the beginning of the school year, wondering where her students would be after such an abnormal year, but she’s been pleasantly surprised. The only major difference she’s seen in this class is weaker-than-usual oral language skills. Early on, it wasn’t just a vocabulary issue, but understanding how to have a back-and-forth conversation. She’d sometimes see one student ask a question, only to be completely ignored by classmates.

Enrollment anomalies

While many Colorado districts have seen partial recoveries in kindergarten enrollment and continued losses in first grade, some have experienced different — even counterintuitive — trends.

For example, the Cheyenne Mountain district in El Paso County, lost 40% of its kindergarten and first-grade students this year compared with 2019, but not because of the pandemic. The drops occurred because a large charter school the district had authorized for years switched its authorizer to the Harrison district last summer.

The administrative move also drastically changed Harrison’s enrollment picture, pumping up enrollment with double-digit growth rates after three years of decline.

In Mesa County Valley District 51, kindergarten enrollment declined and first grade enrollment edged up this year compared with two years ago. A district spokeswoman said a recent change to the kindergarten eligibility window played a role in the shift.

Starting with the 2020-21 school year, the district moved the deadline by which kindergartners must turn 5 from July 15 to Aug. 31, expanding the usual 12-month span for kindergarten entry to 13.5 months for one year. That change plumped up last year’s kindergarten numbers — and this year’s first-grade numbers — but now the 12-month window applies again.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

District	Grade	2019	2020	2021	% Change '19 to '21
Academy 20	First Grade	1745	1736	1745	0.0%
Academy 20	Kindergarten	1831	1644	1743	-4.8%
Adams 12 Five Star Schools	First Grade	2685	2480	2352	-12.4%
Adams 12 Five Star Schools	Kindergarten	2534	2182	2415	-4.7%
Adams County 14	First Grade	387	389	395	2.1%
Adams County 14	Kindergarten	384	370	398	3.7%
Adams-Arapahoe 28J	First Grade	2917	2834	2824	-3.2%
Adams-Arapahoe 28J	Kindergarten	2965	2544	2875	-3.0%
Agate 300	First Grade	7	3	5	-28.6%
Agate 300	Kindergarten	3	6	6	100.0%
Aguilar Reorganized 6	First Grade	10	4	9	-10.0%
Aguilar Reorganized 6	Kindergarten	12	10	8	-33.3%
Akron R-1	First Grade	25	34	29	16.0%
Akron R-1	Kindergarten	36	31	43	19.4%
Alamosa RE-11J	First Grade	168	183	143	-14.9%
Alamosa RE-11J	Kindergarten	190	145	151	-20.5%
Archuleta County 50 Jt	First Grade	136	123	112	-17.7%
Archuleta County 50 Jt	Kindergarten	127	97	115	-9.5%
Arickaree R-2	First Grade	6	9	11	83.3%
Arickaree R-2	Kindergarten	7	13	8	14.3%
Arriba-Flagler C-20	First Grade	12	8	4	-66.7%
Arriba-Flagler C-20	Kindergarten	7	6	7	0.0%
Aspen 1	First Grade	94	105	107	13.8%
Aspen 1	Kindergarten	101	94	101	0.0%
Ault-Highland RE-9	First Grade	60	71	54	-10.0%
Ault-Highland RE-9	Kindergarten	67	43	90	34.3%
Bayfield 10 Jt-R	First Grade	106	93	99	-6.6%
Bayfield 10 Jt-R	Kindergarten	98	98	92	-6.1%
Bennett 29J	First Grade	67	84	87	29.9%
Bennett 29J	Kindergarten	74	79	85	14.9%
Bethune R-5	First Grade	4	10	3	-25.0%
Bethune R-5	Kindergarten	12	4	3	-75.0%
Big Sandy 100J	First Grade	14	24	19	35.7%
Big Sandy 100J	Kindergarten	28	19	14	-50.0%
Boulder Valley Re 2	First Grade	1969	1840	1758	-10.7%
Boulder Valley Re 2	Kindergarten	1894	1529	1736	-8.3%
Branson Reorganized 82	First Grade	19	33	24	26.3%
Branson Reorganized 82	Kindergarten	19	31	26	36.8%
Briggsdale RE-10	First Grade	13	12	12	-7.7%
Briggsdale RE-10	Kindergarten	15	11	14	-6.7%
Brush RE-2(J)	First Grade	111	90	98	-11.7%
Brush RE-2(J)	Kindergarten	96	87	103	7.3%
Buena Vista R-31	First Grade	71	71	74	4.2%
Buena Vista R-31	Kindergarten	73	67	64	-12.3%
Buffalo RE-4J	First Grade	22	22	22	0.0%
Buffalo RE-4J	Kindergarten	22	22	21	-4.6%
Burlington RE-6J	First Grade	64	48	54	-15.6%
Burlington RE-6J	Kindergarten	49	52	53	8.2%
Byers 32J	First Grade	84	197	158	88.1%
Byers 32J	Kindergarten	65	206	172	164.6%
Calhan RJ-1	First Grade	24	33	36	50.0%
Calhan RJ-1	Kindergarten	30	35	26	-13.3%
Campo RE-6	First Grade	3	7	4	33.3%
Campo RE-6	Kindergarten	4	2	2	-50.0%
Canon City RE-1	First Grade	247	262	252	2.0%
Canon City RE-1	Kindergarten	268	248	249	-7.1%
Centennial R-1	First Grade	12	10	11	-8.3%
Centennial R-1	Kindergarten	6	14	14	133.3%
Center 26 JT	First Grade	36	37	38	5.6%
Center 26 JT	Kindergarten	43	44	49	14.0%
Charter School Institute	First Grade	1450	1655	1775	22.4%
Charter School Institute	Kindergarten	1423	1686	1846	29.7%
Cheraw 31	First Grade	18	9	17	-5.6%
Cheraw 31	Kindergarten	10	16	17	70.0%
Cherry Creek 5	First Grade	3899	3470	3521	-9.7%
Cherry Creek 5	Kindergarten	3581	3330	3292	-8.1%
Cheyenne County Re-5	First Grade	15	17	17	13.3%
Cheyenne County Re-5	Kindergarten	20	14	9	-55.0%
Cheyenne Mountain 12	First Grade	386	380	224	-42.0%
Cheyenne Mountain 12	Kindergarten	402	380	240	-40.3%
Clear Creek RE-1	First Grade	53	42	38	-28.3%
Clear Creek RE-1	Kindergarten	44	39	51	15.9%
Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind	First Grade	8	4	7	-12.5%
Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind	Kindergarten	6	8	5	-16.7%
Colorado Springs 11	First Grade	2016	1758	1582	-21.5%
Colorado Springs 11	Kindergarten	2096	1557	1815	-13.4%
Cotopaxi RE-3	First Grade	14	17	11	-21.4%
Cotopaxi RE-3	Kindergarten	19	15	11	-42.1%
Creede School District	First Grade	12	4	6	-50.0%
Creede School District	Kindergarten	5	7	9	80.0%
Cripple Creek-Victor RE-1	First Grade	31	22	20	-35.5%
Cripple Creek-Victor RE-1	Kindergarten	27	25	24	-11.1%
Crowley County RE-1-J	First Grade	32	31	13	-59.4%
Crowley County RE-1-J	Kindergarten	26	14	32	23.1%
Custer County School District C-1	First Grade	25	27	17	-32.0%
Custer County School District C-1	Kindergarten	27	16	22	-18.5%
De Beque 49JT	First Grade	15	13	16	6.7%
De Beque 49JT	Kindergarten	14	19	6	-57.1%
Deer Trail 26J	First Grade	24	20	20	-16.7%
Deer Trail 26J	Kindergarten	18	16	34	88.9%
DEL NORTE C-7	First Grade	24	30	23	-4.2%
DEL NORTE C-7	Kindergarten	35	29	32	-8.6%
Delta County 50(J)	First Grade	339	343	280	-17.4%
Delta County 50(J)	Kindergarten	348	266	309	-11.2%
Denver County 1	First Grade	6754	6515	6412	-5.1%
Denver County 1	Kindergarten	6820	6261	6414	-6.0%
District 49	First Grade	1455	1449	1493	2.6%
District 49	Kindergarten	1455	1387	1553	6.7%
Dolores County RE No.2	First Grade	20	14	18	-10.0%
Dolores County RE No.2	Kindergarten	15	14	18	20.0%
Dolores RE-4A	First Grade	53	49	47	-11.3%
Dolores RE-4A	Kindergarten	43	43	38	-11.6%
Douglas County Re 1	First Grade	4665	4289	4272	-8.4%
Douglas County Re 1	Kindergarten	4651	4016	4252	-8.6%
Durango 9-R	First Grade	369	542	449	21.7%
Durango 9-R	Kindergarten	410	530	372	-9.3%
Eads RE-1	First Grade	12	20	17	41.7%
Eads RE-1	Kindergarten	18	18	25	38.9%
Eagle County RE 50	First Grade	398	438	426	7.0%
Eagle County RE 50	Kindergarten	443	405	453	2.3%
East Grand 2	First Grade	101	68	84	-16.8%
East Grand 2	Kindergarten	76	74	90	18.4%
East Otero R-1	First Grade	108	103	92	-14.8%
East Otero R-1	Kindergarten	108	96	104	-3.7%
Eaton RE-2	First Grade	153	146	167	9.2%
Eaton RE-2	Kindergarten	163	155	146	-10.4%
Edison 54 JT	First Grade	8	7	2	-75.0%
Edison 54 JT	Kindergarten	7	3	8	14.3%
Education reEnvisioned BOCES	First Grade	106	374	284	167.9%
Education reEnvisioned BOCES	Kindergarten	118	385	288	144.1%
Elbert 200	First Grade	16	20	15	-6.3%
Elbert 200	Kindergarten	16	15	15	-6.3%
Elizabeth School District	First Grade	154	139	158	2.6%
Elizabeth School District	Kindergarten	152	141	186	22.4%
Ellicott 22	First Grade	80	75	76	-5.0%
Ellicott 22	Kindergarten	87	80	85	-2.3%
Englewood 1	First Grade	164	180	158	-3.7%
Englewood 1	Kindergarten	190	158	186	-2.1%
Estes Park R-3	First Grade	70	82	62	-11.4%
Estes Park R-3	Kindergarten	85	59	77	-9.4%
Expeditionary BOCES	First Grade	26	27	26	0.0%
Expeditionary BOCES	Kindergarten	26	26	25	-3.9%
Fort Morgan Re-3	First Grade	232	276	244	5.2%
Fort Morgan Re-3	Kindergarten	262	225	250	-4.6%
Fountain 8	First Grade	782	746	692	-11.5%
Fountain 8	Kindergarten	818	740	720	-12.0%
Fowler R-4J	First Grade	26	27	23	-11.5%
Fowler R-4J	Kindergarten	17	23	28	64.7%
Fremont RE-2	First Grade	84	102	112	33.3%
Fremont RE-2	Kindergarten	108	123	114	5.6%
Frenchman RE-3	First Grade	16	13	19	18.8%
Frenchman RE-3	Kindergarten	14	13	18	28.6%
Garfield 16	First Grade	111	100	89	-19.8%
Garfield 16	Kindergarten	108	78	90	-16.7%
Garfield Re-2	First Grade	332	313	322	-3.0%
Garfield Re-2	Kindergarten	330	293	352	6.7%
Genoa-Hugo C113	First Grade	17	13	26	52.9%
Genoa-Hugo C113	Kindergarten	12	27	13	8.3%
Gilpin County RE-1	First Grade	34	31	27	-20.6%
Gilpin County RE-1	Kindergarten	36	26	33	-8.3%
Granada RE-1	First Grade	11	8	11	0.0%
Granada RE-1	Kindergarten	9	13	17	88.9%
Greeley 6	First Grade	1724	1731	1652	-4.2%
Greeley 6	Kindergarten	1808	1675	1854	2.5%
Gunnison Watershed RE1J	First Grade	133	150	141	6.0%
Gunnison Watershed RE1J	Kindergarten	143	134	155	8.4%
Hanover 28	First Grade	13	19	17	30.8%
Hanover 28	Kindergarten	16	16	19	18.8%
Harrison 2	First Grade	949	973	1065	12.2%
Harrison 2	Kindergarten	954	851	1117	17.1%
Haxtun RE-2J	First Grade	24	23	13	-45.8%
Haxtun RE-2J	Kindergarten	23	11	25	8.7%
Hayden RE-1	First Grade	34	30	35	2.9%
Hayden RE-1	Kindergarten	39	33	37	-5.1%
Hi-Plains R-23	First Grade	5	6	16	220.0%
Hi-Plains R-23	Kindergarten	5	17	6	20.0%
Hinsdale County RE 1	First Grade	5	4	3	-40.0%
Hinsdale County RE 1	Kindergarten	7	3	5	-28.6%
Hoehne Reorganized 3	First Grade	29	17	21	-27.6%
Hoehne Reorganized 3	Kindergarten	25	23	12	-52.0%
Holly RE-3	First Grade	20	20	16	-20.0%
Holly RE-3	Kindergarten	22	20	16	-27.3%
Holyoke Re-1J	First Grade	35	54	40	14.3%
Holyoke Re-1J	Kindergarten	57	41	49	-14.0%
Huerfano Re-1	First Grade	34	45	37	8.8%
Huerfano Re-1	Kindergarten	41	41	40	-2.4%
Idalia RJ-3	First Grade	11	5	9	-18.2%
Idalia RJ-3	Kindergarten	4	10	13	225.0%
Ignacio 11 JT	First Grade	52	57	39	-25.0%
Ignacio 11 JT	Kindergarten	65	39	45	-30.8%
Jefferson County R-1	First Grade	5878	5725	5308	-9.7%
Jefferson County R-1	Kindergarten	6036	5254	5575	-7.6%
Johnstown-Milliken RE-5J	First Grade	303	300	262	-13.5%
Johnstown-Milliken RE-5J	Kindergarten	310	260	269	-13.2%
Julesburg Re-1	First Grade	23	14	14	-39.1%
Julesburg Re-1	Kindergarten	16	13	10	-37.5%
Karval RE-23	First Grade	1	4	2	100.0%
Karval RE-23	Kindergarten	4	3	3	-25.0%
Kim Reorganized 88	First Grade	2	0	1	-50.0%
Kim Reorganized 88	Kindergarten	0	2	2	#DIV/0!
Kiowa C-2	First Grade	17	15	22	29.4%
Kiowa C-2	Kindergarten	15	20	27	80.0%
Kit Carson R-1	First Grade	10	6	6	-40.0%
Kit Carson R-1	Kindergarten	5	6	5	0.0%
La Veta Re-2	First Grade	17	12	9	-47.1%
La Veta Re-2	Kindergarten	12	10	13	8.3%
Lake County R-1	First Grade	74	62	78	5.4%
Lake County R-1	Kindergarten	77	74	77	0.0%
Lamar Re-2	First Grade	117	94	108	-7.7%
Lamar Re-2	Kindergarten	97	102	132	36.1%
Las Animas RE-1	First Grade	29	34	27	-6.9%
Las Animas RE-1	Kindergarten	35	25	36	2.9%
Lewis-Palmer 38	First Grade	373	336	379	1.6%
Lewis-Palmer 38	Kindergarten	351	349	379	8.0%
Liberty J-4	First Grade	5	7	4	-20.0%
Liberty J-4	Kindergarten	8	5	3	-62.5%
Limon RE-4J	First Grade	33	26	39	18.2%
Limon RE-4J	Kindergarten	29	36	41	41.4%
Littleton 6	First Grade	951	910	895	-5.9%
Littleton 6	Kindergarten	944	867	887	-6.0%
Lone Star 101	First Grade	5	7	9	80.0%
Lone Star 101	Kindergarten	12	12	6	-50.0%
Mancos Re-6	First Grade	29	25	35	20.7%
Mancos Re-6	Kindergarten	32	32	29	-9.4%
Manitou Springs 14	First Grade	94	86	78	-17.0%
Manitou Springs 14	Kindergarten	78	77	62	-20.5%
Manzanola 3J	First Grade	4	7	7	75.0%
Manzanola 3J	Kindergarten	12	8	9	-25.0%
Mapleton 1	First Grade	510	557	582	14.1%
Mapleton 1	Kindergarten	539	561	592	9.8%
MC CLAVE RE-2	First Grade	11	14	10	-9.1%
MC CLAVE RE-2	Kindergarten	13	11	11	-15.4%
Meeker RE-1	First Grade	50	41	53	6.0%
Meeker RE-1	Kindergarten	44	47	46	4.6%
Mesa County Valley 51	First Grade	1522	1449	1534	0.8%
Mesa County Valley 51	Kindergarten	1535	1519	1487	-3.1%
Miami/Yoder 60 JT	First Grade	17	12	15	-11.8%
Miami/Yoder 60 JT	Kindergarten	15	10	19	26.7%
Moffat 2	First Grade	13	14	19	46.2%
Moffat 2	Kindergarten	16	18	9	-43.8%
Moffat County RE: No 1	First Grade	175	146	155	-11.4%
Moffat County RE: No 1	Kindergarten	170	156	155	-8.8%
Monte Vista C-8	First Grade	82	93	48	-41.5%
Monte Vista C-8	Kindergarten	98	55	53	-45.9%
Montezuma-Cortez RE-1	First Grade	206	205	183	-11.2%
Montezuma-Cortez RE-1	Kindergarten	212	191	177	-16.5%
Montrose County RE-1J	First Grade	409	382	386	-5.6%
Montrose County RE-1J	Kindergarten	403	372	385	-4.5%
Mountain Valley RE 1	First Grade	15	16	22	46.7%
Mountain Valley RE 1	Kindergarten	14	18	17	21.4%
North Conejos RE-1J	First Grade	60	79	75	25.0%
North Conejos RE-1J	Kindergarten	87	65	63	-27.6%
North Park R-1	First Grade	18	11	11	-38.9%
North Park R-1	Kindergarten	9	9	17	88.9%
Norwood R-2J	First Grade	13	10	17	30.8%
Norwood R-2J	Kindergarten	7	15	15	114.3%
Otis R-3	First Grade	14	16	15	7.1%
Otis R-3	Kindergarten	14	15	13	-7.1%
Ouray R-1	First Grade	12	15	10	-16.7%
Ouray R-1	Kindergarten	13	12	17	30.8%
Park County RE-2	First Grade	52	49	42	-19.2%
Park County RE-2	Kindergarten	63	47	47	-25.4%
Pawnee RE-12	First Grade	9	6	5	-44.4%
Pawnee RE-12	Kindergarten	7	3	7	0.0%
Peyton 23 Jt	First Grade	34	36	23	-32.4%
Peyton 23 Jt	Kindergarten	32	21	31	-3.1%
Plainview RE-2	First Grade	4	3	17	325.0%
Plainview RE-2	Kindergarten	3	2	15	400.0%
Plateau RE-5	First Grade	13	14	14	7.7%
Plateau RE-5	Kindergarten	13	14	14	7.7%
Plateau Valley 50	First Grade	21	15	18	-14.3%
Plateau Valley 50	Kindergarten	18	13	13	-27.8%
Platte Canyon 1	First Grade	59	68	66	11.9%
Platte Canyon 1	Kindergarten	70	65	58	-17.1%
Platte Valley RE-7	First Grade	96	79	82	-14.6%
Platte Valley RE-7	Kindergarten	86	77	97	12.8%
Poudre R-1	First Grade	2205	2034	1982	-10.1%
Poudre R-1	Kindergarten	2188	1914	2089	-4.5%
Prairie RE-11	First Grade	14	12	15	7.1%
Prairie RE-11	Kindergarten	17	13	12	-29.4%
Primero Reorganized 2	First Grade	11	14	16	45.5%
Primero Reorganized 2	Kindergarten	16	19	21	31.3%
Pritchett RE-3	First Grade	4	3	6	50.0%
Pritchett RE-3	Kindergarten	1	6	3	200.0%
Pueblo City 60	First Grade	1235	1163	1027	-16.8%
Pueblo City 60	Kindergarten	1224	1015	1169	-4.5%
Pueblo County 70	First Grade	717	701	686	-4.3%
Pueblo County 70	Kindergarten	703	701	652	-7.3%
Rangely RE-4	First Grade	25	35	36	44.0%
Rangely RE-4	Kindergarten	33	35	35	6.1%
Revere School District	First Grade	11	11	7	-36.4%
Revere School District	Kindergarten	12	6	14	16.7%
Ridgway R-2	First Grade	22	23	16	-27.3%
Ridgway R-2	Kindergarten	23	13	17	-26.1%
Roaring Fork RE-1	First Grade	340	306	314	-7.7%
Roaring Fork RE-1	Kindergarten	346	297	385	11.3%
Rocky Ford R-2	First Grade	61	56	39	-36.1%
Rocky Ford R-2	Kindergarten	63	50	57	-9.5%
Salida R-32	First Grade	76	88	83	9.2%
Salida R-32	Kindergarten	95	76	85	-10.5%
Sanford 6J	First Grade	30	24	37	23.3%
Sanford 6J	Kindergarten	23	37	24	4.4%
Sangre De Cristo Re-22J	First Grade	20	17	14	-30.0%
Sangre De Cristo Re-22J	Kindergarten	21	12	17	-19.1%
Sargent RE-33J	First Grade	32	21	28	-12.5%
Sargent RE-33J	Kindergarten	25	30	27	8.0%
School District 27J	First Grade	1429	1406	1513	5.9%
School District 27J	Kindergarten	1409	1372	1399	-0.7%
Sheridan 2	First Grade	63	62	69	9.5%
Sheridan 2	Kindergarten	74	77	78	5.4%
Sierra Grande R-30	First Grade	18	13	17	-5.6%
Sierra Grande R-30	Kindergarten	12	18	22	83.3%
Silverton 1	First Grade	4	4	9	125.0%
Silverton 1	Kindergarten	6	9	5	-16.7%
South Conejos RE-10	First Grade	15	10	10	-33.3%
South Conejos RE-10	Kindergarten	10	13	12	20.0%
South Routt RE 3	First Grade	15	16	30	100.0%
South Routt RE 3	Kindergarten	24	29	24	0.0%
Springfield RE-4	First Grade	19	23	21	10.5%
Springfield RE-4	Kindergarten	27	19	23	-14.8%
ST VRAIN VALLEY RE 1J	First Grade	2218	2146	2214	-0.2%
ST VRAIN VALLEY RE 1J	Kindergarten	2254	2023	2310	2.5%
Steamboat Springs RE-2	First Grade	143	146	153	7.0%
Steamboat Springs RE-2	Kindergarten	143	137	179	25.2%
Strasburg 31J	First Grade	79	74	67	-15.2%
Strasburg 31J	Kindergarten	76	63	75	-1.3%
Stratton R-4	First Grade	21	9	14	-33.3%
Stratton R-4	Kindergarten	11	15	21	90.9%
Summit RE-1	First Grade	256	218	243	-5.1%
Summit RE-1	Kindergarten	231	241	287	24.2%
Swink 33	First Grade	26	20	30	15.4%
Swink 33	Kindergarten	24	25	29	20.8%
Telluride R-1	First Grade	57	52	63	10.5%
Telluride R-1	Kindergarten	50	63	51	2.0%
Thompson R2-J	First Grade	1207	1078	1117	-7.5%
Thompson R2-J	Kindergarten	1235	1048	1133	-8.3%
Trinidad 1	First Grade	61	62	50	-18.0%
Trinidad 1	Kindergarten	68	55	93	36.8%
Valley RE-1	First Grade	178	157	131	-26.4%
Valley RE-1	Kindergarten	171	147	147	-14.0%
Vilas RE-5	First Grade	6	22	20	233.3%
Vilas RE-5	Kindergarten	5	11	18	260.0%
Walsh RE-1	First Grade	18	14	10	-44.4%
Walsh RE-1	Kindergarten	11	10	9	-18.2%
Weld County RE-1	First Grade	145	139	116	-20.0%
Weld County RE-1	Kindergarten	132	125	142	7.6%
WELD COUNTY S/D RE-8	First Grade	179	147	170	-5.0%
WELD COUNTY S/D RE-8	Kindergarten	167	159	181	8.4%
Weld County School District RE-3J	First Grade	213	187	209	-1.9%
Weld County School District RE-3J	Kindergarten	203	207	201	-1.0%
Weldon Valley RE-20(J)	First Grade	12	19	16	33.3%
Weldon Valley RE-20(J)	Kindergarten	20	13	14	-30.0%
West End RE-2	First Grade	16	23	20	25.0%
West End RE-2	Kindergarten	22	26	30	36.4%
West Grand 1-JT	First Grade	24	40	29	20.8%
West Grand 1-JT	Kindergarten	38	26	34	-10.5%
Westminster Public Schools	First Grade	631	561	561	-11.1%
Westminster Public Schools	Kindergarten	608	562	579	-4.8%
Widefield 3	First Grade	694	698	677	-2.5%
Widefield 3	Kindergarten	765	644	720	-5.9%
Wiggins RE-50(J)	First Grade	51	63	61	19.6%
Wiggins RE-50(J)	Kindergarten	59	59	55	-6.8%
Wiley RE-13 Jt	First Grade	18	29	26	44.4%
Wiley RE-13 Jt	Kindergarten	24	28	23	-4.2%
Windsor RE-4	First Grade	542	571	573	5.7%
Windsor RE-4	Kindergarten	544	510	605	11.2%
Woodland Park Re-2	First Grade	137	132	128	-6.6%
Woodland Park Re-2	Kindergarten	151	139	132	-12.6%
Woodlin R-104	First Grade	5	4	5	0.0%
Woodlin R-104	Kindergarten	6	5	0	-100.0%
Wray RD-2	First Grade	47	51	54	14.9%
Wray RD-2	Kindergarten	57	56	55	-3.5%
Yuma 1	First Grade	63	57	69	9.5%
Yuma 1	Kindergarten	61	69	61	0.0%

Three years of early elementary enrollment by district

Kae Petrin/Chalkbeat

CDC: Masks can come off in schools unless COVID metrics are high

2022-02-25T20:45:00+00:00

Schools should only mandate masks when COVID cases and hospitalizations are high, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Friday, in a shift that means most U.S. schools now have the agency’s OK to go without masks.

The move is the first major change in national guidance on masks in schools since last summer, and follows decisions by many states and districts to lift mask mandates in recent weeks. Still, many schools have continued to require masks for students and staff, and the CDC’s shift could pave the way for further changes.

The rules appear to be an attempt by federal officials to thread the needle between increasing political pressure to return to “normal” and the fact that COVID-19 still represents a threat, particularly in parts of the country where vaccination rates are low.

“Because children are relatively at lower risk for severe illness, schools can be safe places for children. So for that reason, we’re recommending that schools use the same guidance that we are recommending in general community settings,” CDC epidemiologist Greta Massetti said Friday.

Specifically, the new CDC rules say if new COVID cases and hospitalizations are low or moderate, and hospitals aren’t overburdened in a community, then mask mandates aren’t necessary. About 70% of Americans live in parts of the country where those metrics are now low or moderate, the agency says. (See how the CDC categorizes your county’s COVID level here.)

When COVID cases and hospitalizations are high, schools should still require masks, the CDC recommends.

The country’s two largest teachers unions, which have often pushed for more safety measures in schools, had mixed reactions Friday. The CDC’s guidelines got a thumbs up from the American Federation of Teachers but a tepid reaction from the National Education Association.

“While the NEA is encouraged by the new guidance, local governments must bring educators to the table with our in-school experience when determining how to keep school communities safe,” said President Becky Pringle. Translation: The NEA wants local unions to still have a say over safety rules, including masking.

About half of the country’s largest 500 school districts currently require masks, according to the tracking site Burbio, including New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. That’s a substantial dip from the beginning of the month, when more than 60% of those districts had mask mandates. Only two states — California and New York — still have a statewide school mask requirement with no announced end date.

The new CDC guidance is likely to push more places to ease mask rules. Ultimately, though, states and districts have charted their own path on mitigation measures throughout the pandemic, often flouting CDC recommendations.

Last summer, the CDC said that masks should only be required for unvaccinated students and staff. Weeks later the agency reversed course, recommending that all individuals remain masked inside school buildings, regardless of vaccination status.

Some places have been more cautious than the agency has recommended. New York City and Los Angeles, for instance, just lifted outdoor mask requirements, even though the CDC has recommended doing so for months. Other places have gone in the other direction, not requiring masks at all this school year.

Whether students and adults should be required to wear masks has been one of the most fraught policy debates this school year, from school boards to the White House. Decisions at both the state and local level have correlated highly with political leanings: Democratic areas were more likely to impose mask requirements and Republican areas were less likely to.

This also led to a number of legal battles. The Biden administration challenged states that banned mask mandates, and so did a number of groups representing parents of students with disabilities. These groups won a number of court victories, allowing mask rules to remain in place in some areas where they were putatively banned.

Earlier this month, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona defended mask requirements, saying they help keep kids in schools.

“You know what hinders kids’ learning? Being quarantined because they have COVID, or not having a teacher because their teacher has COVID,” he said.

Recently, prominent commentators have argued that mask mandates are educationally harmful to students and politically perilous for Democrats. A number of Democratic governors — including in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Nevada — have lifted statewide mask rules. A number of districts quickly shifted their rules, too, although many others have kept masking requirements in place.

Firm research on the pros and cons of masking is thin. Outside of school settings, there is strong evidence linking surgical, but not cloth, masks to slower COVID spread. At the same time, many educators and students have said masks make aspects of school more challenging and unpleasant, from hearing their teachers to talking to a friend.

“For a small child, not being able to see a teacher’s face or a teacher not being able to see a small child’s face, that did detract,” Pam Swanson, a Colorado district superintendent, previously told Chalkbeat. “School is a social thing.”

To date, polling has shown that support for mask mandates in schools consistently outstrips opposition among parents, teachers, and the broader public. Even if more schools make masks optional, many teachers and students may still choose to wear them.

“Anybody is certainly welcome to wear a mask at any time if they feel safer wearing a mask,” said CDC director Rochelle Walensky.

NYC ends outdoor mask mandate for schools

2022-02-25T13:54:10+00:00

New York City students will no longer be required to wear masks outdoors on school grounds, the department announced Friday.

Masks will still be required inside of school buildings, officials said in a news release. The change, which goes into effect Monday, means students or anyone else on school property, including staff, can participate in recess or other outdoor activities without wearing masks.

Additionally, masks won’t be required for anyone participating in sports on outdoor school property.

Officials said they are lifting the outdoor mask mandate because the city’s in-school positivity rate has dropped under 1%. Those results, however, come from swabs taken at school and cover a tiny share of the school population. Cases spiked after winter break, as the omicron variant of COVID ripped through New York City — resulting in major disruptions in staffing and student attendance.

“Throughout the pandemic, our schools have remained some of the safest spaces for our students and staff, thanks to our gold standard health and safety protocol,” Chancellor David Banks said in a statement. “I am so pleased that we are able to make this exciting announcement and safely allow students and staff to remove their masks when outdoors at NYC public schools.”

While the indoor mask mandate remains in schools, changes could be on the horizon. Gov. Kathy Hochul said there’s a “very strong possibility” she will lift the statewide mask mandate for schools by the second week of March, after she reviews data on COVID positivity rates, vaccinations and hospitalizations.

If Hochul scraps the mandate, city schools could still choose to keep masks in place. Mayor Eric Adams appears eager to shed city masking rules in the coming weeks, though he’s provided no timeline.

No matter Hochul’s and Adams’ decisions, masking policies have already caused raucous debate, even as there is little high-quality evidence on the effectiveness of masking in schools. A recent Siena poll of 803 New York registered voters found that a majority – 58% – believe data should be examined in early March before a decision is made about masking in schools. That sentiment was even stronger, at 64%, among respondents from New York City. Just 10% said the mask mandate should end after February break, and another 30% believe mask mandates should have already ended.

Philadelphia elementary adjusts to a new normal in its second COVID winter

2022-02-24T17:14:13+00:00

Nearly two years into the pandemic, COVID often blends into the background at Cayuga Elementary School in North Philadelphia. In Ruth Llorens’ kindergarten classroom, 20 kids chatter about pets and birthdays, read books like “Sneezy the Snowman,” and follow along when she reviews how to write a lower-case Z.

Other times, COVID is painfully obvious. In January, a little boy told Llorens he missed his uncle, who’d died from the virus over winter break.

“I just kind of listened to him more than anything else,” she said. “Really, he just wanted to talk about his uncle and what they used to do.”

Such is the year so far. Routine classroom moments are punctuated by reminders of COVID’s fallout, ranging from sadness and fatigue to the recognition that some students missed out on lots of learning over the past two years. That includes academics, of course, but also classroom routines. Principal Jason Carrion said after many months of sitting face-forward in carefully spaced rows, students are relearning the art of sitting together in pods and working in groups.

While kindergarteners and older elementary students at Cayuga have been hitting academic milestones, first- and second-graders are struggling from their lack of exposure to classroom routines, norms, and face-to-face interaction.

Cayuga serves 361 students, about three-quarters of them Latino, in a three-story brown brick building in the Hunting Park neighborhood. All students are eligible for free or reduced-price school meals.

Carrion, a former high school math teacher who leads a staff of more than 60, said Cayuga’s teachers have been operating at a “heightened level,” this year, whether coping with pandemic stress or managing the trauma that students bring into the classroom.

”Children have lost loved ones and family members. It’s been not only COVID but it’s been gun violence,” he said. “With all that, teachers come in and give their all.”

Like schools nationwide, Cayuga has struggled to find subs to cover staff absences this year. Carrion often leads classrooms for half an hour here or 45 minutes there, or helps out in the cafeteria. Some students call him Mr. C. or Mr. Principal. A few think he’s the school counselor.

Once this year, Carrion led a first grade class all day.

“I was exhausted at the end of the day, but it was great,” he said. “We have to do it for the team.”

Principal Jason Carrion has stepped into many different roles due to staff shortages, covering classes or helping in the cafeteria.

Carrion said kindergarteners are meeting key academic targets this year, and generally upper elementary students are, too. But many first- and second-graders are struggling. They didn’t get enough exposure to foundational skills or classroom norms last year during virtual and hybrid learning, he said.

Glynnis Gradwell, a retired classroom teacher who works with small groups of struggling second and third grade readers and helps with one kindergarten class, said, missing out on face-to-face learning in kindergarten and first grade set kids back.

“Even if they had the online academics, they did not have that piece, that we’re getting along, we’re cooperating, we’re listening, we’re a group,” she said.

There were other kinds of gaps.

“Teachers couldn’t reach through the screen and show them how to hold a pencil,” she said.

Retired teacher Glynnis Gradwell works with groups of struggling second and third grade students at the school, who missed out on in-person learning when they were in kindergarten and first grade.

But Gradwell, whose groups of four allow her to give children lots of personal attention and “get as many books in their hands as possible,” has seen bright spots, too.

During one reading group as the students tackled a fourth story, a boy exclaimed, “Oh, this is fun,” she recalled. “Like he was suddenly surprised it was fun.”

Another time, a student noticed a boy’s emotional struggle before she did and spoke up for him. Gradwell wanted the boy to pull his hood down so he’d be sure to hear the lesson, but he stubbornly refused. Eventually, the classmate explained: “He got a new haircut and he doesn’t want anyone to comment.”

Gradwell waited two weeks before returning in-person to Cayuga in January.

“I promised my husband, who’s older, and we also have a disabled son, that I would not bring COVID back,” she said. “But I haven’t and I feel very safe here.”

Llorens said other than a districtwide week of virtual learning at the beginning of January, her kindergarten class has been in-person this winter and most students are exactly where they should be at this point in the year. Since the holiday break, she’s seen them become more adept at working in pairs, whereas previously they defaulted to working individually.

Teacher Ruth Llorens has seen improvement in her students’ ability to work in pairs, and most of her students are where they should be at this point in the school year.

“Sometimes you’ve got to explain that trying to help somebody is not doing the work for them,” she said, adding that it’s nice to see them helping each other complete a task.

Llorens, who de-stresses after a long day by exercising or playing the video game Halo, said for many of her students, the pandemic has been part of life since they can remember and is now mostly “background noise.”

“I might hear every now and then, someone is sick in a house and I [say] ‘I’m sorry, I hope they feel better,’ and then they’re off on another topic,” she said.
Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

In Chicago Public Schools, more principals and teachers are leaving

2022-02-23T21:16:36+00:00

Chicago Public Schools has seen a sharp increase in employee departures since this past summer, including its principals, with resignations and retirements more than doubling since the same period last year.

In the first seven months of the current fiscal year, the pace of turnover picked up among all employee groups, from central office administrators to school support staff. Teacher retirement and resignations jumped roughly 85%.

Those increases mark a shift: The number of educators and staff leaving the district had previously dipped during the pandemic, continuing a pre-COVID trend of marked declines in employee retirements and resignations.

One notable increase was among school leaders, whose departures tend to be especially disruptive to a school community — more so during this school year’s high-stakes, challenging transition back to full-time in-person learning. In all, 72 principals and assistant principals have left the district since July, already more than the number that retired or resigned during the entire 2018-2019 year.

Nationally, there is still little evidence that teachers and other school workers are leaving their jobs en masse, despite a string of surveys over the past couple of years capturing low morale, COVID fears, and thoughts about switching careers.

Still, the Chicago data obtained by Chalkbeat might be an early harbinger that some educators are starting to act on these thoughts, as the pandemic drags on and the return to campus full-time tests schools.

Here, after years of steady declines, the district’s turnover rate remains relatively low even with this year’s uptick.

Amid severe staffing shortages and heightened student needs, the transition back to full-time in-person learning has stretched principals across the country to the limit, said Scott Treibitz of the American Federation of School Administrators. This school year, some of the group’s members have driven school buses, served as crossing guards, cleaned school bathrooms, served food in cafeterias, and stepped in to substitute teach.

“School leaders are overwhelmed by the mounting workload, the mental health of students, teaching staff, and support staff,” Treibitz said. “I call them the unsung heroes of what’s going on in education right now.”

At Wednesday’s CPS board meeting, Bogdana Chkoumbova, the district’s new chief education officer, said the district is hosting a principal summit later this week to discuss how schools are navigating the district’s pandemic recovery.

“The support and engagement of our school leaders will continue to be a priority of mine,” she said.

This year brings a reversal in CPS employee departures

Until this past summer, Chicago appeared poised to continue a steady trend of declining employee turnover. During the 2020-21 fiscal year, departures across employee groups were down by more than a third compared to 2017-2018. The district did see a 25% jump in retirements over the previous years, but because of those earlier declines, their numbers remained well below pre-pandemic levels.

Officials and educators have said that a tangle of factors likely played a role in employees staying put: lingering economic uncertainty, the district’s stepped-up retention efforts, and pay and benefits that are markedly higher in Chicago than many suburban districts. The district last summer also touted gains in hiring for tough-to-fill special education positions and in hiring more Black and Latino educators.

This year so far, however, more teachers and other employees are leaving than right before the pandemic.

During the first seven months of this fiscal year, 1,842 employees resigned and another 524 retired, a more than 50% jump over the 2019-2020 year. The district employs about 39,000 workers.

This fall’s numbers also show that nonunionized central office workers left at higher rates than before the pandemic. About 250 left since the start of the fiscal year, compared with roughly 110 during the same period two years ago.

Those resignations and retirements continue a string of high-profile departures since former CEO Janice Jackson and her second- and third-in-command announced last spring they were leaving the district.

More than 1,240 teachers left earlier this fiscal year, up from 770 during the same period in 2019-2020. Support staffers saw a significant increase in resignations and retirements over last year, but because those numbers had plummeted from the year before, the overall jump compared to pre-pandemic times was not as sharp.

The bulk of the retirements and resignations across employee groups took place in the final months of the summer before the start of the school year. The district saw higher-than-usual numbers in August, which officials at the time said might be due in part to an employee vaccination mandate that the district has since relaxed.

But some departures have trickled in since. About 120 teachers and six principals retired or resigned in January, when the district customarily sees a slight uptick in departures ahead of the start of the second semester.

At Wednesday’s school board meeting, member Luisiana Melendez urged the district to step up efforts to support the mental health and wellness of teachers and school leaders.

“This has been a tremendous stress on them,” she said. “If the adults who take care of the children are not well, the children can’t thrive.”

Statewide, according to data from the Illinois Teacher Retirement System, educator retirements increased during the 2020 calendar year over the year before after years of declines. But they dipped again last year, to about 4,200, remaining only slightly higher than they were on the eve of the pandemic.

Chad Aldeman of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, who has closely tracked data on school district turnover, said fall numbers from a few states he has seen so far suggest an rise in turnover heading into the current school year, though one that remains roughly in line with historical trends.

But there has been little data out yet on the school year underway, which has challenged educators and administrators with staffing issues, a rise in disruptive student behaviors, and the draining task of addressing the pandemic’s academic and mental health fallout.

Clearly, the pace of turnover in Chicago appears to be picking up, Aldeman said. After hitting a low of less than 5% last year, turnover this year is on pace to exceed the 2017-2018 rate of roughly 8%.

But Aldeman notes, “That’s still very low compared to national averages for teachers, let alone all employees in other sectors.”

Pandemic took a toll on principals

In Chicago, the turnover rate was highest among school leaders. Treibitz said the pandemic has been especially hard on principals and assistant principals, who have been on the frontlines of public schools’ response.

They were often in their buildings during last year’s remote learning stretch, overseeing the distribution of meals, computers, and other tasks. They have been in charge of enforcing COVID safety protocols — and sometimes on the receiving end of parent anger at how schools have navigated the outbreak.

The pandemic has also brought a slew of campaigns to unionize principals in districts across the country, including Chicago, Treibitz said.

In a statement, the district said it stepped up engagement with principals this years: Martinez is hosting biweekly calls with school leaders, and the district is reviving its principal advisory council. It also boosted its compensation package for assistant principals.

“Like other industries, our staffing and retention rates have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the CPS statement said. “The district strives to create a working environment that allows for career advancement in an effort to retain its staff.”

Here, the Chicago Principals & Administrators Association is pursuing a push to allow district school leaders to form a union in the state Legislature, an effort the school district opposes. Since 2019, the American Federation of School Administrators, with which the Chicago group is affiliated, has added 11 new locals, including in Denver, after years of relatively flat membership. The group is also working with a number of districts where principal unionization drives are in the early stages.

Over the past year, the association has pushed its members to prioritize self-care, cautioning them against neglecting their mental health needs as they scramble to troubleshoot on campus.

“You have to put your oxygen mask first,” Treibitz said, “or in the long haul, it won’t be good for the community you are trying to serve.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Denver mayor teaches classes to call attention to substitute shortage

2022-02-18T23:34:17+00:00

Wearing a checked dress shirt in South High’s colors of purple and white, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock gave the juniors and seniors in Friday’s fourth-period Advanced Placement Government class a one-question pop quiz.

“True or false,” he said. “The foundational value of our democracy is voting.”

There was a pause. Not an extraordinarily long pause, but not a short one either. It was the kind of pause any substitute teacher might get, before a girl in the back quietly answered that voting may have been central to the founding of our democracy, but not everyone was allowed to do it.

That history, and how efforts to block some voters from exercising their rights persist today, were central to a lesson Hancock taught to three classes Friday. His guest appearance at South had dual purposes: to talk to students about a topic he’s passionate about and to call attention to Denver Public Schools’ pandemic-era substitute teacher shortage.

“It underscores the need we have to get professionals who have time to come into the schools and help out,” Hancock said of the reason for his visit.

Staff shortages have been a defining and difficult element of the COVID-19 pandemic at schools across the country. Teachers exposed to COVID, sick with COVID, or caring for sick family members have been quarantined at home, sometimes for weeks in a row. Schools are struggling to find substitutes who will risk their health for relatively low pay. Several Colorado districts have asked parents to help. New Mexico called on its National Guard.

The Denver district has tried to make subbing more enticing by increasing the daily pay to $200 for those with a teaching license and $160 for those without one, said spokesperson Scott Pribble. The district also started reimbursing for state licensing costs and is offering a $400 bonus for subs who work at least 10 days per month, he said.

During the recent omicron wave, Superintendent Alex Marrero reinstituted a rule that employees who work in the district’s central office must substitute in a school one day per week. Even with that support, and with the nearly 600 new substitute teachers Denver has hired since the fall, the district can only fill about 63% of teacher absences each day, Pribble said. That’s down from 83% in the 2019-20 school year, which was interrupted by COVID.

Dozens of Denver schools had to temporarily switch to virtual learning last month due to staff shortages. The need for more subs came up repeatedly in an anonymous survey of 601 school staff members conducted by Denver’s district accountability committee in December.

“We don’t have enough coverage when teachers are sick,” one teacher wrote.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock was a guest teacher in a civics class, an Advanced Placement Government class, and an African American history class on Friday.

Though Hancock was in command of the fourth-period class at South, he wasn’t really subbing. The actual teacher was sitting at a school desk next to his students (as well as a member of the mayor’s security detail, his deputy communications director, and a reporter).

But Hancock taught an hour-plus lesson that included PowerPoint slides, a video, and an opportunity for the students to write a one-minute speech to Congress about whether to pass two pending bills related to voter rights. The mayor was at ease in the classroom, leaning against a desk as he cold-called on students whose names he’d quickly memorized.

“Knowing there are efforts to restrict and suppress voting, how does that make you feel?” Hancock asked the students after telling them about an order by the Texas governor limiting the number of ballot drop-off locations in each county to one.

“It’s not what America is advertised to be,” a student named Jack said.

“What is America advertised to be?” Hancock prodded.

“Free,” Jack said. “To all people.”

Cardona: Creating environments where teachers can thrive is key to keeping good educators

2022-02-18T20:48:54+00:00

When MaKenzie Mosby reflects on the four years she taught seventh-grade math, her feelings are mixed.

She loved her students, families, fellow teachers and staff at her Memphis charter school — and still does. But from the start of her career, even before the pandemic upended education, it became increasingly clear to Mosby that, for her, the profession wouldn’t be sustainable.

This is not only a problem in Memphis. Retaining teachers like Mosby and the thousands of other exhausted professionals across the nation who have left the education field was top of mind for U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and the approximately 4,000 school leaders and industry professionals who discussed solutions at the School Superintendents Association’s National Conference on Education Thursday and Friday in Nashville. The conference wraps up on Saturday.

Asked about his big message to superintendents and all other educators, Cardona’s response was immediate: “Thank you.” He heralded educators’ heroic efforts throughout the pandemic, and encouraged school leaders to create work environments where teachers can thrive.

While the mental health of students has been a national focus recently, the mental health of educators is an under-discussed issue, said many at the conference. A 2021 survey by the RAND Corporation found that teachers are nearly twice as likely as other employed adults to experience frequent job-related stress, and they’re almost three times more likely to experience symptoms of depression.

“It’s important to remember that not only have our students suffered pandemic trauma — our educators have, our principals have, too,” Cardona said. “How awesome would it be if, when we reopen, we reimagine our schools and we think about the whole educator?”

‘Never-ending work day’ and expectations to ‘do everything’ drives teachers away

An inability to have work-life balance was part of what made Mosby leave teaching after four years. From the endless lesson planning and grading to the emotional labor that comes with supporting students through traumatic experiences stemming from poverty, gun violence, or racism, Mosby quickly burnt out.

Now working toward her master’s degree in public policy in education at Vanderbilt University, Mosby hopes she can be part of the solution. During her education history class this semester, Mosby has been encouraged to learn that teachers were, at one time, well-respected, well-paid, and not expected to “do everything.” With a change of mindset, Mosby has hope that can happen again.

With many schools lacking enough nurses and counselors, teachers are often left to pick up the slack. A 2021 study of the nursing workforce estimated that about a quarter of schools don’t have a nurse. And although the American School Counselor Association recommends one counselor for every 250 students, the national average as of the 2020-21 school year is one counselor for about 427 students.

“I just couldn’t do it anymore. It shouldn’t have to be that way,” Mosby said last month. “My kids mean so much to me, my school community means so much to me, the people I taught with mean so much to me. … Leaving was an incredibly difficult decision.”

Already struggling, state and local public education employment fell by nearly 5% overall since the beginning of the pandemic — and by almost 7% among just K-12 teachers — according to a recent Economic Policy Institute report. And in January, a National Education Association poll revealed that more than half of the members in the nation’s largest teachers union are considering leaving teaching sooner than they had originally planned. In addition, about 90% of members called burnout a “serious problem.”

There are many reasons Toria Howard left teaching after a 15-year career in the profession. Teaching at a number of schools across Memphis throughout her career, Howard never felt she had autonomy in her own classroom. She often felt the curriculum she was required to use wasn’t engaging or relatable to her students, and she didn’t feel heard when she expressed concerns.

And beneath it all, she was exhausted from years of being overwhelmed, overworked, and underpaid. EPI research shows that public K-12 school teachers across the country are paid nearly 20% less than similarly educated workers in other occupations.

“It was a never-ending work day,” Howard recalled. “I’d have meetings before or after school, and then I’d have to come home and do more work — grading papers, making PowerPoints. And I didn’t get paid for that.”

After leaving her last job at M.L.K. College Prep High School, a part of the Memphis charter network Frayser Community Schools, Howard has never been happier. She became a real estate agent, and also educates adults about financial literacy. Still, she wishes she could have remained in the classroom.

“Betting on myself is the best thing I ever could’ve done for myself,” Howard said. “Teaching just didn’t work out for me.”

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona spoke with Dan Domenech, executive director of the School Superintendents Association, about the many challenges of pandemic education, including teacher burnout, onstage during the National Conference on Education Thursday in Nashville.

Cardona, superintendents discuss how to improve teacher retention and recruitment

The current issues with teacher retention have also drawn attention to the shrinking teacher pipeline across the U.S. Filling open positions has been a problem in U.S. schools for more than a decade: Between the 2008-09 and 2015-16 school years, the number of people graduating with education degrees decreased more than 15%, according to the EPI report.

This school year has been no exception. Last fall, 18 of 20 large U.S. school districts that provided data to Chalkbeat reported the number of teacher vacancies had increased this year.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools, the largest district in Tennessee with more than 100,000 students, reported having 200-plus teaching positions open in the fall, up from 63 last year, and across Tennessee, the number of new educators graduating from teacher training programs has dropped by nearly one-fifth over five years, according to a new report.

Chief of Human Resources Yolanda Finne Martin said this year has been the Memphis district’s hardest — but she has faith it will get better. The district has implemented new strategies to attract teachers, from offering signing bonuses and increasing marketing efforts to recruiting college students studying subjects outside of education like math or history early and hosting hiring fairs year round.

During the conference on Thursday and Friday, panelists offered many ideas for superintendents to make to attract high-quality teachers and administrators to their districts.

While schools can’t offer fully remote work or similar benefits many workers seek, Meenoo Rami, a former Philadelphia educator and author of “Thrive: 5 Ways to (Re)Invigorate Your Teaching,” suggested schools build in as much flexibility as possible. Rami said allowing staff to work four 10-hour days during summer prep or professional development weeks, adding a monthly mental health day, or late starts on Fridays could make a world of difference for overwhelmed staff.

But beneath it all, panelists urged school leaders to go beyond recruitment to build a strong school culture that teachers and other staff want to be part of because they feel supported and heard.

Tyler Vawser, vice president of marketing for Apptegy, a school marketing software company, said school leaders must create an environment where weary teachers can come to them with concerns when they’re having a bad day and offer feedback for how the school can be better. Being transparent and willing to own up to mistakes, he said, is also key.

“Perks are great, but that’s not what changes people’s experience day to day,” Vawser said. “It’s making sure your people feel like you have their back and you’re doing what you say you’re going to do.”

During his Thursday remarks, Cardona hinted that less complicated student loan forgiveness for teachers could be one way the federal government could encourage more people to enter the profession. Beyond that possibility, though, Cardona encouraged school leaders to empower their educators.

“Teachers know our students,” he said. “We have to listen to them and value their voice.”

Samantha West is a reporter for Chalkbeat Tennessee, where she covers K-12 education in Memphis. Connect with Samantha at swest@chalkbeat.org.

Home schooling nearly doubled in NYC since pandemic’s start

2022-02-18T00:22:19+00:00

Mirroring trends across the nation, the number of children being home-schooled has dramatically increased in New York City.

This school year, roughly 14,800 children across the five boroughs have opted to learn outside of school walls, according to internal education department data obtained by Chalkbeat. That number jumped by nearly 7,000 — or 88% — since the pandemic hit with the biggest gain occurring this school year, as more than 4,000 new students registered to home-school.

The largest increases were in districts with higher shares of low-income students, a Chalkbeat analysis found.

The reasons families decide to educate their children at home vary. For some parents, the pandemic may have pushed them out of the workforce or into remote jobs where they found themselves with the time and desire to educate their children after getting a taste of it during remote learning.

This school year, roughly 14,800 children across the five boroughs have opted to learn outside of school walls, according to internal education department data obtained by Chalkbeat.

Some may have been unhappy with what they saw when their children were in online classes last year, and families of color, in particular, may have been upset witnessing firsthand curriculum that wasn’t culturally responsive. For others, it was a trust issue: They felt their children were safer at home because of COVID fears or other school-related violence.

Bushwick mom Shalonda Curtis-Hackett started out this school year keeping her three children home as a form of protest, striking along with other families who wanted a remote learning option in New York City amid the ongoing public health crisis.

On top of COVID, Curtis-Hackett has long been skeptical of her children’s public-school education, concerned about anti-Blackness and bias she saw in the teaching and curriculum. She officially notified the city’s education department in November of her plans to home-school her children.

Now, she’s deep in the process of “unschooling” her children, following their interests instead of a prescribed curriculum. She’s plugging into a growing movement of Black home-schoolers on Instagram, sharing tips and resources with other parents.

“Our kids are harmed in public school,” Curtis-Hackett said. “Because we’re unschooling, we play a lot of games. I let them play video games. We put together a puzzle globe, and we spin and pick a place to research.”

Yes, her fifth grader is playing a lot of Minecraft, Curtis-Hackett said, but she’s also reading more. Her second grader is playing a lot of board games, and he’s learning math in the process. Both of those children and her ninth grader have recently started learning instruments — one is doing piano, another is studying guitar, and the other is playing the flute.

Students in grades K-5 moved into home schooling at the highest rates, jumping 119% on average since the 2019-2020 school year, a Chalkbeat analysis found.

Home-schooling is hard for many families to pull off, and it still remains relatively rare, accounting for roughly 1.5% of students, city education department officials said. But the increase may explain part of the enrollment decline among the city’s traditional public schools.

Students in grades K-5 moved into home schooling at the highest rates, jumping 119% on average since the 2019-2020 school year, a Chalkbeat analysis of the data since the 2019-20 school year found. Middle school saw a 74% increase in home-schoolers, while high school home-schoolers increased by 64%.

There is also evidence that low-income families may have opted to homeschool at higher rates. The number of home-schooled students in the six highest poverty districts increased about 119%, on average, while home-schooling students in the six lowest poverty districts increased about 79% over the past two years.

“The past two years have been challenging for school communities across the nation, and families made the best decisions suited to their unique needs and circumstances,” education department spokesperson Sarah Casasnovas said. “As New York City recovers from the impacts of the pandemic, families are returning to classrooms. Chancellor Banks is committed to engaging with families and working to restore trust in New York City schools.”

COVID-era home schooling

Home schooling has grown in popularity across the country during the pandemic. The number of Florida students enrolled in home education jumped by 35% in the year after the pandemic started. In Virginia, there was a 56% jump in home schooling, though the numbers fell somewhat this school year. And in Michigan, researchers found students left public schools for home-schooling arrangements at significantly higher rates when the pandemic hit.

There are no official national counts of families who home-school. A Census survey found that home school rates roughly doubled in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, with an even more dramatic jump among Black families, though some analysts believe those figures are overstated.

The 88% increase in home schooling in New York City is consistent with large increases in other parts of the country, said Andrew Bacher-Hicks, an assistant professor at Boston University who has studied home-schooling trends during the pandemic. He noted that public school districts that offered in-person learning in the fall of 2020, such as New York City, tended to see larger increases in families choosing to home-school. Schools that did not offer in-person schooling tended to see more parents leave for private schools.

“The leave to home schooling might be related to health concerns,” Bacher-Hicks said. (New York City did not offer a virtual option this school year, which coincided with a larger increase in home schooling.) But “no matter what modality was offered, some subset of households and parents and families are going to be unhappy with the public offering.”

Bacher-Hicks added that Black and low-income families tended to opt for home schooling at higher rates. New York City education department officials declined repeated requests to share demographic data of home-schooled students and did not return a public records request for that information.

Historically, home schooling has generally been considered a “white phenomenon,” said James Dwyer, a professor at William and Mary Law School and co-author of “Homeschooling: The History and Philosophy of a Controversial Practice.”

In the 1960s, home schooling was driven by left-wing concerns “about the authoritarian nature of public schooling” and skepticism toward the state. In the 1970s and 1980s, growth in home schooling was driven by evangelical Christians who were wary of secularization, desegregation, and liberal values in public education, Dwyer said.

The pandemic may have prompted a more diverse group of parents to try home schooling, Dwyer said, a claim backed up by the census figures and anecdotal reporting.

Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman, co-editor of the book “Homeschooling Black Children in the U.S,” said the pandemic gave some parents a clearer sense of what their children are taught or how they’re treated — and some Black families didn’t like what they were seeing.

“You have this whole experience culturally — whether it’s the lack of cultural competency within the school or cultural relevance — to also some of the punitive responses to their children,” said Ali-Coleman. “It definitely led parents to realize and be more empowered that [homeschooling] is something they could do when things went virtual.”

District-level data obtained by Chalkbeat showed that the numbers of home-schooled students increased across the board since the 2019-2020 school year, but more than doubled in nine of the city’s 32 districts as well as District 75, which serves students with disabilities who need intensive support.

The top three districts with the largest percentage increase were all in Brooklyn: Bushwick’s District 32, District 13 (spanning Bedford-Stuyvesant, Prospect Heights, Fort Greene and Brooklyn Heights), and District 21, which includes Coney Island and Brighton Beach.

Curtis-Hackett, the Bushwick mom, said there were several reasons she decided to home-school her children this year. Some had been brewing for a while.

Curtis-Hackett struggled last year with her children’s elementary school. She wanted the school to teach more explicitly about the tenets of the Black Lives Matter movement and Black history, more broadly, as well as to include LGBTQ-affirming resources.

During online schooling, when she overheard her daughter’s then-fourth grade teacher talking about Susan B. Anthony, Curtis-Hackett piped up asking why Black women weren’t included. The teacher said, ‘If you know so much, why don’t you teach?’ Curtis-Hackett recounted. So Curtis-Hackett, who is Black, made a cameo, telling the class about Sojourner Truth, a former slave, abolitionist, and women’s rights activist.

“My kids are getting the same education I got, just with fancier books and technology. You might change ‘slavery’ to ‘enslaved.’ But there’s still a whole entire unit that says ‘European exploration’ written on the front page of the book,” said Curtis-Hackett, a doula and makeup artist. “To me that’s violence, I couldn’t take that chance for my children to not be recognized and seen in school.”

Whether most families who began home-schooling during the pandemic stick with it is an open question. Dwyer, the William and Mary professor, noted that home schooling can be resource-intensive for families, and some are likely to send their children back to traditional schools for extracurricular activities and other social opportunities that can be harder to replicate in a home-school environment.

“The reasons people have always had for sending their children to school every day still exist,” Dwyer said. “I expect most children will be returning to schools.”

Looking for home-school help

Seventeen-year-old Jonica Jenkins this week returned to finish her senior year at Frederick Douglass Academy II after spending these past several months as a home-school student, learning from her family’s Harlem apartment.

Jenkins developed a daily routine: After waking between 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. she would eat breakfast and then log onto an online learning platform where she took such courses as government and art history, wrapping up around noon or 1 p.m. Then she spent her afternoons watching YouTube videos and playing Roblox, Tycoons or other video games.

She had decided not to return to school this fall, not just because of coronavirus concerns, but also because of other safety issues.

“COVID was one of the reasons. But I had a lot of bad experiences in school. I dealt with a lot of bullying,” Jenkins said. “It’s not even having to deal with the bullying itself. When I see other kids acting out and fighting in school, it messes with my mood — it gives me anxiety. I’m tired of having to deal with that.”

Jenkins’ mother Johndca Spencer had wanted to home-school her three children years prior to the pandemic, but was too busy running a home cleaning business. When that business fell apart after the pandemic shut down many parts of New York City, Spencer reevaluated.

The main reason for the return to a traditional school: Spencer didn’t know how colleges would accept her daughter’s home-school diploma, and she worried it wouldn’t carry as much weight as a Regents diploma from a brick-and-mortar school.

Spencer wasn’t sure how to find out the answers to her questions.

“How can you prove you graduated — just because your mom said you’re done?” Spencer said. “Basically I was on my own with that. The red tape surrounding that for this state was too much to navigate, especially when you’re not getting any assistance … There’s not enough resources and not enough help, and I just didn’t know how to access it.”

Without finding a community of families with high school seniors, Spencer felt ill-equipped to navigate her daughter’s graduation.

She was incensed that New York, unlike most other states, has no virtual public school option. The home-school office advised her daughter to get her high school equivalency diploma by taking the General Educational Development, or GED, test, and suggested the family could reach out to individual colleges to see what they might accept, Spencer said.

Fortunately, Jenkins’ school will accept the credits from the online platform she had been using this year so far, the mom said. And she’s looking forward to seeing her daughter don a cap and gown.

“She needs to be celebrated. She’s so smart and has worked so hard,” Spencer said. “I could do an awards ceremony with just her, but she deserves to walk across a stage and for other people to clap for her.”

Back to online learning

Harlem mom Inaya Shujaat became a reluctant home-schooler last summer when it became clear the city’s schools weren’t going to provide a remote option.

Shujaat was nervous about sending her children back into classrooms that she believed were not safe, though city officials have insisted that all classrooms have proper ventilation and transmission in school buildings is rare.

When a remote option didn’t materialize, Shujaat opted to enroll her two children, who are in the fifth and sixth grades, in The Muslim Academy, a virtual school that includes a mix of religious and secular studies at a cost of about $600 a month for the pair. (The children are considered home-schooled.)

Inaya Shujaat with her two children, Zubeda and Asad.

“I never considered home-schooling them myself,” she said. “They provide the curriculum and all the parent has to do is provide support for the child.”

The curriculum is largely pre-recorded except for two classes: a creative art class and a course that focuses on the Quran, Arabic, and Islamic studies, Shujaat said. A recent art class involved her son constructing a three-dimensional fire using paper. Shujaat said her children have been able to participate with minimal support from her.

Shujaat said she’s generally happy with the program, though she noted her children receive little qualitative feedback from their teachers.

Still, she said the program is sufficient for now, as the family considers next steps. Shujaat’s husband, who is a physician, is considering jobs outside of New York City.

“It’s definitely a stopgap or a big frickin’ band-aid,” Shujaat said. “We’re playing it by ear.”

Cam Rodriguez contributed.

Pandemic reduced literacy instruction in Michigan, report finds

2022-02-14T20:48:50+00:00

Michigan teachers spent less time giving reading lessons during the pandemic. During the same period, half of all third graders in the state were identified at some point by their teachers as needing extra help with reading.

Those findings from a new report on Michigan’s third-grade reading law underscore the academic toll of the pandemic — especially for students from low income families and students of color, who were more likely to learn virtually last year. Michigan legislators passed the law in 2016 in an effort to reverse years of backsliding reading scores. It increases the number of coaches working with teachers to improve reading instruction, while threatening to hold back third-graders with especially low reading scores.

While earlier reports suggested that the law was having a modest positive effect, the latest data suggest that there is a long road ahead.

Students from low income families, who speak English as a second language, and students of color in particular, got less literacy instruction last year, according to the report, because their districts were more likely to be operating fully online.

“It’s an equity issue,” said Katharine Strunk, a co-author of the report. “If those students are receiving even less instruction time, the gaps are going to get bigger.”

Experts are calling on schools to use federal COVID funds to bolster students’ reading skills through tutoring, teacher training, and summer school programs. While many districts are already putting those programs in place, the pandemic continues to disrupt education across the state.

Researchers at Michigan State University drew on surveys and test score data to track student progress since the passage of the third-grade reading law. The controversial retention portion of the law, which requires schools to hold back third-graders with especially low English scores, was paused in 2019-20 due to the pandemic.

Key points of the 194-page report, include:

In a survey of nearly 7,000 Michigan teachers, many said they spent less time teaching reading last year compared with the year before. The same held true in other subjects. Among educators who taught virtually, 40% said their literacy instruction time decreased.
Half of 2020-21 third graders were listed as “reading deficient” by their school districts at some point in grades one through three. While it’s up to individual districts to define what this means, all students who receive this label are eligible for extra instruction and support in reading.
Teacher coaches reported that they spent less time helping teachers improve their literacy instruction during the pandemic.
While 5% of students scored low enough in 2020-21 to be held back, districts intended to hold back just 0.3% of all students.

Statewide, English test scores fell last year, but researchers did not include that data in the report, noting that less than three-quarters of students in the state had taken the M-STEP exam amid the pandemic.

The MSU Education Policy Innovation Collaborative, the group contracted by the state to study the third-grade reading law, plans to release a separate report measuring students’ progress in literacy using benchmark tests taken this fall. Benchmark tests are given by individual districts to track students’ progress throughout the year.

Michigan still is not doing enough to support student literacy, said Jennifer Mrozowski, director of communications for EdTrust Midwest, a nonprofit advocacy group.

“This report reinforces what we have long seen: Michigan is missing the mark in strategically improving early literacy, and there are disproportionate gaps in opportunity for the state’s most disadvantaged students,” she said in a statement.

$160 million in COVID aid is going to Newark charter schools. Here’s how they plan to spend it.

2022-02-14T15:24:12+00:00

With around 100 students, Discovery is Newark’s smallest charter school. This school year, its state and local funding add up to about $1.6 million — just enough to make ends meet.

“You’re always, always trying to save every dollar you can to make it,” said Denis Cretinon, head of the grade 4-8 school.

But after Congress passed three massive aid packages to help schools respond to the pandemic, Discovery found itself with nearly $1 million extra to spend over a few years.

“Suddenly,” Cretinon said, “you receive money that is like the equivalent of half a year’s budget.”

School districts across the country are similarly flush with federal aid. The COVID relief money amounts to more than $190 billion for public and private schools nationwide, with over $4 billion going to New Jersey.

The money can be put towards a wide range of uses, including cleaning supplies and building upgrades to reduce COVID spread, technology for remote learning, and efforts to address academic and mental health challenges caused by the pandemic. Each aid package comes with its own rules and deadlines, but the last of the money must be spent by fall 2024.

The Newark school district, which educates some 37,000 students, has attracted attention for the whopping $282 million in COVID aid it’s set to receive. But the city’s publicly funded, independently operated charter schools, which enroll more than 20,000 students, also are collecting a heap of COVID relief money. Together, the 17 separate organizations that operate Newark charter schools have been allocated more than $160 million in pandemic aid, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

So what are they doing with the money? Chalkbeat reviewed the schools’ spending plans to find out.

Use the tool at the bottom of this story to find each school’s aid amount and spending plan.

The plans, which districts were required to post publicly, only cover the most recent (and largest) relief package. The Newark charter schools’ plans vary in specificity — a couple included dollar amounts, while most simply listed expected purchases — and could change as schools spend the money over the next few years. Yet they still offer a window into what the schools see as the most urgent needs created by the pandemic and how they plan to address them.

“What are really the needs of our kids?” said Cretinon. “For me, that’s what I follow.”

Making schools safer

After more than a year of remote learning, it took a lot of work — and money — to reopen school buildings last fall.

Newark charter schools spent a portion of their third aid package on face masks, sanitizing supplies, desk partitions, thermometers, and other items to reduce COVID transmission, according to the plans. They also replaced air filters, bought classroom air purifiers, and upgraded schoolwide ventilation systems.

Roseville Community Charter School, which rents an old Catholic school building in Newark’s North Ward, needed to buy a totally new HVAC system. In its spending plan, it explained why: “We have a building that is more than 100 years old.”

Other schools planned to hire more nurses and custodians, and to pay for routine COVID testing for staff and students. Many also invested in laptops, wireless hotspots, and cameras for remote learning — purchases that proved essential when schools briefly reverted to remote learning last month due to a surge in COVID cases.

Helping students catch up

During remote learning, many students watched their academic progress slow to a crawl. Black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students, on average, fell furthest behind.

Districts must use at least 20% of their third aid package to help students make up that lost learning. Newark charter schools generally plan to do that in three ways: assisting teachers, directly supporting students, and monitoring student progress.

For teachers, that means extra training on how to “accelerate” student learning, new or revised curricula and teaching materials, and instructional coaches to boost their effectiveness. For students, the plans call for online programs designed to target skill gaps, more classroom aides and specialists to work individually with students, assessments to identify their academic needs and track their growth, and extra learning time after school, on weekends, and in the summer.

A word that pops up in many plans is tutoring. Many experts have promoted tutoring as an effective way to address learning loss, and U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona recently challenged schools to offer every struggling student at least 90 minutes of tutoring a week.

But the charter school plans provide few details about the format of the tutoring, which is key. Researchers say the most effective tutoring requires well-trained tutors, very small groups, and multiple sessions per week.

At Discovery, the federal aid allowed the school to bring in teachers-in-training from Rutgers University-Newark to tutor students several days a week, and to offer after-school tutoring to students who need extra help. The school also hired additional instructors who work with small groups of students during class and at lunch.

“For some kids, it’s absolutely crucial,” Cretinon said.

Promoting student wellness

The pandemic saddled many young people with anxiety, stress, loneliness, and grief. Now schools are trying to help ease the psychic load.

Many of the charter school plans describe school-wide efforts, including lessons on identifying and managing emotions, mental health training for teachers and workshops for families, and a shift away from punitive discipline practices. Several schools also said they’ll offer students counseling, mentoring, art therapy, or workshops on topics such as grief management and mindfulness. The schools expect to hire additional staffers or pay private clinics or universities to provide those services.

Marion P. Thomas Charter School, which enrolled about 1,400 students last school year, used its COVID money to add two extra social worker positions and an attendance counselor, said Chris Abbaleo, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. The school also paid for teacher training on social-emotional learning and plans to bring in mental health clinicians to work with students.

“Those are things you typically can’t budget for,” Abbaleo said. But now, thanks to the federal aid, they can. “You’re doing things that you usually wouldn’t be able to do.”

The tool below shows how much COVID relief money each Newark charter school was allocated, including grants for specific uses. It also features summaries of each school’s spending plan for the third round of federal aid. (The aid is officially called ESSER, or the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund.)

The big-ticket item in Chicago’s COVID relief spending plan? Pay of current staff.

2022-02-11T12:00:00+00:00

The federal government is funneling billions in COVID relief funding to help school districts respond and recover from the pandemic. In Chicago, new documents show, the district will use a hefty portion of that money on pay and benefits for thousands of teachers, lunchroom workers, and other staff already on the payroll.

Chicago is slated to put more of its federal pandemic dollars into footing the bill for pre-existing staff and programs than some other large Illinois districts. District officials say this spending is preventing disruptive layoffs and freeing up other resources that allowed it to boost how much campuses got per pupil for their budgets this school year.

CPS also plans to spend a chunk of the $1.8 billion in federal stimulus it received from the last funding round on new or improved after-school, summer school, tutoring, mental health and other programs. The spending plan it submitted to the state — the most detailed to date and obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request — offers new insight into how the district proposes to make use of the money over the next two-and-a-half years.

The district’s recently approved application for the American Rescue Plan, the third infusion in federal pandemic recovery dollars for schools and by far the largest, doesn’t offer an exhaustive picture: The state’s form makes it hard at times to tell apart spending on existing programs and new efforts, and includes some sweeping catchall categories. Adding up three federal relief packages for schools, Chicago received almost $2.8 billion.

Districts across the country are trying to strike a balance between using the federal dollars to shore up their budgets and addressing the many student academic and mental health needs brought on by the pandemic. Experts say many districts are rightfully reluctant to make new hires and launch new programs with the money, which needs to be spent by the fall of 2024.

“I would never expect a district to hire new people with temporary money from the feds,” said Lori Taylor, a school finance expert at Texas A&M University. “It’s not prudent to make a long-term commitment using short-term money.”

Still, investing heavily in warding off layoffs and other budget cuts can set districts up for a fiscal cliff as well. And some experts say that while extremely flexible spending guidelines from the federal government allow districts to spend on existing staff and programs, that could go against the spirit of the law: responding to the immediate needs brought on by the pandemic.

Personnel costs loom large in CPS plan

In Chicago’s application to the state for the funding from the American Rescue Plan, also known as the third installment of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER, staffing is clearly a big-ticket item. One catch is that the state’s form asks districts to list staff “created or retained” with the federal dollars, sometimes making it tough to say where the planned spending for existing employees ends and new hiring begins.

Overall, CPS plans to cover 11,312 existing and new employees, almost 30% of the district’s workforce. That’s roughly 56% of the district’s grant going to salaries and benefits, which include pensions, unemployment, and workers compensation coverage.

The bulk of that is paying for existing instructional positions. Between salaries and benefits for 4,524 such positions, the district is earmarking almost $517 million of ESSER III money to keep these teachers on. In a publicly released plan last summer, the district had said it would spend $247 million of that money on preserving school-based instructional positions. But that smaller amount did not include positions that schools cover out of their own flexible “learning loss” allocations and some included in a programmatic bucket in that original plan, the district said.

Separately, Chicago also included almost $450 million for salaries and benefits to cover 3,080 instructional positions in its ESSER II application, which the state approved this past fall — nearly 83% of the district’s roughly half a billion ESSER II allocation.

These numbers far exceed those for teachers and staff who have received layoff notices in recent years — employees the majority of whom the district eventually rehires.

In the American Rescue Plan application, Chicago’s early childhood learning program, which in previous years has been powered with dollars from the state, is another big-ticket item. The district is spending more than $100 million in salaries and benefits for about 600 teachers and 475 teaching assistants, also largely existing positions.

Chicago has grappled with steep declines in its pre-K enrollment, but officials have said they are forging ahead with a plan to offer each child a seat in the program — and the federal dollars are allowing them to pick up the pace, covering some new positions.

The money will also underwrite pay and benefits for:

about 2,400 nutrition worker and 740 crossing guard positions, largely existing positions
roughly 320 school nurse and 528 social worker positions, some already on staff and some newly hired in keeping with the district’s commitment to staff a nurse and a social worker in each of its campuses, enshrined in its 2019 contract with the Chicago Teachers Union
the district originally included 320 school nurse positions in the plan but eventually decided to cover them with other federal funds
64 additional counselors and 20 student promotion coordinators, all new positions to be created this school year and next

CPS is also putting about $12 million toward its school breakfast and lunch contracts with Aramark and Heartland. It is investing about $51 million for additional pay for staff and substitutes to accommodate small-group instruction, interventions for students with disabilities and English learners, before and after-school and summer programs, and more.

Aside from staffing expenses, some of the biggest price tags are attached to broad catchall items on the district’s spending plan list. Some of them are also likely ongoing expenditures that precede the pandemic though that’s hard to gauge without a more detailed breakdown.

One such item — the second most expensive after salaries for retained instructional positions — includes $130 million on planned spending for:

instructional licenses, materials, and fees
the district’s new tutor corps
the previously planned rollout of the district’s Skyline universal curriculum
a slew of contracts with vendors providing social-emotional learning and enrichment programs, some of which already work with the district

Another large category features supplies and materials, from computers to science experiment kits to pens and pencils, for a total of $100 million.

The district said the plan in the application gives it flexibility to respond to evolving needs at the school and district level in the next couple of years.

“CPS is focused on using this funding to provide students with the resources they need to successfully complete a high-quality education and succeed in the future,” the district said in its statement, adding, “The application is built to preserve existing positions and also make sure we have the authority to create new ones.”

The district did not make a finance official available for an interview, but provided detailed responses to questions in writing.

Chicago earmarks 30% of funds for learning loss

More than half of a federal stimulus grant for Chicago schools will go to salaries and benefits for staff. Another chunk will go to address learning loss.

Chicago noted that it’s also using the money to power its full-time in-person reopening and address the mental health, academic, and other needs heightened by the pandemic.

The district categorized about $525 million, or almost 30%, of its planned spending as resources to address learning loss, to which districts were required to dedicate at least 20% of their American Rescue Plan allocations.

Largely under the banner of the district’s two-year “Moving Forward Together” initiative, that amount includes about $215 million for summer programs and enrichment, $125 million for after-school programs, $107 million for extended day expenses, and $76 million for social and emotional learning and student engagement. More than $33.5 million was earmarked for COVID mitigation measures (not including air quality upgrade projects), such as expenses for testing, contact tracing and care rooms, where students who show symptoms during the school day can wait for parent pickup.

The state approved the district’s ESSER III application in December after some back and forth in the preceding months, based on correspondence between the district and board obtained by Chalkbeat Chicago. CPS redacted portions of these emails that outline the revisions the district was required to make as well as the reasons why it sought expedited approval.

In a survey conducted by the state’s school business official association, about half of Illinois districts said they had to tweak their ESSER applications before the state signed off on them.

On a virtual panel on the COVID relief funding this week, Krish Mohip, deputy education officer at the Illinois State Board of Education, said the state sometimes pushed districts to better explain how proposed expenses tie to needs created by the pandemic, nixing some such as the replacement of an entire school bus fleet.

“That’s not responding to COVID,” Mohip said. “That’s just you trying to use the ESSER funding to pay for something you normally have to pay for.”

Other Illinois districts to spend big on facilities, academic overhaul

Shoring up existing programs and investing in the retention of existing staff are allowed expenses under the federal law, said Bree Dusseault of the nonprofit Center on Reinventing Public Education, which has been tracking district ESSER spending and pandemic recovery efforts. So far, because spending data is still limited and varies significantly from state to state, it’s difficult to say how broadly this type of spending is happening nationally.

In some cases, warding off the disruption from staff layoffs and program cuts might be the best use of dollars to help students, Dusseault said. With already declining public school enrollment taking a steeper dive during the pandemic, she said, “If the ESSER funds weren’t in place, districts would be making staff cuts. The funds were unrestricted so districts could do what they needed to do.”

Still, she said, districts must strike a balance between backfilling — and creatively addressing the needs of this unprecedented moment for education.

“The money isn’t given to plug enrollment-driven budget holes,” she said. “It’s to be put in places that best serve students.”

Taylor at Texas A&M University said given the risks of extensive new hiring with temporary money, districts have somewhat limited spending options: existing personnel, one-time purchases such as curriculums or technology upgrades, and “shovel-ready” programs or projects — initiatives that were already in the works. Districts such as Chicago should be transparent about how they are using any money freed up thanks to the federal windfall — or any of the federal money they are unable to spend as planned because of hiring or supply chain challenges.

“Bureaucracies love to have discretionary funds,” Taylor said. “Sometimes, they make decisions with those discretionary funds that aren’t aligned with what the taxpayer might want them to do.”

Other large Illinois districts also tried to strike that balance between maintaining what was already in their budgets and forging new ground.

Springfield is using about $15 million of its almost $70 million in American Rescue Plan dollars on retaining employees over three years, a move the district said would allow it to avoid any layoffs during that time.

The district is also investing into a grow-your-own-educators partnerships with two universities, where it will cover tuition and other expenses for support staff members who are seeking to become teachers — an effort the district says will also help it achieve a more diverse educator workforce. State officials such as Mohip praised that program as an example of a proactive approach to staffing challenges. (CPS launched its own version of a grow-your-own teacher residency program in 2018)

In Elgin, the state’s second largest district, a significant portion of the money will go toward a sweeping initiative called U-46 Rising. The initiative aims to promote academic teams in all school buildings and empower principals to serve as instructional leaders. It involves an investment in professional development and some additional hiring. Separately, the district is hiring 28 elementary teachers in a bid to lower class sizes.

“Our intent is to take these resources and use them to transform our system for the long run,” said Superintendent Tony Sanders. “If we exit this stretch looking the same as we did before the pandemic, we will have failed.”

In Peoria, the big-ticket items are roofing and other facility repairs, furniture, and technology upgrades. The district also plans to install security cameras in buildings and on school buses, saying in its public plan that the goal is to monitor whether students are wearing masks properly. It will update outdated curriculums and textbooks and upgrade some buses and driver’s education cars.

Superintendent Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat said that she looks at this spending as “leveling the playing field” for students in an under-resourced district with a relatively high low-income population. The district is also expanding some existing programs, including tutoring and summer programs.

Said Michael Jacoby, the head of the Illinois Association of School Business Officials, “Districts are trying to avoid expenses that go into the future — trying to creatively utilize those resources without going off a cliff.”

Michigan to release funds for school COVID tests and more

2022-02-10T23:05:44+00:00

The House and Senate voted to disperse $1.2 billion in federal pandemic relief funds including $150.8 million for COVID-19 tests for schools.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday praised the bill’s near-unanimous passage in both chambers. She said the funding would deliver on Democrats’ and Republicans’ shared goals of keeping students learning in school, and recruiting and retaining health care workers.

The bulk of the funding — $667 million – is earmarked for the Department of Health and Human Services to expand laboratory testing capacity and to invest in recruitment, retention, and training of health care workers.

Those measures will keep communities healthier, which makes it safer for students to be in school, bill sponsor Julie Calley said Thursday.

“We’ve seen very clearly that statistically our kids learn better when they are in person, so we want to ensure that opportunity,” said Calley, a Portland Republican. “We don’t want to see any further learning loss.”

Keeping students in classrooms has been a priority for Republican lawmakers including House Education Chairperson Pamela Hornberger, who blasted Flint and Detroit administrators after December’s omicron surge prompted temporary shifts to virtual learning.

Whitmer, a Democrat, agreed during her annual address to the Legislature last month, that districts should return to in-person learning.

Many school districts already have their own COVID testing programs but some have struggled to source enough rapid tests. Detroit Public Schools Community District has been testing employees and students weekly since last spring. Detroit uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, which require at least 24 hours for results but are more accurate than the rapid tests Calley’s bill would provide.

“Right now, the issue of access is not funding but supply. To sustain any long-term ‘test-to-stay’ program we need access to rapid tests. This is critical to keeping our students in school and removing COVID as the barrier to improved student attendance and learning,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said Thursday.

Test-to-stay programs are some districts’ alternative to sending students home if they were exposed to someone at school who tested positive for COVID.

Calley’s bill provides districts options. They can receive tests directly through the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, which Calley says has priority access to the supply chain. Or, if distribution gets backed up, districts can buy tests on their own and file for state reimbursement.

The test shortage was exacerbated by the Biden administration’s promise to mail 500 million free tests to Americans who requested them. Manufacturers have begun stepping up production in an attempt to meet the demand.

The state previously distributed 175,000 free antigen tests to parents, students and staff through the MI Backpack Home Test Program.

Additionally, schools are slated to receive other funds from the appropriation including:

· $50 million to support school-based COVID testing, contact tracing, vaccine distribution, and mitigation efforts. These funds can also be used to purchase and distribute at-home test kits to staff and students.

· $14.9 million to administer COVID tests to students and staff at both public and private schools.

· $250,000 to expand work-based programs or health service academies for high schoolers interested in medical careers.

The supplemental funding is part of the federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which was intended to support public health and economic recovery after the pandemic.

Whitmer’s budget makes big investment in Michigan schools

2022-02-10T01:28:23+00:00

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer unveiled her $18.4 billion education budget plan Wednesday, prioritizing deep financial investments in student learning, mental health support, and more than $2 billion to retain teachers and staff and attract new people to the profession.

Whitmer’s plan for the next fiscal year exceeds the current year school aid budget of $17.1 billion, though lawmakers have added additional money since its initial approval last year. The prior year’s school aid budget was $15.5 billion.

The governor’s ambitious education plan — which also includes a sharp increase for higher education — is made possible by a combination of higher forecasted state budget surpluses and billions of dollars in federal one-time COVID relief funds.

During her State of the State address last month, Whitmer promised she would present the “biggest state education funding increase in more than 20 years — without raising taxes” while also outlining her vision for targeted tax cuts, including for people with pensions.

The state has about a $7 billion surplus along with more than $7 billion in money that still needs to be used from federal COVID-19 relief money,

State budget director Christopher Harkins presented the governor’s overall budget proposal of $74.1 billion, which included the education plan, to the House and Senate appropriation committees. There are several steps before Michigan has an official budget for the next fiscal year, not least of which is negotiating its terms with a Republican-controlled Legislature.

Republican lawmakers Wednesday critiqued the size of the Whitmer budget, indicating they would like to divert more money to tax cuts. There are also likely to be differences on teacher pay.

Whitmer said her proposed budget would make schools safer, address the strain the pandemic has placed on students and staff, help students “catch up” from pandemic learning losses and “ensure that every kid can go back to just being a kid.”

Improving educational outcomes and getting more students to get a college degree or certificate have been signature issues for the Democratic governor. Student achievement in the state had been middling for years compared with other states, and Michigan falls below the national average in the percentage of working-age adults with college degrees. Her budget plan suggests the bounty of new money can help to transform Michigan classrooms.

“We’re on the precipice of really being able to make some long-overdue investments in our state,” Whitmer said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon at Grand Ledge High School, where she was joined by several teachers and administrators.

Her proposal would put more money into classrooms and mean “more personalized learning, new textbooks and more extracurricular, AP, and honors courses as well,” Whitmer said.

The plan includes boosting annual per-pupil funding from $8,700 to $9,135, a 5% increase.

The governor also wants to allocate more funding for more vulnerable students, including low-income students, special education students, and English language learners. Her plans would spend an additional $222 million on low-income students.

Michigan’s teacher shortage is severe and getting worse, with far fewer college students entering the profession. Whitmer’s proposal includes $600 million for educator recruitment. She would create the Michigan Future Educator Fellowship, a “competitive scholarship available to eligible first-time degree seekers and career changers to lower the cost of becoming a K-12 teacher,” according to the budget presentation.

She also wants to give school workers a $2,000 bonus this year and next. Then, in Year 3, she wants teachers and certified professionals to receive $3,000, with another $4,000 the following year. Whitmer proposes that funds for those bonuses — intended to address teacher and staff shortages that have complicated school efforts to stay open during the pandemic — be appropriated in fiscal year 2022-23, and used for bonuses over the next three to five years.

Earlier this week, school leaders discussed some of the strains placed on the teaching profession, challenges made worse by COVID-19.

“It’s a very complex issue when we’re talking about the teacher profession because it deals with their well-being in their profession, whether they feel good about their work,” Ben Mainka, superintendent of Swartz Creek Community Schools, said Tuesday during a roundtable of school leaders.

“It used to be, you know, 20 years ago, even 10 years ago, you walked in and you really got to teach kids and now there’s a lot more that’s been added to that.”

Whitmer wants to invest $150 million on “grow your own” programs which allow districts and regional partners to recruit, train, and retain teachers from their own communities.

“It’s a tough time to work in schools,” Whitmer said. “Staff shortages, quarantines, increased trauma, and learning loss make their jobs even more difficult. So I’m grateful to every school staffer who shows up for our kids.”

The governor also proposed raising the per-pupil dollars providers receive from the state for the Great Start Readiness Program, Michigan’s free preschool program for eligible 4-year-olds.

For higher education, Whitmer proposed a 5% ($76.3 million) bump in annual funding for universities and community colleges, along with a one-time 5% increase on operating costs.

Michigan’s fiscal year begins Oct. 1, but the Legislature normally aims to pass the education part of the budget before July 1, the start of the fiscal year for school districts.

House Appropriations Committee Chair Thomas Albert, R-Lowell, called Whitmer’s proposals a “good old-fashioned spending spree” and showed some hesitancy toward retention bonuses for school workers.

“You know, honestly, I think it brings up some hard feelings from a couple of years ago, with the whole ‘who’s essential and who’s not essential,’” Albert said. “So, I’ll take a look at it. And I’ll see, you know, what the (Republican) caucus can get behind. But I’m more focused on finding a way to have some fair and balanced relief for everybody in the state of Michigan.”

Sen. Jim Runestad, R-White Lake, who serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Education and Career Readiness Committee, said he thinks teacher retention bonuses would help teachers stay in the field but isn’t sure if retention bonuses for other school workers will work. With the end of federal COVID money, he said he believes more people will come to work in schools.

As for Whitmer’s proposal to increase the per-pupil spending on students from $8,700 to $9,135, Runestad said he needs to look more into it.

“I’m definitely supportive of where we recently equalized all the schools. That is probably something I would support. But let me do some research with that first.”

Student mental health has captured the attention of school officials and parents all across the state. Studies have chronicled the mental strain placed on students during a pandemic and the disruptions that have come with it. Michigan was also traumatized by a deadly school shooting in Oxford last year.

Whitmer’s plan calls for $361 million for student mental health services — a more than sixfold increase over the $53.9 million in school mental health funding in the current budget.

The plan includes:

$150 million to expand a program over three years that trains staff on how to help students manage stress and build healthy relationships.
$25 million for universal mental health screenings.
$120 million for mental health professionals and counselors in schools.
$50 to expand existing appropriations for mental health grants.
$11 million to open 40 new school-based health centers.
$5 million to expand specialized services for students with severe mental health needs.

Isabel Lohman is an education reporter for Bridge Michigan.

Lessons in the laundromat: Philly initiative promotes literacy in everyday spaces

2022-02-08T19:31:49+00:00

On a recent cold Saturday afternoon, Iris Hernandez and Carmen Colon were helping six Morales children through the letters, sounds, and words in the book “DJ’s Busy Day” about a bunny and his fun-filled adventures in ordinary places – the grocery store, on the bus, in his home.

“This is fun,” said Jeremiah Morales, 8, as he paged through the book, which is in both English and Spanish.

The group was ensconced in a cozy reading nook, with round yellow tables, child-sized chairs, and a fireplace, surrounded by colorful pictures and alphabet posters on the wall.

And washing machines. And dryers.

They were in a laundromat.

The city still has a long way to go toward its goal. Before the pandemic, standardized tests showed that only about a third of children in district schools read at grade level by fourth grade.

The goal of Read by 4th is to help children reach reading proficiency by the end of third grade.

And the Laundry Cafe, at 4th St. and Allegheny Ave. in Kensington, one of four in Philadelphia owned by entrepreneur Brian Holland, has been enlisted in a nationwide effort to promote early literacy by harnessing the time that families, especially those in low-income neighborhoods, spend on workaday tasks.

Jenny Bogoni, the executive director of Read by 4th, said that she fears the already low rate of fourth graders reading at grade level has declined from its peak of 41% before the pandemic.

“We assume that the number has fallen,” she said. “I think the story here is that we are trying to physically transform everyday spaces in Philadelphia and families’ experience of raising a reader. To do that requires more than just changing teaching in the classroom, although that is critical. It’s doing things like this.”

Brian Holland has worked to make his laundromats as welcoming as possible for families.

Holland is from Chester, one of Pennsylvania’s poorest cities. He opened his laundromats after a long, successful career in the pharmaceutical industry.

For his “second act,” as he put it, he was looking for an interesting business opportunity that had the potential to have an impact on families in the kind of hardscrabble neighborhood that he grew up in.

And he landed on laundry. For many families, it is a weekly if not daily routine, with hours spent washing and drying their clothes in these community mainstays. Often, they bring their children with them, who either help out or must otherwise keep themselves occupied.

From the start, Holland worked to make the laundromat as welcoming as possible, with massage chairs and other amenities. He would give away diapers and men’s clothing to people in need, and occasionally hold seminars that helped people enroll in insurance programs.

He also put out a few children’s books, and he noticed that sometimes they would disappear. “I thought that was a good thing,” he said, “that the children wanted the books.”

He understood the impulse, and he wanted to do more. “I remember growing up, I had pride in my first book, it was mine,” he said. “The younger the better, the earlier you can get kids’ attention, the better off they are.”

Then, through the Coin Laundry Association, a nationwide industry group, he became aware of Too Small To Fail, an initiative of the Clinton Foundation that is focused on the well-being of young children.

The program was launched in 2015 with the realization that “more than half the kids in the country are unprepared for kindergarten, are lagging behind in critical language and literacy skills needed for school and for life,” said Jane Park, the director of Too Small To Fail.

At the same time, she said, since there were already a lot of organizations focused on early literacy by working with educators, the foundation looked for “a unique role we can play in supporting families.”

Children spend 80% of their waking hours outside school environments, so we “talked to parents, partners and others about the places they are going on a daily basis,” Park said. “The mission is to surround families with learning opportunities in the everyday places they go together.”

With children spending the majority of their time outside of school environments, reimagining spaces like the Laundry Cafe provide an extra learning space for children.

The laundromat was one. With willing participants like Holland, they went about thinking “how we could reimagine the space.”

They found out that, among other things, the typical laundromat had a lot of “no” signs around, a turnoff for children, she said.

“We talked to owners, we asked what their challenges are when it comes to kids and families in the stores,” said Park. They talked about “kids running around, slipping and falling, playing with laundry carts.”

So they created a “Family Read, Play & Learn” space with comfortable chairs and couches, tables, a box of manipulatives, and many books. The publisher Scholastic donated books, and KABOOM, a national organization concerned with playspace inequity, provides manipulatives and other materials and helped with design.

They festooned walls with posters in English and Spanish. “Let’s Use Our Imagination!” proclaims one poster that has pictures of animals in their natural habitats. Multicolored letters and numbers cover the sides of some washing machines, and a hopscotch grid is in one aisle. Small footprints on the floor urge children to explore.

The William Penn Foundation, which invests heavily in early literacy, helps underwrite the program. (William Penn is a funder of Chalkbeat.)

Reading captain Iris Hernandez helps 5-year-old Avianna read “DJ’s Busy Day”.

“We underestimate the power and potential of informal learning spaces, especially in environments where school systems have trouble getting resources,” Holland said.

In addition to creating a congenial space that encourages reading and other learning activities, once or twice a month, they also bring in reading captains from the citywide Read by 4th campaign, like Hernandez and Colon, for more formal activities.

Kyshia Roberto and Tyrece Morales are the parents of Jeremiah and his siblings, who range in age from 5-year-old twins to 12 years old.

“This is great for the kids,” said Roberto, who comes to the laundromat every week.

Margarita Davila was there with her daughter Aishah, 7, who was also sitting in the reading nook with her own book.

“This is pretty cool,” she said of the idea that her daughter, who attends Esperanza Cyber Charter School, could be encouraged to read even at the laundromat. “I never knew they had this.”

Family members and reading captains speak at a Read by 4th event at the Laundry Cafe.

Colon, who works as a paraprofessional in several schools in the district, said she became a reading captain because she came to recognize the urgency of getting children to read early. “I’m a community person,” she said. “I could see how children became more engaged because of reading.”

Hernandez, who works with Philadelphia Virtual Academy, the district’s cyber school, agreed. She has four children who either graduated from or currently attend schools in the city. “It is so important for parents to be involved and do volunteer work,” she said.

Holland said he would host these events several times a week if families would come.

“You do as much as you can,” he said. “If you can help one kid in 10, you can change the slope of their lives. The goal is to have impact.”

More high schoolers are off track to graduate. Here’s how schools can help.

2022-02-08T18:30:59+00:00

More ninth graders fell off track to graduate last year as failing grades and absences stacked up, new data from a handful of states show.

In Illinois, the share of freshmen on track to graduate within four years dropped by 7 points in the spring of 2021, a reflection of students failing multiple semesters of core classes like math and English. In Oregon, freshmen on-track rates fell 12 points last year, too.

In Nevada, the percentage of ninth graders behind on course credits rose by 14 points. And North Carolina schools retained about one in six ninth graders in 2021, a rate that was twice as high as the year before.

The data provide more evidence of the difficulties high schoolers have faced while learning during a pandemic. After the first full school year disrupted by COVID, many states saw lower graduation rates for the class of 2021. And since ninth grade success is considered a key predictor of whether a student will graduate on time, some educators are now particularly worried about younger teens whose entire high school trajectories have been shaped by COVID.

“They can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said Franciene Sabens, a counselor who’s noticed the ninth and 10th graders at her southern Illinois high school are struggling more than older students this year. “They’re trying to find their groove, and they haven’t had real, normal school in two years.”

Many ninth graders had an especially rocky transition to high school last school year without the support of in-person classes and after-school activities. Some fell behind in their virtual classes or while they were in quarantine, and are now struggling to make up missed credits. Others got overwhelmed as they tried to balance school with caring for younger siblings or other responsibilities.

Now, schools are trying to help younger high schoolers get back on track, from hiring staff specifically to work with struggling students to rethinking how students can make up failed classes. Some schools are getting more hands-on with advising or making small tweaks to get students the help they need during the school day.

Like many high schools, Oregon’s South Salem High School typically offered students who’d failed a class the chance to retake it in person or to make it up online with a credit recovery program.

But after many students saw their grades plummet during remote learning, the school looked for another option. This fall, the school offered make-up English, history, math, and science classes for 10th graders that were more tailored to students’ individual needs. The students worked with a teacher to figure out exactly which standards they’d failed, and came up with a plan to make up only those missing assignments.

“It has been incredibly successful,” said counselor Ben Handrich. “A lot of our ninth graders were not engaging with distance learning, and they just started flying through” these shorter make-up plans.

In Chicago, where researchers helped pioneer the use of freshmen on-track indicators, coaches at the Network for College Success, which works with 18 high schools in the city, have been helping teachers make small changes to support ninth graders.

A key question they’ve been focusing on is: “As a teacher, what’s in my locus of control to change?” said Sarah Howard, who oversees the group’s coaching work.

That could look like surveying students about what worked, and what didn’t, after a lesson. It could also mean anticipating times in the school calendar where student motivation slumps — like when the weather is cold or there’s a long stretch without a holiday — and keeping that in mind when assigning work and setting deadlines.

“I can think about, what’s the rhythm in my classroom that gives kids more space, more room, more flexibility,” Howard said.

At Elverado High School in Illinois, Sabens has found that many of the younger high schoolers who’ve failed classes struggled to break their homework assignments up into manageable chunks. Recently, Sabens sat down with the school’s science teacher and came up with a plan to help those students work on their organizational skills.

Sabens took home the ninth grade science book and typed up the text’s vocabulary words and unit questions so students knew exactly what their teacher wanted them to answer. The teacher also tried setting more mini-deadlines for students and offered more class time to finish homework.

But Sabens still worries about a group of freshmen who failed science earlier this year, which she likens to “building a house with a cracked foundation.” Often, she says, a student might think: “What’s the big deal? I’ll just make it up.” But that can lead high schoolers “to the point where the outs run out.”

“I want to see them walk across the stage in four years with their friends,” Sabens said. “But their habits are a little bit difficult to break.”

Matt Barnum contributed reporting.

My seventh graders found healing power in disco

2022-02-02T19:53:33+00:00

During the pandemic, it’s been nearly impossible for kids to let loose at school and just be kids. While facing COVID-19 restrictions and dwelling on their own mortality, they have missed out on beloved traditions, such as field trips, dances, and athletics.

As a middle-school teacher, I’d been searching for ways to lift students’ spirits and foster a sense of normalcy. The solution came in the form of an often-maligned, cultural, and dance-music phenomenon from my own childhood: disco.

I work with seventh graders in a rural Georgia school district. I love them, but 12-year-olds are probably the world’s weirdest humans. Against the backdrop of puberty, they fluctuate wildly from joy to tears to rage, sometimes in the span of a few moments. They routinely fight, lie, bully, fart, share heartwarming personal stories, and yearn for as much attention as anyone is willing to give.

Mark Dickinson

In November, I worried what might lie ahead when our assistant principal and two of our seventh grade teachers had to miss school because of a student disciplinary hearing off-campus. When a substitute teacher failed to show, we expected the worst, especially since it was Friday before the week-long Thanksgiving break when students were already revved up and unfocused.

Worldwide, behavior problems have skyrocketed in classrooms, as kids struggle to relearn social skills lost after months of being cooped up at home. Principals’ and counselors’ offices are seldom empty.

‘How do they know the words?’ I wondered.

The first part of the school day passed without incident, but the real test would happen around noon, the moment when almost 200 seventh graders assembled for the cacophony of gossiping, arguing, and open-mouthed chewing known as lunch.

I led my kids into the cafeteria, caught off-guard by the reverberations of a bass riff. Our school was in the midst of a two-week fundraiser, and someone had decided a Friday before a holiday week was a good time to bring in a DJ to motivate the students.

My colleagues and I were not looking forward to the next 30 minutes of crowd control. But I found myself captivated by memories blaring from the speakers, a collection of classics from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. I’m 56. This was my music — some of the very songs I listened to when I was in middle school. I couldn’t resist singing along to “My Girl” by the Temptations.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed one of my students laughing and mouthing to a friend, “Look at Mr. D.” It wasn’t mean-spirited, but I didn’t care, regardless. This was the first time since the pandemic began that I was enjoying music with others, and I wasn’t going to let the moment pass.

The DJ switched to disco, and suddenly, amazingly, the kids were singing, too.

How do they know the words? I wondered.

In the late 1970s, disco was the most popular music in the United States, but that ended on July 12, 1979, during a Major League Baseball promotion at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Spectators were admitted to the doubleheader for 98 cents if they brought a disco record. In between games, organizers blew up the records on the field, leading to a riot and the cancellation of the second game. Shortly thereafter, disco was dead.

But on this afternoon in the lunchroom, disco seemed very much alive.

The teachers wondered if we should tell the students to quiet down. We worried that things would get out of hand. But we let them sing.

Then one girl approached the teachers’ table and asked, “Would it be O.K. if a couple of us got up and danced?”

Without hesitation, a middle-aged colleague replied, “Sure!”

A few of the bolder kids wasted no time showing off their moves. I admired their courage. Seventh graders rarely want to stand out from the pack for fear of being devoured.

I didn’t possess such gumption at that age, and with my lack of rhythm, I’m still uncomfortable getting on the dance floor. But when “Y.M.C.A” by the Village People started playing, I cast aside decades of awkwardness.

I turned to my friend Amy.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I’m in,” she responded.

We threw out our arms to form the famous four letters in the chorus: “It’s fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.” Our lack of skill and limberness didn’t matter.

The group of five or so student dancers swelled to 50 or 60, along with almost every teacher, prompting a cheeky student to exclaim to an instructor, “Miss, it looks like you’ve spent a lot of time at the clubs!”

Normally, by this point, a kid would have shoved a classmate or thrown a milk carton, but on this magical Friday, all was well. The half-hour lunch period stretched to 35 or 40 minutes, but no one wanted it to end, not even the cafeteria workers waiting to clean up for the day.

Finally, the DJ settled the matter by shutting off the sound system, resulting in a chorus of teenage “aws.” The kids tidied up the tables quickly and walked back to class, reveling in the fact that their usual lunch break had turned into a dance fest.

I’ve seen a lot during 20 years of teaching, stretching across three continents and all age groups. I can’t recall an experience more satisfying than cutting a rug in the cafeteria.

For almost two years, students and teachers have endured shuttered schools, at-home learning, quarantines, masks, social distancing, illness, and even death, while grappling with emotions ranging from fear to depression to anger. But as the disco music pulsated, the beat seemed to purge the pent-up distress, leaving everyone with a momentary glimpse of a more promising, post-pandemic reality and giving the teenagers a story to hang on to for life — the day their teachers crossed over to the dark side.

A version of this piece was originally published in The Advocate, a publication of the Graduate Center at CUNY.

Mark Dickinson has taught on three continents. Currently, he is back home working as an ESOL instructor and freelance writer in Whitfield County, Georgia.

Uncertified education majors could soon teach in Michigan

2022-02-01T23:14:07+00:00

Uncertified college students soon could find themselves leading Michigan classrooms and in charge of students’ academic progress for a full year.

The state House Education Committee is considering a bill allowing districts to hire not-yet-certified education majors as paid teachers with their own classrooms for up to one year. The bill aims to alleviate a severe teaching shortage that has crippled schools in Michigan and across the country, but some say it could do more harm than good.

“This is not a reasonable solution,” said Gail Richmond, director of teacher preparation programs at Michigan State University. “As a parent, I want to know that the teacher of my children has been through a program that has a particular set of expectations, offers a certain set of learning opportunities, and has a set of standards that they’ve met,” she said.

Education majors need that kind of structure too, Richmond said, calling the legislation a “lose-lose situation.”

Bill Sponsor Pamela Hornberger, who leads the committee, said her legislation provides one more tool in a toolbox that now also includes legislative authority for bus drivers, library aides, and other support staff to substitute teach with only a high school diploma. She acknowledged that hiring education majors may not work for every district, and it would be optional.

“We’re at the point where we’re voting to put anyone with a pulse and breathing in a classroom to sub,” the Chester Township Republican said during a committee hearing Tuesday. “We need to do something.”

The bill does not specify how far along students must be in teacher preparation programs to participate, but during testimony Tuesday Hornberger suggested that they would have had at least some teaching experience during their college coursework.

The Michigan Department of Education opposes the bill. Department spokesman Martin Ackley would not elaborate.

Rep. Lori Stone, a Democrat and former Macomb County teacher, said she feels “some hesitancy” about college students leading a classroom without real-time support and feedback from a certified teacher. Still, she said, the legislation could alleviate financial hardships for education majors, whose student teaching assignments are usually unpaid.

Hornberger said teacher preparation programs could restructure their programs to ensure education majors are prepared sooner to lead their own classrooms, and districts could establish mentorship programs to guide them.

None of that is specified in the bill, and that’s a problem, Richmond said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon.

“I can imagine some version of this might work if it were carefully crafted, carefully designed, carefully assessed, and carefully overseen, but not if it doesn’t identify the kinds of necessary and powerful supports that developing educators need,” she said. That should include regular real-time feedback, co-teaching experiences, and day-to-day support of an experienced mentor, Richmond said, describing the support students typically receive during unpaid student teaching assignments.

Hornberger said during the hearing that she’s open to amending the legislation. If districts and universities work together, they can craft a model that provides good experience to student teachers while solving local teacher shortages for districts in crisis, she said. Universities might have to restructure their model for how student teaching is delivered, she said.

From South Carolina to Colorado, school systems are increasingly relying on uncertified instructors.

Petoskey Superintendent Chris Parker said he wouldn’t choose to have education majors act as teachers in his district, but said it could be an option for districts with a more severe teacher shortage.

“It’s nice to see the Legislature trying to help solve the current crisis,” he said, but “would you want a surgeon taking out your appendix who’s on a temporary certification but has binge watched the ‘ER’ television series and took a couple biology classes?’

Rep. Darrin Camilleri, Democrat from Brownstown Township, said the legislation could be impactful.

“This is a much bigger step than filling a teacher shortage. It’s re-evaluating what the concept of teacher education is,” Camilleri said.

The legislation could add administrative costs for the Michigan Department of Education, according to a House fiscal analysis. Those costs would likely be absorbed using existing staff, analysts said.

Education advocate Lou Glazer, president of Michigan Future, said it isn’t ideal to have uncertified instructors in charge of classrooms, but it’s a reasonable option during a severe teacher shortage. Michigan Future is a nonpartisan think tank focused on education’s role in bolstering the economy.

“There’s more demand for teachers than there is supply. There’s a real problem, and given this environment, we’re going to have to find alternatives,” Glazer said. He said a student in an education school program “sure seems a hell of a lot better” than a bus driver without any college credits.

State Superintendent Michael Rice has proposed a menu of other options to alleviate the teacher shortage. So far, the Legislature hasn’t considered them. They could cost between $300 million and $500 million over five years, he told lawmakers in a November letter.

Rice’s proposals include offering scholarships to education majors, extending loan forgiveness to current teachers, and better mentoring of new educators. He also wants support to ease restrictions on accepting teacher licenses from other states, to create grow-your-own programs that train support staff to become teachers, and to revive teacher preparation programs in the Upper Peninsula and lower Northern Peninsula.

Bridge Michigan staff writer Isabel Lohman contributed.