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Date: 2/18/2022
WESTERN MASS. – The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it chaos and uncertainty in just about every facet of society, and for much of the pandemic a big focus has been on how the effects of the pandemic manifest themselves in schools and in the learning process of students.
The chaos of the early pandemic included a period in which school districts globally needed to make the decision of whether to shut down to help “flatten the curve”. In the vast majority of cases, schools shut down, a decision that was made in an effort to save lives, but brought fear over how the current generation of students will handle such a drastic disruption to their learning.
Schools moved to online formats, where they were often plagued with technological issues, a generational gap of computer literacy, and a lack of real social interaction among students. They remained there for months until the reopening process allowed for a hybrid format. In September of last year, schools in Massachusetts finally returned to an entirely in-person format, with some COVID-19 mitigation efforts remaining in place as the pandemic continued on. As students returned to the classroom, it gave local and state school officials the opportunity to compare new grading data to that of past non-pandemic years. By early 2022, some local districts had found that there has been some calculable learning loss among this generation of students, but that it has been minimal compared to what had been predicted.
Westfield Public Schools Superintendent Stefan Czaporowski said in February that his school district has been using a program called “i-Ready”, which is used to determine the academic needs of individual students in mathematics and reading. After collecting grade data from the first months back in school, Czaporowski said that there was reason to have hope.
“The results have been more hopeful than we thought. The students have the skills,” said Czaporowski, “They are a little behind, but it isn’t insurmountable.”
The overall student scores from i-Ready and MCAS tests were lower than in previous years, in Westfield and other local districts, but districts seem eager to use the grading data they have collected to focus on student’s shortcomings and adjust instruction to help meet their goals.
In the neighboring Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District (STGRSD), MCAS results were also mixed at higher grade levels, and were largely in line with the rest of the state. In that district, Superintendent Jennifer Willard said that teachers are engaging in “Just in Time Teaching,” otherwise known as “Acceleration Learning,” which focuses on the specific academic needs of each student in certain areas while allowing the student to work at their grade level in other areas.
“Prior to the beginning of each reading and mathematics unit of study, our instructional coaches pulled the data from the benchmark assessments to identify which students may be missing prerequisite standards that they need to be successful with the grade-level standard and plan to teach the prerequisite standard in proximity to the grade-level standard,” said STGRSD Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Jenny Sullivan.
Westfield schools are adopting a similar method, though Czaporowski referred to their version as “Tier-1 instruction”.
Sullivan said that grades K-8 also have adaptive, online lessons that can be used to supplement a student’s specific learning gaps.
“The district also has a partnership with Paper Education, a 24/7 online tutoring service for all students in grades 3-12 that students can access for help with their homework, additional academic support, and feedback on essays,” said Sullivan.
Using the i-Ready and MCAS data for mathematics, Czaporowski said that Westfield Public Schools will be able to identify student’s specific shortcomings in the subject and tailor individual instruction to fully carry students into their proper learning level.
While the impact to students’ grades and learning rate was present, but minimal, pandemic school closures have had a noticeable impact on the social skills and behaviors of students.
Czaporowski said that over the course of online and hybrid learning, the isolation impacted the development of students’ social lives and their ability to work with others.
“They have to relearn collaboration skills,” said Czaporowski, “That is also to be expected after a year of isolation.”
The social impact of the pandemic on students became apparent by the middle of the Fall 2021 semester. School officials locally, and nationwide reported a dramatic increase in aggression between students, and an increase in outright fights in the hallways. Czaporowski said that, at its worst, there was at least one fight in a Westfield school every week.
In Southwick, Sullivan said that they, too, saw an increase in social-emotional learning loss, which she said presents differently depending on the age group.
“We did, however, see an increase in social emotional learning loss which presents as dysregulation in the lower grades and disengagement in the upper grades,” said Sullivan.
She said their district was spared from the rampant fighting that took place in districts across the country, there was a period where there was an increase in “minor misbehaviors” that she said were likely the results of students still adjusting to being back in-person.