MOUNT VERNON – As new research across the country starts to show a measurable impact on learning from virtual education modes, Mount Vernon City Schools (MVCS) already has students back in class.
NWEA, a nonprofit that administers standardized testing, recently reported that data from 4.4 million U.S. students in grades 3-8 showed students fell behind in math by 5- to 10 percentile points this year, a report published on the AP News website said.
Since the pandemic started, MVCS ran the full gambit of learning modes; going fully remote last spring, into hybrid to start the fall and back into class five days a week for the second grading period. But it’s too early to tell what specific effects on learning this has had, Superintendent William Seder told Mount Vernon News.
MVCS ran a small study when they were in full remote and hybrid learning modes to get a general idea of effectiveness.
“What we found is that the turning in of assignments or completion of assignments was much, much higher when students were in session,” Seder said. “And even our better students — when they were at home in an online environment — we found that our completion rate was far less, and certainly that was a concerning factor for us.”
The superintendent noted that remote learning posed challenges for schools, students and parents.
“Sometimes there wasn’t the structure, sometimes there wasn’t the motivation to do it, there wasn’t the support that the kids needed, and quite frankly a lot of the parents didn’t have the time to be able to do that kind of work,” Seder said. “They were working jobs and just felt like they were burning the candle at both ends.”
Even in hybrid mode, they found the online portion continued to be challenging.
“There’s no question in our minds, even though we’re all worried about COVID and keeping our students and staff safe, our kids learn best when they’re in school and in person,” he said.
MVCS has a plan to address learning loss if students fall below grade-level expectations.
“We have a plan in the school system called Response to Intervention,” Seder said. “Those students are identified that might have that level of loss that we might deem as detrimental to their ability to move on. We would look to put those students in Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions to try to lift them up and get them back to where they should be per their grade-level peers with the ability to move on in the next year.”
