Recovery Pitfalls

CHALLENGES & CONCERNS

WITH THAT RESPONSE

Although academic support will be extremely important this year, this response puts students on a pathway where in addition to learning gaps or missed opportunities from prior year(s) due to COVID-19, they’re now significantly behind on their current grade level content, making it extremely difficult to catch up

Meeting students where they are and providing targeted instruction will be an important lever for positive student outcomes; however, young students are rarely on the same level across all subject/developmental domains. Additionally, formal assessments are lagging indicators. Instead, flexible/dynamic grouping should be used based on formative assessments or checks for understanding embedded within instruction. This allows teachers to address gaps in real time

This presents a perspective of deficit- thinking and hinders teachers and districts from noticing what each student and family are contributing to the classroom and school community.

In focusing solely on academic development, other developmental areas, such as social emotional learning, are left behind at a time when they are most necessary to recover from the collective trauma of the pandemic. Furthermore, acceleration (as opposed to remediation) is the best strategy to help support students' learning recovery.

The increased pressure to focus on making up for academic disruptions and learning loss will likely have a great impact on the stress levels of teachers and administrators. These adults (as well as parents) also need to be supported in regulating and understanding their own emotional reactions or these will leak out and negatively affect their students.

There are important reasons to extend the school day and provide additional school days (e.g., to better fit parents’ work schedules, extend learning time), however, with respect to increasing student outcomes, more time is not always the answer. Instead, more attention should be given to increasing the quality, not quantity, of instruction. Extended learning time for young children should be focused on enriching experiences. This approach also better supports teachers to prevent burn out and provides time for professional development and reflection on their practice, which are often essential for teaching effectively.

While digital technology has been necessary the past year, we also know that digital learning has not worked well for everyone. Using devices and technology as the only means for instruction, engagement, and communication will continue to increase learning gaps among students.

Young children learn best through active play and positive interactions with adults. Because young children are still developing eye-hand coordination and fluency in switching between 2- and 3-dimensions, young children do not tend to learn well from screens. Digital devices are most effective when used to interact with others or engage in open-ended activities.

While digital platforms have been helpful, there continue to be families that do not have access to technology and devices. Over-reliance on technology as the sole means of communication with families could isolate and exclude some families from the school environment and being able to partner with the campus on their students’ learning. Some families still need one-on-one interactions and supports, which should be done as much as possible to build relationships and increase engagement with all families.

Although districts will have a greater number of students to screen and will need additional resources to accomplish this, it is important that the process not be overly simplified or delayed. Students need to be screened quickly in order to begin receiving needed support. Additionally, students should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, as opposed to determining qualification for Emergent Bilingual support based on this testing alone. We know that there may be something beyond the testing and assessment that we want to consider and students who score near the cutoff point may benefit enormously from bilingual support. With even greater need and more available resources, the time is now to really provide the early bilingual language scaffolding and support services for these students.