On a dusky summer evening in our neighborhood a parent would hear “Olly olly oxen free” and know that children still unfound in a game of hide and seek could now come out of hiding, gather around the home base, and start a new game. Hide and seek, a game that allows children to scatter, find cover, wait out the person seeking them, and if not found, return to home base a winner. Many winners were possible in every game. Sounds like remote education in a pandemic.
Olly olly oxen free was what children heard and repeated when the originators of the game actually yelled into the dusk, “All ye out come in free”.
That should be the message to all children and their parents from a school today. It is time to gather all the children who are enrolled in the school and provide everyone with a needed status check. In the game of learning, we need to know the status of each child’s learning? Schools don’t know. Parents don’t know. Children don’t know. We all need to know.
This is not necessarily a call for all children to return to in-person learning in their pre-pandemic school. Facts are that some children already have returned to in-person learning. Facts are that some children have found new schooling providers and will not return to their pre-pandemic school. Facts are that some parents are not yet ready to return their children to any school for in-person learning. These are the facts regarding children who were enrolled in our schools when the pandemic sent them home.
There is another fact that must be addressed. That is, the current learning status of each child after twelve-plus months of pandemic education. Each school needs to say to its pre-pandemic parents with credible assessment results –
- These are the achievement facts of your child’s pre-pandemic learning, and,
- These are the current achievement facts of your child’s pandemic learning.
“All ye out come in free” is a call to parents to receive unblemished educational assessments. Information always is powerful. It informs decisions. A lack of information can lead to uninformed decisions. Parents and schools need information and they need it now.
Assessments are more than reading and math testing. We need information about a student’s learning status regarding each of the standards-based curricula that is taught in our schools. This includes all academics – reading, writing, speaking, language development, math problem solving, math information, science, and social studies. It includes the arts – art, band, and choral music. It includes each second language a child was studying at the beginning of the pandemic. It includes each of the elective areas of education – business and marketing, technology, computer sciences, and driver’s education. And, it includes health and physical education. In our school, each of these represents a curriculum based upon school board adopted standards. This curriculum is the substance of our school’s instructional program and we need to know about all of it.
Some may say that we should wait until a child returns to her pre-pandemic school or formally enrolls in another school to conduct such assessments. I fully disagree with the first part of this caution. Our school is obligated to provide this information on an annual basis to the parents of each child enrolled in the school. Although statewide assessments for the purpose of school report cards have been waived, there have been no waivers for a school’s responsibility to inform parents about their child’s ongoing learning developmnts. I will agree that a school is responsible for assessing each of its enrolled children and this extends to new school enrollees. To extend this, a school is responsible for obtaining a new enrollee’s educational records so parents will have pre-pandemic and current pandemic information for their child.
It is time to call “Olly olly oxen free”, gather our school children, and conduct a full range of educational assessments. It is time for school, parents, and children to have these educational facts. This spring, April, May and early June, is the time. The fact is, we know what to assess, how to assess, and who to assess. The fact is, teaching and learning in the 2021-22 school year requires these assessments. The question is, will we? Or will all the oxen still roam free?