Not one. As a school board member, I have not received one letter asking what can be done regarding depressed student proficiency scores displayed in the fall 2021 assessments. Not one letter or phone call asking what actions our school will take to teach children the content and skills they missed while in remote education or reteach what children forgot while disconnected from instruction. Not one person pointing at the increase of students whose assessment results fall into the significantly below proficient category this fall.
Beyond reading, ELA and math, not one communication regarding a child’s loss of learning in art, music, or foreign language. Not a word about a child’s stagnant growth in business education, marketing, and computer science. Learning in every school curriculum has been stymied by the pandemic, yet there is scant discussion regarding lost learning experiences.
Not one inquiry about how diminished proficiencies affect our junior and senior students’ preparation for post-secondary education, work, and military endeavors. Without doubt, a graduate’s transcript and activity resume’ will be different in 2022 than a pre-pandemic resume’.
I grant that many children profited from their instruction in remote education. They benefited from an optional return to in-person instruction in 2020-21 and a more complete return to in-person instruction in 2021-22. We owe much to our teachers who labored through virtual and hybrid venues to teach their students. Yet, every curriculum no matter how it was instructed remains behind its times in the winter of 2021.
Instead, letters, phone calls, texts and parent attendance at school board meetings demonstrating anger about masking protocols. The demand for parental rights to choose whether a child will wear a mask overwhelms discussion of a child’s educational progress. Am I dismayed? No but yes.
This observation informs us about the evolution of our culture and what we value. We should not generalize any conclusions to the population of all parents but only to the sub-set of vocal parents. We should not diminish our educator’s work on closing instructional and learning chasms but understand that this work is done because we, educators, know that it is the most important work before us. It would be better if parents and school boards and teachers were all on the same page about how to repair student learning at this time of the pandemic, but we are not.
The issue of masks will resolve itself either when all school-age children have had access to the protection of vaccination or when school leaders acquiesce to the loudest voices in their community. At that time, viral mitigation protocols will not be generalized across school districts, schools, and grade levels but will be responsive to breakouts as we ordinarily treat influenza and measles in schools. These events will happen, and the response will be very local to those in contact with the outbreak.
The purpose of this writing is not to encourage parents to become enflamed about the status of their child’s educational progress, but to independently review what really matters and consider if their attention aligns with those matters. For this writer, causing all children to learn with special regard for our most challenged learners is what matters. Their challenges are not only intellectual but include all concerns that affect their total education and wellbeing. Children today demonstrate varieties of gaps in their 4K-12 education, gaps we can close if we are able to give this teaching and learning our focused attention. We will be known by what we prioritize and how we meet our priorities.