Saturday classes?

Schools mull ways to make

up lost time after coronavirus outbreak

When students return to school after a lengthy pandemic-induced absence,
the consensus is they will have lost significant academic ground. Still
unresolved for governments and educators are the questions of how — or
even whether — teachers should try to make up for lost learning.

Some have proposed holding evening or Saturday classes for students to

catch up. A Maryland senator has proposed school year-round. In California,
the governor has suggested the next school year could begin as soon as July.

But any remediation plans will be complicated by social distancing mandates

that may require smaller class sizes and budget cuts that appear imminent
because of falling local and state revenues. In surveys, many educators say
the fall will be no time to pile on additional schoolwork.

“First and foremost, we need to recognize that we have young people in front
of us who have gone through a traumatic experience,” said Andres Perez, a
Chula Vista, California, high school teacher who warns against moving too
fast to get back on track. “And right now, I think students and teachers really
want to make school something that feels meaningful, that students are
excited to go back to.”

Even students in schools that managed to issue devices for video lessons and
assignments and transition to distance learning early on, using school-issued
devices for video lessons and assignments, will have lost out from shortened
sessions and limited interaction with teachers, experts say. The vast number
of students still without technology in early May and those who have all but
vanished from schools’ radars will have fallen even further behind.

The effects of the lost learning could be felt for years.

“Even though we were closed for the last two-and-a-half months of school, it
will take us literally — don’t fall out of your seat — it’ll take us a couple or
three years to get through this,” Alabama Education Superintendent Eric
Mackey told the Alabama Association of School Boards.
The “summer slide” in which students typically lose some ground during their
break is expected to be far worse next fall, with projections by the nonprofit
Northwest Evaluation Association suggesting some students could be as
much as a year behind in math.

“Students with worse educational opportunity will have worse outcomes and it
occurs fairly rapidly,” Andre Perry, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said.
“A month away can have a dramatic impact on outcomes, so six months will
certainly show up in the classroom in the fall.”

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has said she hopes schools will test
students in the fall to gauge where they are academically, particularly because
this spring’s standardized tests that might have provided a barometer were
canceled.

To catch up, most teachers favor a business-as-usual approach, starting the

next school year where they normally would, while giving targeted help to
students who need it, according to an April survey of 5,500 teachers,
administrators and advocates by the nonprofit Collaborative for Student
Success. Administrators lean toward beginning the new year with April
concepts, given where classroom instruction abruptly ended in the current
one.
“Teachers always deal with this to some degree in their classrooms. There’s
always going to be a disparity between kids and their levels of ability and
skills,” said Jim Cowen, executive director of the Collaborative for Student
Success. “There will obviously be an additional barrier but it’s not new to
them.”

Still, Cowen said, it’s important that schools are ready to respond to the
disruption likely worsening the country’s already troubling gaps in
achievement affecting students from minority and low-income families.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said “that learning loss is very real,”

suggesting schoolchildren not wait for fall and instead proposing a return to
classrooms as soon as late July. The California Federation of Teachers, while
praising Newsom’s overall response to the crisis, said in a statement the
decision to reopen schools should be made at the local level through
collective bargaining with unions, once the number of infections has declined
and testing and safety measures are in place.
In Maryland, state Sen. Paul Pinsky, a Democrat and chair of the state’s
Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee, wants his state to
consider year-round school comprising four quarters and seasonal breaks.

Adam Mendelson, a spokesman for the 74,000-member Maryland State

Education Association teachers union, said the idea “clearly has major
legislative, budgetary, and other legal angles that would all need to be
considered, analyzed, and addressed as part of an inclusive policy
conversation about what is best for our students.”
 Officials in Cleveland, Ohio, have said the “multi-year recovery” may include a
shift toward a narrower but deeper curriculum focused on core skills. A
spokeswoman for South Dakota’s Department of Education, Mary Stadick
Smith, says local school boards may be considering the Saturday class
proposal.

budgetary ad Of a budget, of a financial plan

j
legislative ad Having the authority to make or enact
j laws
comprise v include This dictionary comprises about 50000
words.
gauge v measure They gauge the rainfall.
Barometer n Thing for measuring atmospheric We use barometer to measure weather
pressure changes.
vanish v disappear He vanished in the crowd
remediatio n Healing,repairing They are specifically commiting to
n environmental remediation and protection
mandates n command Her mandate is to be quiet in the
meeting.
imminent ad Impending, approaching(especially of A storm I imminent.
j an dangerous event)

Summary
School don’t have to learn fast and more after the lockdown, it makes
students feel down in the dumps, so Saturday classes will waste time and
money with no efficient.