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More kids are repeating a grade. Is it good for them? | AP News

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  perrie-halpern  •  2 years ago  •  69 comments

By:   AP NEWS

More kids are repeating a grade. Is it good for them? | AP News
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — As Braylon Price remembers it, he struggled with pretty much everything the first full school year of the pandemic. With minimal guidance and frequent disruptions, he had trouble staying on top of assignments and finishing homework on time.

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T



HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — As Braylon Price remembers it, he struggled with pretty much everything the first full school year of the pandemic. With minimal guidance and frequent disruptions, he had trouble staying on top of assignments and finishing homework on time.

It was so rocky his parents asked for him to repeat sixth grade — a decision they credit with getting him on a better track.

"At first I didn't really want to do it," said Braylon, now 13. "But then later in the year I thought it would probably be better for me if I did."

The number of students held back for a year of school has surged around the country. Traditionally, experts have said repeating a grade can hurt kids social lives and academic futures. But many parents, empowered by new pandemic-era laws, have asked for do-overs to help their children recover from the tumult of remote learning, quarantines and school staff shortages.

Twenty-two of the 26 states that provided data for the recent academic year, as well as Washington, D.C., saw an increase in the number of students who were held back, according to an Associated Press analysis. Three states — South Carolina, West Virginia and Delaware — saw retention more than double.

Pennsylvania, where the Price family lives, passed a pandemic-era law allowing parents to elect to have a redo for their kids. The following year, the number of retained students in the state jumped by about 20,000, to over 45,000 students.

Braylon's mother has no regrets about taking advantage of the new law.

"Best decision we could have made for him," said Kristi Price, who lives in Bellefonte, in central Pennsylvania.

While the family's two daughters managed to keep up with school despite limited supervision, Braylon struggled. He went back to in-person school for the first full academic year of the pandemic but it was "wishy-washy," his mother said. Students were quarantined on and off, and teachers tried to keep up with students learning at home, online and in hybrid models. That winter, Braylon suffered a spinal cord injury from wrestling that forced him to go back to remote learning.

On his repeat of sixth grade, Braylon had an individualized education program that helped him build more focus. Having more one-on-one attention from teachers helped too. Socially, he said the transition was easy, since most of his friends had been in lower grades or attended different schools already.

Research in the education world has been critical of making students repeat grades.

The risk is students who've been retained have a two-fold increased risk of dropping out, said Arthur Reynolds, a professor at the University of Minnesota's Human Capital Research Collaborative, citing studies of students in Chicago and Baltimore.

"Kids see it as punishment," Reynolds said. "It reduces their academic motivation, and it doesn't increase their instructional advancement."

But backers of retention say none of the research was conducted in a pandemic, when many children wrestled with Zoom lessons and some stopped logging in entirely.

"So many children have struggled and have had a lot of problems," said Florida state Sen. Lori Berman, a Delray Beach Democrat. Berman authored a law aimed at making it easier for parents to ask for kindergarten to fifth graders to repeat a grade in the 2021-22 school year. "I don't think there is any stigma to holding your child back at this point."

Generally, parents can ask for children to be held back, but the final decision is up to principals, who make decisions based on factors including academic progress. California and New Jersey also passed laws that made it easier for parents to demand their children repeat a grade, although the option was only available last year.

In suburban Kansas City, Celeste Roberts decided last year for another round of second grade for her son, who she said was struggling even before the pandemic. When virtual learning was a bust, he spent the year learning at a slower pace with his grandmother, a retired teacher who bought goats to keep things fun.

Roberts said repeating the year helped her son academically and his friends hardly noticed.

"Even with peers, some of them were like, 'Wait, shouldn't you be in third grade?' And he's just like, 'Well, I didn't go to school because of COVID,'" she said. "And they're kind of like, 'OK, cool.' You know, they move on. It's not a thing. So it's been really great socially. Even with the parent circles. Everybody's just like, 'Great. Do what your kid needs to do.'"

Ultimately, there shouldn't be just two options of repeating a grade or going on to the next, said Alex Lamb, who has been looking at research on grade retention as part of her work with the Center for Education, Policy Analysis, Research and Evaluation at the University of Connecticut to help advise school districts.

"Neither of those options are good," she said. "A great option is letting students move on, and then introducing some of these supports that are research-backed, that are effective and that allow for academic and social-emotional growth of students and then communities."

In Pennsylvania's Fox Chapel Area School District, two students were retained at the behest of educators, while eight families decided their students would repeat a grade. Another six discussed the new legislation with the school and ultimately decided against holding their students back.

"As a school district, we take retention very seriously," Superintendent Mary Catherine Reljac said. She said the district involves parents, a team of educators, school counselors and principals to help decide what is best for each child.

Price says Braylon's retention helped him obtain an individualized education program, or IEP. The special ed plan gave him more support as he navigated sixth grade again. When he thinks about the difference between rounds one and two of sixth grade, Braylon said he felt like the extra support was instrumental, noting he likes having one-on-one aid from teachers sometimes.

"In online school, you didn't really do that," he said. "You did the work and then you just turned it in."

He doesn't want to be given the answer, he said, but guided enough that he can figure it out on his own.

"I think because of the pandemic, we, as parents, were able to see how much he was struggling and we were able to recognize that he was barely keeping his head above water, and that he needed more help in order to be successful on his own," Price said.

____

This story has been corrected to reflect that a total of 26 states and Washington, D.C., provided data on grade retention for the recent academic year.


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pat wilson
Professor Participates
1  pat wilson    2 years ago

Considering the recent drops in students' performance after returning to in-person schooling this seems like a very good idea.

 
 
 
Jack_TX
Professor Quiet
1.1  Jack_TX  replied to  pat wilson @1    2 years ago

Added to the fact that performance in many schools wasn't very good to begin with...it seems a brilliant idea.

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Principal
2  seeder  Perrie Halpern R.A.    2 years ago

As an educator, what we found when we pushed kids ahead a grade, whether or not they were ready for it, is that they lagged further behind. It's important for parents to know, that their child will benefit from repeating a grade, and in the big picture of life, it may be what helps them the most to succeed. 

 
 
 
Thomas
Senior Guide
2.1  Thomas  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @2    2 years ago

I was held back and it helped me immensely. I roared out of the first grade the second time around, much better suited for success. 

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
2.2  Vic Eldred  replied to  Perrie Halpern R.A. @2    2 years ago
As an educator, what we found when we pushed kids ahead a grade, whether or not they were ready for it, is that they lagged further behind.

Well, there was no danger of pushing them in 2020 or 2021, was there?  Now as we pick up the pieces we hear, maybe it was a good thing?

 
 
 
Hallux
Masters Principal
2.2.1  Hallux  replied to  Vic Eldred @2.2    2 years ago

Maybe it was, after all that was 2 years without that 'marxist-CRT' nonsense. /S

 
 
 
Greg Jones
Professor Participates
3  Greg Jones    2 years ago

Much of the lack of achievement is caused by the teacher's unions

 
 
 
pat wilson
Professor Participates
3.1  pat wilson  replied to  Greg Jones @3    2 years ago

Can you expound upon that postulation ?

 
 
 
Hallux
Masters Principal
3.1.1  Hallux  replied to  pat wilson @3.1    2 years ago

I would expect any answer to be a combination of ethos and pathos masking themselves as logos.

 
 
 
Greg Jones
Professor Participates
3.1.2  Greg Jones  replied to  pat wilson @3.1    2 years ago
"Can you expound upon that postulation ?"

Sure. All you have to do is look at the damage caused by teachers defying science by refusing to return to the classroom. Also do research on test scores and levels of achievement, both pre-Covid and since, locally and nationally.

 
 
 
pat wilson
Professor Participates
3.1.3  pat wilson  replied to  Greg Jones @3.1.2    2 years ago

So Covid is the unions fault, lol.

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.1.4  bugsy  replied to  pat wilson @3.1.3    2 years ago

What he is saying is the White House is now trying to blame Republicans for the schools that stayed closed for a long period of time, but there is endless video of teacher union presidents and democrats (one in the same) advocating to keep schools closed. Also, teacher unions demanded their members were given the head of the line for a vaccine, then still refused to go back to school because of perceived infrastructure demands, ie, filtration systems, plexiglass separating everything that moved, etc.

Here in Florida, the new liberal boogie man, Ron DeSantis, ordered schools open the fall of 2020, same for Georgia  and Texas, and yes, there were outbreaks and some schools closed again for a few days, but promptly opened up again,

There was minimal damage to the kids, unlike the damage to kids in blue cities/states. This is s big reason for the exodus from those areas to red areas.

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
3.1.5  Ender  replied to  bugsy @3.1.4    2 years ago

How States Compare in the 2022 Best High Schools Rankings

Florida rates third in the nation. The only red state in the top ten.

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
3.1.6  Texan1211  replied to  Ender @3.1.5    2 years ago

It all depends on what specifics you look at.

Public high school adjusted cohort graduation rate - USAFacts

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
3.1.7  Ender  replied to  Texan1211 @3.1.6    2 years ago

That is only about graduation rates. It only accounts for that. Not how well the students are doing.

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
3.1.8  Texan1211  replied to  Ender @3.1.7    2 years ago
That is only about graduation rates.

Yes, and if YOU look closely at YOUR link, you would find that it only talks about how many of the top schools are in each state. That is great for students at THAT school, but what about all the other schools? Graduation rates tell more about the overall success of a states' schools.

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
3.1.9  Ender  replied to  Texan1211 @3.1.8    2 years ago

It is going by how many top rated schools one has in a state. It would make sense to me the less top schools you have the less overall success.

The results vary greatly for the percentages of states' high schools in the top 25% of the rankings. Only nine states had 30% or more of their schools in the top 25%. Seventeen states had 25% or more of their high schools in the top 25%. However, 22 states had 20% or fewer of their high schools in the top 25%, and nine states had fewer than 11% of their high schools in the top 25%.
 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.1.10  bugsy  replied to  Ender @3.1.5    2 years ago
Florida rates third in the nation.

Your link only shows how many schools are the best in each state.

I never mentioned that. I said red states opened their school much earlier than blue states

What I meant by damage is social damage by making kids as young as 2 or 3 wear masks long after the danger was over and their social skills took a major hit during those times.

There are even schools demanding kids wear masks this year.

That's just plain lunacy/

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
3.1.11  JBB  replied to  bugsy @3.1.10    2 years ago

So, how can you explain that the kids in blue states test way better than in red states?

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
3.1.12  Ender  replied to  bugsy @3.1.10    2 years ago

If a school is trying to prevent an outbreak I can understand.

Then again I never understood the hatred of wearing a mask to begin with. Some petty shit.

If you are going the social route I take it then you think home schooled kids are harmed.

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
3.1.13  Texan1211  replied to  Ender @3.1.9    2 years ago
It is going by how many top rated schools one has in a state.

Yes, that is what I pointed out to you.

It would make sense to me the less top schools you have the less overall success.

Then it should make sense to you also that states doing better would have higher overall graduation rates.

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
3.1.14  Ender  replied to  Texan1211 @3.1.13    2 years ago

There are a lot of reasons people don't graduate. Has more to do with home life than anything.

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.1.15  bugsy  replied to  Ender @3.1.12    2 years ago

Most of the time they were not trying to prevent an outbreak. It is well know, and SCIENCE has dictated, that children are the least to catch and transmit COVID. That has been known for a couple of years.

It's not a matter of hatred of wearing a mask, it is the social harm to the youngest of our children. Facial expressions, lip reading and just the simple act of speaking to someone 6 feet apart are known to have the most harm.

It has been recognized that home schooled kids fared the best because their parents encouraged socializing with other home schooled children, and obviously, were not under the same orwellian rules of public school children.

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.1.16  bugsy  replied to  JBB @3.1.11    2 years ago

There has been many reports over the past years that many blue school districts have deemed their state tests as racist and are unfair to minority, especially black, students. Their remedy was to dumb down the tests so minorities,especially blacks, have a much better chance of passing.

Makes the schools look good even though most blacks can't read or write anywhere near the grade level they "passed" the test in.

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
3.1.17  Ender  replied to  bugsy @3.1.15    2 years ago

Sorry but kids are nothing but a bunch of petri dishes. Catch and pass things very easily.

As someone pointed out in another thread, the kids are not the only ones in the school.

Kids may be less likely to catch it yet they still can. Then who is most likely to get it? The teacher.

I would hardly call some homeschooled kids on a playdate with like minded individuals the same as going to school.

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.1.18  bugsy  replied to  Ender @3.1.17    2 years ago

Then you are not following the science. It was well reported that kids are the least likely to catch COVID. If teachers felt threatened, then nothing is stopping them to wear a mask.

Nowhere did I say a play date. My comment included junior and high school kids that were able to see kids their ages and socialize with them inside and outside the home, not be restricted by plexiglass and 6ft.

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
3.1.19  Ender  replied to  bugsy @3.1.18    2 years ago

I understand your point. Basically why put harm or restrictions on the least vulnerable.

I would argue that what we know after the fact wouldn't have changed my opinion much. We took measures to try and stop a virus in its track. Any measures we took would obviously include the school system.

Personally I leave it up to the single school to decide what is best at any particular time.

Our schools have gone back and forth with masks as they saw fit.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
3.1.20  sandy-2021492  replied to  Ender @3.1.19    2 years ago

Here's the other thing.  While children are at less risk of serious disease, they can and do catch and transmit Covid.

One of my patients has a daughter who has had Covid twice now.  Her older daughter has leukemia and is immunocompromised.  It's pretty scary to have one kid who's positive, and another who you know may die if she contracts it.

Another patient who works in healthcare herself brought it home to her kids.  The whole family was sick at the same time.  None of them had a severe case, but they all had lingering symptoms for months.  This was a very health-conscious family, with no risk factors, but they still had trouble shaking it.

And some kids have developed Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), which, while rarely fatal, requires hospitalization and is reported to be quite painful.

So, yes, kids are at risk.  Kids have had Covid.  Kids have died from Covid.  And kids can carry Covid home to vulnerable family members.

 
 
 
Thomas
Senior Guide
3.1.21  Thomas  replied to  bugsy @3.1.16    2 years ago
Their remedy was to dumb down the tests so minorities,especially blacks, have a much better chance of passing. Makes the schools look good even though most blacks can't read or write anywhere near the grade level they "passed" the test in.

You made the assertion.  Prove that the states "dumbed down "the tests so that blacks and other minorities could pass them.

 
 
 
Jasper2529
Professor Quiet
3.2  Jasper2529  replied to  Greg Jones @3    2 years ago
Much of the lack of achievement is caused by the teacher's unions

The leaders of both the NEA and AFT "advised" the CDC that schools needed to be closed, even though "The Science" indicated that was false. The unions obeyed, and that's a great part of why our children are so behind. 

 
 
 
Hallux
Masters Principal
3.2.1  Hallux  replied to  Jasper2529 @3.2    2 years ago
"The Science" indicated that was false.

Every field has its minority of naysayers. The leaders of the NEA, AFT and CDC chose to err on the side of caution, a wise decision when considering the infection, hospitalization and mortality rates in the first year. The children will survive and most of them will garner wisdom from the experience and as such will be better than you or I.

What a teacher wants is that her or his students grow up to be better teachers than they.

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
3.2.2  Texan1211  replied to  Hallux @3.2.1    2 years ago
Every field has its minority of naysayers. The leaders of the NEA, AFT and CDC chose to err on the side of caution, a wise decision when considering the infection, hospitalization and mortality rates in the first year.

Which makes it all the more troubling that Biden and others have attempted to blame Republicans for school closures.

Of course, now those folks qualify as revisionist historians.

 
 
 
Jasper2529
Professor Quiet
3.2.3  Jasper2529  replied to  Hallux @3.2.1    2 years ago
The leaders of the NEA, AFT and CDC chose to err on the side of caution, a wise decision when considering the infection, hospitalization and mortality rates in the first year.

And, they all knew they were wrong, months before September 2021, that children were not at risk of contracting or transmitting serious Covid and/or variants. BUT, the Biden Administration and CDC, influenced by the NEA and AFT, continued school lockdowns and kept pushing experimental "emergency" vaccines and boosters on children and infants. Why? Perhaps to line the pockets of Pfizer and Moderna ... heavy contributors to the Democrat Party. 

Even today, a number of school districts stupidly mandate paper and cloth masks for pre-school and grammar school students, which most people have always known have been completely ineffective.

 
 
 
Hallux
Masters Principal
3.2.4  Hallux  replied to  Texan1211 @3.2.2    2 years ago

All of history is revisionist, there are literally 100s of books written about 1776 and 100s more to be written. 15,000 books about Lincoln have been published ... history is not stuck in what you have learned of it, history is like us, organic.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
3.2.5  sandy-2021492  replied to  Jasper2529 @3.2.3    2 years ago
And, they all knew they were wrong, months before September 2021, that children were not at risk of contracting or transmitting serious Covid and/or variants.

How many teachers are children?

School administrators?

Janitors?

Food service workers?

Paraprofessionals?

Students were not the only people whose safety needed consideration.

Also, the Biden Administration did not continue school lockdowns.  Local school boards did.  Our schools were doing part-time in-person instruction before Biden was inaugurated, and did not shut down after the inauguration.

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
3.2.6  Sean Treacy  replied to  Hallux @3.2.4    2 years ago

hAll of history is revisionist, t

Lol..  Holocaust denial is revisionist too, I guess you can't criticize that either. 

Shoehorning lies like "democrats were against school closures" and "America was founded to protect slavery" under the umbrella of respectable "revisionism" is a dishonest conflation.  legitimate revisionism tries to better explain the reality of the past, not make up Orwellian lies to support a political agenda. 

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
3.2.7  Sean Treacy  replied to  Hallux @3.2.1    2 years ago
The leaders of the NEA

Sure, if there's one organziation equipped to manage the response to a pandemic, it's a teacher's union. Forget scientists or objective data, let's rely on the proven expertise of a union to handle a plague. 

FT and CDC chose to err on the side of caution

and demonize anyone who opposed the expertise of the teachers unions by calling them racists, murderers etc.. A real nuanced response to anyone questioning why a union was managing a pandemic.

But hey, they've damaged another generation of kids, particularly minorities, so you have another 20 years of blaming "structural racism" and funding democratic special interests who will focus on "equity", so I guess it all turned out all right in the end. 

 
 
 
Hallux
Masters Principal
3.2.8  Hallux  replied to  Sean Treacy @3.2.6    2 years ago

You can criticize whatever you wish, no one will care enough to knock on your door despite what Rick Scott blathers on about. Just leave threats of violence at home.

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
3.2.9  Texan1211  replied to  Hallux @3.2.4    2 years ago

Yeah, I won't excuse Biden and company for their organic lies.

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
3.2.10  JBB  replied to  Texan1211 @3.2.9    2 years ago

The President of the United States has lots more important things to worry about than what some angry anonymous Texas right-winger on the internet believes or doesn't...

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
3.2.11  Texan1211  replied to  JBB @3.2.10    2 years ago

Oh, his handlers have to be busy spreading lies, I agree.

 
 
 
Jasper2529
Professor Quiet
3.2.12  Jasper2529  replied to  Hallux @3.2.4    2 years ago
All of history is revisionist ...  history is not stuck in what you have learned of it, history is like us, organic.

Does that mean that:

  • the US Constitution wasn't officially ratified on June 21, 1788?
  • Lincoln wasn't assassinated on April 14,1865 at Ford's Theater? 
  • SCOTUS didn't issue a 9-0 decision on Brown v. Board of Education in 1954?
  • in 2008, Barack Obama wasn't the first Black President?

Interesting!

 
 
 
Hallux
Masters Principal
3.2.13  Hallux  replied to  Texan1211 @3.2.9    2 years ago

However, you will excuse Trump for his orgasmic lies.

 
 
 
Hallux
Masters Principal
3.2.14  Hallux  replied to  Jasper2529 @3.2.12    2 years ago

[Deleted]

 
 
 
Texan1211
Professor Principal
3.2.15  Texan1211  replied to  Hallux @3.2.13    2 years ago

Not at all, but its real cute you think that without reason.

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
3.2.16  Vic Eldred  replied to  sandy-2021492 @3.2.5    2 years ago

No kidding?

You mean it was about protecting teachers?

And who initiated that policy, as Trump said "the kids need to go to school?"

Oh here it is:




We didn't forget!

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
3.2.17  sandy-2021492  replied to  Vic Eldred @3.2.16    2 years ago
You mean it was about protecting teachers?

Why are you asking me?  This was the comment to which I was responding:

And, they all knew they were wrong, months before September 2021, that children were not at risk of contracting or transmitting serious Covid and/or variants.

The concern for the health and lives of teachers (and teacher aides, janitors, cafeteria personnel, etc.) and their families displayed by your comment is noted.

Was Biden in office at the time Vic?  Did schools nationwide go back on lockdown after he took office?  Or was accusing him of locking down schools a bit of "revisionist history", aka lies?

Our readers would like to know.

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
3.2.18  Vic Eldred  replied to  sandy-2021492 @3.2.17    2 years ago
The concern for the health and lives of teachers (and teacher aides, janitors, cafeteria personnel, etc.) and their families displayed by your comment is noted.

As is the Teacher's union who hadn't demanded that their members get vaccinated

And it was they who told the CDC what to do.

Biden was a tool of the Teacher's union.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
3.2.19  sandy-2021492  replied to  Vic Eldred @3.2.18    2 years ago

The vaccine wasn't available at the start of the school year.

Teachers weren't the first eligible for the vaccine, either - many wouldn't have been able to receive their second dose until well into the spring semester.  They, rightly, were prioritized behind frontline healthcare workers and the elderly.

I'm sure you disagree with this statement from your fellow conservative participant in this debate, too:

and kept pushing experimental "emergency" vaccines and boosters on children and infants. Why? Perhaps to line the pockets of Pfizer and Moderna ... heavy contributors to the Democrat Party.

Somehow, Biden is both simultaneously responsible for pushing the vaccine, and in cahoots with teacher's unions who won't push the vaccine.  He's Schrodinger's POTUS.  Even better, you're blaming him for policies set when he was not in office.  Kinda like those who blame Obama for not showing up for Hurricane Katrina. 

Biden was a tool of the Teacher's union.

You're evading the question, Vic.  But we all know why.  The truth doesn't allow you to place blame where it doesn't belong.

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
3.2.20  Vic Eldred  replied to  sandy-2021492 @3.2.19    2 years ago

In China the kids never stopped going to school.

The Teacher's Union has been the main impediment to the well being of American children.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
3.2.21  sandy-2021492  replied to  Vic Eldred @3.2.20    2 years ago

And?

You can't accuse the Chinse of creating a spreading the virus on purpose to kill the world and poke Trump in the eye while simultaneously holding them up as an example to emulate in dealing with the virus, Vic.

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
3.2.22  Vic Eldred  replied to  sandy-2021492 @3.2.21    2 years ago
And?

Just this:

"American Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten, who pushed shutdowns as long as she possibly could before parents revolted, tried to forget this ever happened with her statement on Twitter: “Thankfully after two years of disruption from a pandemic that killed more than 1 mil Americans, schools are already working on helping kids recover and thrive. This is a year to accelerate learning by rebuilding relationships, focusing on the basics.” But she and her union were the chief disrupters."

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
3.2.23  Ender  replied to  sandy-2021492 @3.2.21    2 years ago

What gets me is we had/have a virus running rampant, it has killed people and we don't know what can happen.

And the complaint people had is my kids need to be in school?

That is the last place I would want my kids during a deadly pandemic.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
3.2.24  sandy-2021492  replied to  Ender @3.2.23    2 years ago

Exactly.

My son hasn't caught Covid (yet).  He has been vaccinated.

But remember the Swine Flu?  Oh, boy, did he ever catch that, before the swine flu vaccine was available here.  And that was the sickest year of his childhood.  Flu, then strep, then bronchitis, then ear infections.  It just went on and on - he'd get over one bug, then catch another almost immediately.  He missed so much school that year that we got a letter from the school board office warning us about truancy, but he was honestly home with a fever every single time.  What finally got him well was the winter of 2009-2010, when schools shut down because of snow for weeks at a time.

 
 
 
Drinker of the Wry
Junior Expert
3.2.25  Drinker of the Wry  replied to  Ender @3.2.23    2 years ago
That is the last place I would want my kids during a deadly pandemic.

What societal restrictions do you support with our Monkeypox outbreak?

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
3.2.26  Ender  replied to  Drinker of the Wry @3.2.25    2 years ago

Don't touch people with open sores...

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
3.2.27  Ender  replied to  sandy-2021492 @3.2.24    2 years ago

Thankfully I haven't caught it. I did get the vac but not the boosters.

I will never understand the people that just want everyone to get it and let the consequences fall where they may.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
3.2.28  sandy-2021492  replied to  Vic Eldred @3.2.22    2 years ago

Ah, an opinion piece.  Well, that's proof.

And not all schools stayed closed.  Ours reopened that fall, on a hybrid model.  By the following semester, they were learning in-person full-time.  Our county was hardly alone in that.

What you haven't managed to show is that school shutdowns weren't necessary.  Yes, yes, we all know kids are at low risk from serious Covid effects, but kids aren't the only ones in the building, which is what many people seem to forget.  Schools are run by adults.  Some of those adults may be in poor health themselves, and some may have family members who are in poor health.  Some may simply be at higher risk because of their age - the more experienced teachers, the ones we'd like to retain (and keep alive).  When the school year started, nobody had been vaccinated.  When school restarted after the winter break, very few had been vaccinated.  Teachers were in the second phase eligible for the vaccine - 1b.

I've already related our schools' experience - it was stop and start.  We reopened, then would shut down because too many teachers (not kids) were infected.  Or the school would be open, but two or three classes full of children were kept home for a few weeks because their teachers were sick.  So reopening - well, it wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
3.2.29  sandy-2021492  replied to  Ender @3.2.27    2 years ago

I haven't, either.  Fully vaxxed.

I think those folks are stuck in the era of "pox parties" mentally.  They don't or won't realize that there are better, safer ways to attain immunity than by risking infection, and they also don't realize that some viruses are more prone to mutation than others, and therefore more prone to having new strains arise.

That, or they're just heartless bastards.

 
 
 
Vic Eldred
Professor Principal
3.2.30  Vic Eldred  replied to  sandy-2021492 @3.2.28    2 years ago
Well, that's proof.

Where have you been Sandy?


 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
3.2.31  sandy-2021492  replied to  Vic Eldred @3.2.30    2 years ago

In a world where an opinion piece is just that.

And one where Biden wasn't in office when schools shut down.

 
 
 
Thomas
Senior Guide
3.2.33  Thomas  replied to  Drinker of the Wry @3.2.25    2 years ago

Don't nuzzle monkeys.

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
4  JBB    2 years ago

My mom was a second grade teacher who refused to advance her students who could not read at second grade level. Those she held back universally credit her with positively improving their lives. It may have been tough at the time, but it made finishing school possible. 

 
 
 
Greg Jones
Professor Participates
4.1  Greg Jones  replied to  JBB @4    2 years ago

[deleted]

 
 
 
Jasper2529
Professor Quiet
4.2  Jasper2529  replied to  JBB @4    2 years ago
My mom was a second grade teacher who refused to advance her students who could not read at second grade level.

Interesting that your mother was the sole arbiter of her students' educations and futures. If a child could not read at grade level, was she also certified to check his or her vision or other possible physical/psychological disabilities?

In the history of modern US education (approximately 70 years), school districts have had, by federal law, a team of teachers, specialists, guidance counselors, psychologists, and of course the child's parents who jointly make these important decisions. This is called an IEP ... Individualized Education Program.

The pandemic's unnecessary lockdowns of our schools unleashed a completely different issue, and students paid the price for adults' political avarice. 

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
4.2.1  JBB  replied to  Jasper2529 @4.2    2 years ago

Mom continued her education her entire career. She still deeply regrets the things she did not know about autism and dyslexia and such in the 1950s and 1960s. She was considered a "reading specialist" because of her advanced education. The small school district where she taught did not have a "school psychologist". Parents fought to get their children into her classes because it was known that most kids advanced significantly in one year.

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
4.3  sandy-2021492  replied to  JBB @4    2 years ago

My dad was held back in elementary school (4th grade, I think, but not sure).  Not because he couldn't do the work, but because he wouldn't.  The prospect of repeating a grade, and I suspect quite the butt-whooping from my Grandpa, motivated him to do better the second time around.

In high school, sports motivated him to keep his GPA high enough to be allowed to play.

By the time he graduated, he had an appointment to West Point, which he somewhat foolishly turned down.

 
 
 
Thomas
Senior Guide
5  Thomas    2 years ago

I find observing people humorous, especially when the same ones who grouse about how the "liberal educational systems " just pass through the kids are now complaining about holding people back when they don't have the academic wherewithal to move to the next grade. 

My suggestion to all is to just deal with reality and stop trying to place blame. 

 
 
 
sandy-2021492
Professor Expert
5.1  sandy-2021492  replied to  Thomas @5    2 years ago
My suggestion to all is to just deal with reality and stop trying to place blame.

This.

I don't think anybody denies that the school shutdowns harmed education.  That doesn't mean they weren't necessary.  They were possibly even inevitable, even if they hadn't been mandated.  When our schools returned to hybrid in-person/remote learning in November 2021, they promptly closed down again because so many teachers were sick with Covid that there was inadequate supervision for students.  There were several times when entire schools or individual classes had to revert to remote learning, due to staff members being sick.

Substitute teachers tend to be retired teachers - older, at higher risk of severe complications, sometimes taking care of even more elderly parents, and therefore far less willing to substitute during a pandemic, especially before the vaccine was available.  So the backup that was usually in place when teachers get sick wasn't there.  If a teacher at the elementary school level was infected, his or her entire class stayed home.  If a teacher at the middle or high school level was infected, students were basically supervised somewhere in the school building during the class period they would have spent with that teacher.  If enough at any level were infected, school closed because there weren't even enough personnel to supervise students who were merely parked somewhere in the school with their Chromebooks.

So, it was what it was, and it's time to move forward.  This was not the first pandemic that has closed schools, and it likely won't be the last.  We should focus on recovering from the lost time, and on making efforts to ensure that next time (and there probably will be a next time), we are better prepared to handle both a pandemic and remote learning.

 
 

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