A rash of states— including Louisiana, Ohio, Kansas, and Oklahoma — have announced disappointing academic indicators for their students during the pandemic, including depressed test scores, rising chronic absenteeism and faltering graduation rates.
Beyond issues of test scores, graduation rates and relief funds, states and school systems across the country are trying to confront the challenges posed by the pandemic and the delta variant.
Here is a look at what eight of them are doing.
Focusing on mental health
In Kentucky, school counselors and educators are appealing directly to lawmakers in the state on the topic of student mental health, testifying to the General Assembly Education Committee that the COVID-19 pandemic “compounded the problems of adolescence” and has led to as many as 1 in 4 students reporting struggling with their mental health or even contemplating suicide.
“Prior to the COVID pandemic, there were students at my school who suffered from mental illness,” said one teacher in comments to the committee. “However, the sheer frequency and intensity of those affected has increased exponentially since the pandemic. I’m sad to report that, like the national statistic, the number of suicide threats at my own school has skyrocketed since COVID.”
Credit: contributed
Credit: contributed
So, educators in Kentucky are calling for increased funding to school mental health programs, staff, and services.
Offering academic coaching
In New Mexico, the department of education is renewing a contract with a service that connects students and families to an academic coach through a text- and call-based system.
Officials say that nearly 40,000 students were referred to the program during the past two years, with almost half opting to engage with academic coaches.
Emphasizing literacy
In Arizona, an elementary school in Phoenix is garnering national attention for implementing an expansive new literacy program across all of its grades and courses, including physical education and music.
Erika Twohy, principal of Sevilla East Elementary, moved to focus on literacy when school reopened this school year, citing national and state-level assessment data showing steep declines in student literacy progress during the pandemic.
Twohy hired a team of literacy and instructional coaches to help teachers of all subjects learn how best to integrate literacy instruction and practice into their courses. In addition, the curriculum, programs, and resources were reworked to be aligned with the science of reading and phonics.
Despite the intensive efforts, Twohy says she remains concerned for students who are as much as two years behind where they started the pandemic. “I feel like we’re running out of time.”
Mandating vaccines
In California, an announcement last month from state education officials that schools would begin to require students to be vaccinated against COVID-19 once the vaccine is approved for use by children is sparking questions about whether other states will follow suit.
State officials downplayed caveats that the vaccine requirements would be easier to waive than other traditionally required vaccines and that the requirements would be phased in by age group, meaning a vaccine requirement would not likely be in place for most younger students until summer of 2022.
Increasing teachers’ pay
In Indiana, under a tentative agreement reached between Indianapolis Public Schools and the district’s teachers union, educators are poised to receive as much as a 3% raise after years of frozen salaries.
Educators across Indiana say the state trails the nation in teacher pay, sparring lawmakers to direct special attention to compensation throughout pandemic challenges.
Extending learning
In Arkansas, education officials recently announced that over $5 million in COVID-19 school relief aid will be used to support a wide array of “afterschool, summer and extended-year learning programs” across the state.
“For every child in an afterschool program in Arkansas, three more are waiting to get in,” said Laveta Wills-Hale, network director of the Arkansas Out of School Network, who applauded the investments.
“The same is true for summer learning programs. In 2019, more than 26,000 additional children would have been enrolled in a program if one were available to them,” Wills-Hale said.
Meeting a shortage
In Louisiana, the state is looking to “home-grow” educators to meet the increasing teacher shortage – a challenge across the nation. “Educators Rising” clubs have been expanded in high school across the state, as educators and officials hope to introduce the teaching profession to students as they’re planning for college.
The Louisiana Department of Education has even established a “pre-pathways” program to help high school students earn credit to use toward a college program.
“The long-term plan is a ‘grow your own’ initiative,” said Aimee Barber, an associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “We need to look into our own community and reframe choosing the teaching profession.”
Offering free lunches
In Nevada, Clark County School District, which serves the Las Vegas region and is the nation’s fifth largest school district, announced that students will be offered free lunches through the 2025 school year, extending a free lunch program put in place by the federal government during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The district follows others in states like California and Maine that have announced similar extensions of free lunch programs.
Joshua Parrish writes for The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education in America. This story is republished through the Solutions Journalism Network. It originally appeared online here.
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