Check out the links to these videos here:Hello, and welcome to the last "School Friday" of the month of November!
Today, I would like to thank all of you for just being you. This has been a strange and difficult year, and through it all, I continue to be amazed at the work that you do and plan for our students. I know that we have all been asked to continue to focus on the teaching and learning side of things as we are all really thinking about the impact of the pandemic, and sometimes, we are like.. WTF (What The Fudge)? But, sometimes, when I think about the impact that you have on the lives of our kids, and who you are to them I understand why that sense of "calm" during the storm is so important.
Here's a summary of an article from Edutopia that explains the "ripple effect" of the pandemic on our kids, and why you are so important to them, whether we are remote or face to face:
THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP IS LIKELY TO WIDENA new study suggests that the coronavirus will undo months of academic gains, leaving many students behind. The study authors project that students will start the new school year with an average of 66 percent of the learning gains in reading and 44 percent of the learning gains in math, relative to the gains for a typical school year. But the situation is worse on the reading front, as the researchers also predict that the top third of students will make gains, possibly because they’re likely to continue reading with their families while schools are closed, thus widening the achievement gap.
In the study, researchers analyzed a national sample of 5 million students in grades 3–8 who took the MAP Growth test, a tool schools use to assess students’ reading and math growth throughout the school year. The researchers compared typical growth in a standard-length school year to projections based on students being out of school from mid-March on. To make those projections, they looked at research on the summer slide, weather- and disaster-related closures (such as New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina), and absenteeism.
The researchers predict that, on average, students will experience substantial drops in reading and math, losing roughly three months’ worth of gains in reading and five months’ worth of gains in math. For Megan Kuhfeld, the lead author of the study, the biggest takeaway isn’t that learning loss will happen—that’s a given by this point—but that students will come back to school having declined at vastly different rates.
DISPROPORTIONATE IMPACT ON STUDENTS LIVING IN POVERTY AND STUDENTS OF COLOR
Horace Mann once referred to schools as the “great equalizers,” yet the pandemic threatens to expose the underlying inequities of remote learning. According to a 2015 Pew Research Center analysis, 17 percent of teenagers have difficulty completing homework assignments because they do not have reliable access to a computer or internet connection. For Black students, the number spikes to 25 percent.
“There are many reasons to believe the Covid-19 impacts might be larger for children in poverty and children of color,” Kuhfeld wrote in the study. Their families suffer higher rates of infection, and the economic burden disproportionately falls on Black and Hispanic parents, who are less likely to be able to work from home during the pandemic.
Although children are less likely to become infected with Covid-19, the adult mortality rates, coupled with the devastating economic consequences of the pandemic, will likely have an indelible impact on their well-being.
IMPACTS ON STUDENTS’ MENTAL HEALTH
That impact on well-being may be magnified by another effect of school closures: Schools are “the de facto mental health system for many children and adolescents,” providing mental health services to 57 percent of adolescents who need care, according to the authors of a recent study. School closures may be especially disruptive for children from lower-income families, who are disproportionately likely to receive mental health services exclusively from schools.
“The Covid-19 pandemic may worsen existing mental health problems and lead to more cases among children and adolescents because of the unique combination of the public health crisis, social isolation, and economic recession,” write the authors of that study. Mental health and academic achievement are linked, research shows. Chronic stress changes the chemical and physical structure of the brain, impairing cognitive skills like attention, concentration, memory, and creativity.
So, for all of these reasons, the ARTS are ESPECIALLY important. They are an ESSENTIAL outlet for expression, for communication, and for PROCESSING the impact this pandemic has had on their world. And YOU are that connection, the POWER CORD to this outlet.
Thank you for being there for our kids.
-Jackie
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