A significant number of students across the country fell behind as ill-equipped school districts attempted to teach them over Zoom and other virtual platforms.
WUFT reported “above a third” of students in the Alachua County, Florida district fell behind in what was called coronavirus pandemic-related “learning loss.”
“It’s just hard when you’re sitting at home, looking into a screen, you don’t know your classmates,” parent Jenni Van Hart told the news station. “It’s been hard as a parent to see her struggle and cry.”
Van Hart said her daughter went from a straight-A student to “barely passing every class during the pandemic.”
Gainesville High School teacher Kelley Serravalle wondered if the students were actually doing the work themselves:
As a tech savvy 29-year-old, Serravalle mastered a whole system to teach remotely and help panicky veteran teachers adjust. Her usual creative, hands-on teaching methods rendered obsolete online and in person as students couldn’t share materials for projects.
Serravalle’s gradebook uncovered a disparity among her students. Homework grades were high; online students’ exam scores were low.
She graded and asked: “OK, did they cheat on this? Because their work doesn’t show any work anywhere but they got the right answer, but they have no idea how to explain it to me?”
She said some students “went from missing lessons to disappearing” altogether.
“I don’t see the motivation,” Fort Clarke Middle School teacher Tamela Craig said. “I don’t see the output in completing assignments. I don’t see it different even in children who are attending brick and mortar.”
Craig said teachers were responsible for teaching some students in person, while others remotely.
Few, if any, states or schools opted to partner with existing online school providers to best educate at-home students. At the risk of losing money and power, school districts instead chose to make in-person teachers remote instructors as well.
Continue reading: Breitbart.com
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