Sixty-four percent of Columbus Middle School students are two or more grade levels behind in reading and 53 percent of those students are two or more grade levels behind in math, according to the district’s mid-year assessment presented Thursday to the school board.
Those grim numbers were presented during a marathon board meeting as one by one, school principals gave status reports of their schools, painting a portrait of an already-struggling school district badly affected by COVID-19 limitations on in-person instruction.
Currently, 2,405 students attend in-person classes two days a week, while another 856 are instructed entirely virtually.
Outgoing board president Jason Spears said COVID-19 has been a challenge for students.
“Children need to be in the classroom to have the best opportunity to learn,” Spears said. “The pandemic has exacerbated the problem for those students who were struggling even before it hit. And even students who are doing well have found not being in class makes things more difficult.”
The mid-year data Superintendent Cherie Labat shared an hour into what turned out to be a 6 1/2-hour meeting presented a disturbing story.
Students from kindergarten through eighth grade are falling behind, many perilously behind.
At all five elementary schools and the middle school, the overwhelming majority of students are at least one grade level behind in the subject areas assessed.
The math assessment was jarring. Only 13 percent of middle school students are at grade level, including just 11 percent of eighth graders.
In reading, just 18 percent of middle school students are at grade level, and no school has more than 37 percent of its students reading at their current grade levels.
Labat said that district-wide, more than one in three students (36 percent) are two or more grade levels behind, numbers that Labat said threaten to increase the drop-outs (10 students dropped out as of the end of January) and decrease the graduation rate, which was 74 percent in 2020.
“This is significant to our graduation rate because as students go to high school, the age that they are able to drop out is 17,” Labat said. “You have to look at graduation rates as a four-year process, and that means we really have to work this summer to get those middle school students who are two and three grade levels behind back on track. To mitigate the situation, we have to talk to those students so that they don’t give up. We’re going to wrap our arms around them and try to get them across the finish line.”
Labat said the district is using interventionists at each school to help students close the learning gap. She said the district also will take a hard look at how it provides instruction.
“We need great classroom instruction,” she said. “That means we have to work to retain teachers and make sure we have high-quality teaching from bell to bell. We have to be evaluating instruction consistently. There should be no surprises when we look at the data. For principals, teaching is a lot like coaching. You have the Xs and Os, but if it doesn’t work, you have to look at what happened and ask, ‘Why did this happen?’ Then you have to go back and have those discussions with teachers. That has to be a priority. We need professional development, but that professional development has to be received and implemented.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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