COVID closure impact on students

by Catelyn Deromedi

RWE Principal

Ralph Witters Elementary school would like to expound on last week’s article written in the Independent Record titled “RWE students struggling”. First and foremost it’s important to recognize that it’s not just our youngest students that COVID closures have impacted. Students across the country have been affected. The important piece to highlight though is, what are schools doing to close the learning gaps that have been created?

This fall CNBC wrote an article titled “Half of U.S. elementary and high school students will study virtually only this fall”. RWE staff and students are so fortunate that we are a part of the half that are in person. That has been the number one priority of the school district and it will pay huge dividends moving forward for our students. In addition to students learning in person, RWE has made changes this school year that are addressing the learning gaps that were created during the closure last spring. 

At the school board meeting on Thursday, January 21st, Principal Deromedi shared the following changes that have been made to address learning gaps. 

-Added a full time reading interventionist

-Added a full time math interventionist

-Bridges Math Intervention program is used for 30 minutes a day 3-5 days a week for students not at grade level in math

-Implemented full Fountas & Pinnell Classroom for reading

-Increased reading instruction by 35 minutes a day from last year

-Students are now receiving at least 140 minutes of reading instruction a day

-Additional reading interventions have been implemented

-Aims Web progress monitoring tool is being used to track progress of students not at grade level

Due to the changes that have been made, according to the NWEA MAP assessment that all students have taken so far in the fall and winter, RWE has seen 92% growth in math and 81% growth in reading. The percentage of students that are at grade level may not be where we want it to be yet, but the changes that have occurred have clearly impacted our students in a positive way. 

As mentioned in the previous article, attendance is an ongoing concern because of the number of times students have had to quarantine. That is an element that as a school we acknowledge is out of our control.

We are so appreciative of parents working closely with us to provide lessons remotely in those unfortunate circumstances. As always, RWE will continue to better our practices and make each student’s education the best it can be.