COVID disrupted learning for thousands in Beaufort Co. How will schools close the gap?
Summer school, say those who were there, was “fun.”
It was hands-on. Students did science experiments and met a beekeeper, food bank worker and conservationist.
And it was productive. Students learned from each other, as happens when they’re in the same room, working together.
In a lot of ways, the four-week summer program felt like a test run for fall.
Every child was there in person, and the hallways were filled with shelves, books bought with federal COVID relief funds, and big, bright classroom rugs with large circles on them — intended to be used as a seating chart so students can sit on the rug for reading time but still maintain a little bit of distance.
Despite a recent spike in COVID-19 cases in Beaufort County, things are returning to normal in Beaufort County School District.
When school starts on Aug. 16, there won’t be an online-only option for elementary schoolers.
When school was online, children didn’t get to work together the way they would have in-person, said Norma Evans, an instructional coach and Coosa’s director of summer school. “And that affects learning.”
Jennifer Lyles, a teacher at Coosa, agreed.
“Even when you try to put them in those little groups on Zoom, you just don’t get as much from the kids (as you would) when they can literally talk,” she said.
What did summer classes look like?
Thursday was the last day of Beaufort County School District’s summer school program, renamed “summer discovery camp” for elementary schoolers.
Rising second-grader Sophia Holmes, who stayed fully remote for most of last school year, could sum up her favorite part of the experience pretty easily: “I like it here the most, because you can meet with your friends and play with them.”
Her classmate Deonna Green said she liked the virtual field trips that teacher Jennifer Lyles took them on to Fripp Island and the Port Royal Sound Foundation Maritime Center, especially when she got to see snakes.
Generally, summer school is offered to elementary students who score below grade level in English and math, or middle and high school students who need to retake classes.
In elementary school, the curriculum focuses on reading, especially understanding informational texts. In Lyles’ classroom, Deonna and Sophia were split into small groups that rotated among reading silently, working on phonics, spelling or reading aloud to the teacher.
Both girls got to take home books from their summer classes, many connected to the field trips and things they were learning in other subjects.
What will be different?
Face-to-face instruction won’t be new to most Coosa students. By the end of the school year, 85% of the school’s roughly 450 students were coming to the building for classes.
In some cases, Principal Melissa Pender was calling parents to tell them that remote classes weren’t working for their child.
“But that was a handful,” she said. “Predominantly it was them calling us, saying ‘this isn’t working, I’m not seeing my child progress academically like they have in the past.’ Or their work schedules changed.”
Among the 15% who stayed remote until the end of the year, some still showed up in-person for summer school, she said.
What will be new in the fall are the school’s slightly revised and relaxed COVID guidelines, in line with the rest of the district.
Pender sent an FAQ to teachers Wednesday outlining new rules: Can we use the cafeteria? (Yes, on a rotating system — not every class can eat there every day.) Will students or teachers have to wear masks? (No, unless they’re on the bus or going to the nurse’s office.) Can we be closer than three feet apart for group activities? (Yes, but only for short periods.)
Students still won’t be able to choose their own seats, and they’ll still have to take breaks to wipe down desks and wash their hands, Pender said.
She added that summer school hadn’t been disrupted at all by COVID outbreaks or quarantines, and that Coosa had only one large-scale quarantine during the school year, in a pre-kindergarten classroom.
“We might see a little bit less Plexiglass, but there’s not one safety measure that’s being dropped.”
‘What you don’t get virtually’
Around 2,200 district students attended summer school this year — that’s more than 10% of the district’s total enrollment. It’s a 1,500-person increase from last summer and a 700-person increase from the pre-COVID 2019 summer program.
That number includes 765 elementary school students, 45 of which are at Coosa.
Qualifying for summer school means that they did not pass English language arts or math for the year, are third graders with reading proficiency below their grade level and/or scored in the bottom 30% of English language arts or math MAP testing in the spring.
State test scores from 2020-21 are not available until the fall, when the S.C. Department of Education releases its annual report cards, so it’s difficult to know how much learning loss Beaufort County’s students actually experienced during the pandemic.
But nationally, third- through fifth-grade students scored about 5% lower on spring MAP reading tests in 2021 than they did in 2019, and about 11% lower on math MAP tests, according to new data released by testing company NWEA.
Melissa Murray, the district’s director of literacy, said elementary schools were using a “Ramped-Up Read Aloud” program for summer school, with a focus on informational reading. Each field trip the kids went on was connected to a book they read in class and then took home.
Lyles, the teacher, said the program was a success. This is her fifth year teaching summer school, and this year has been “very hands-on, very engaging — the kids are retaining their learning week to week.”
Lyles had nine students, including Deonna and Sophia, in her summer class. Her classroom door was decorated with a big sign that reads “Lyles’ Super Learners!”
The walls were covered in bright posters of heroes and classroom expectations — Lyles plans to add even more, unlike last year, when teachers were told to limit wall decorations to prevent touching and germs.
She has a superhero dress ordered for her “meet the parents” night on Aug. 12, which will mark one of the first times since March 2020 that parents have been allowed past the school’s front office.
She was unmasked last week, as were five of her nine students. Plexiglass barriers separated the kids, but those will be optional when the school year begins Aug. 16.
Lyles is looking forward to a year without Zoom breakout rooms and the need to mute students’ videos. She said one of her favorite things as a teacher is when a student gets up to show another student something they remember from an old lesson.
“It happened this morning,” she said. “I had a kid say ‘how do you spell this?’ And a kid said ‘oh, it’s like this, I learned this yesterday.’ And that’s what you don’t get virtually.”