All-remote learning is failing many students all across the country: “These children are struggling”
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In Houston, one of the largest school districts in the nation, the number of students with failing grades is exploding. During the fall of this year, 42 percent of students received one or more Fs in the first grading period, which was 100 percent virtual. Last year, only 26 percent fell into that category.
Christina Quintero has two children in Houston's school district. "These children are struggling to read, struggling to do math," she said.
Quintero said her first-grade daughter feels defeated.
Oliver asked, "Is she getting down on herself?"
"Oh, she's very critical," Quintero said. "Very critical in her academic, because she just wants to do better, and she wants to be able to show that to her teacher and be proud of herself."
Dan Domenech, the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, has served as a superintendent for nearly 30 years.
"We know that there has been a significant loss of learning, but I'll tell you, we're less concerned about that than we are about the social and emotional factors," Domenech said. "We're seeing an increase in the stress that students are feeling, the emotional impact that this is having on them. We're carefully tracking suicide rates, which is a major factor. So, we are more concerned right now about the emotional well-being of our students than we are about their academic loss."
Numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show mental health-related emergency room visits between March and October of this year increased nearly 28 percent for children ages 5 to 17, compared to the same period in 2019.
And grades in North Carolina paint a bleak picture as well. In Wilson County, 46 percent of students in grades 3-12 failed a class this fall while learning virtually. That is more than double from the same period last year.
In Cleveland, where 42 percent of the students live below the poverty line, superintendent Eric Gordon said 20 percent of Cleveland Metro students had "incompletes" in the first marking period.
"We made an early decision to award incompletes to students who are trying to make progress who weren't where they were supposed to be, because it sends a signal to finish, as opposed to an F," he said.
Oliver asked, "Is it fair to have traditional grading in all-remote learning?"
"By using an ABC or incomplete strategy, we're actually moving towards, 'Does the student know what we want them to know before we move on, or do they need to finish that learning?'" Gordon replied. "So, I think it's just another opportunity for us to question our past strategies and think about how to make a better system when we come out of this pandemic."

