Wanted: 100 More Volunteer Tutors

Once again wondering about the equity of this program. Where are these tutors being allocated? Haven't see one at my school.

I'm ready to create a little controversy: Tutoring is good and will help the kids up to grade 5. No argument.

However, when we talk about the pandemic, something else started: one-to-one chromebook distribution to students. A 3/27 column in the NYT describes a number of studies that examine the effectiveness of screens in classrooms. The results are mixed. A lot of students are using their technology to watch videos or play games or chat with friends. There is little to no real oversight outside of the classroom. Shrinkage in the form of damage and loss costs the district money; money that's gone with the ESSER program. And the payoff of a chromebook in every hand does not come with a research-based endorsement.

What if we took the chromebooks back out of the hands and backpacks of our students? Teachers could have carts that they share with students when they need to be used. Students could check chromebooks out of the library when they need to take one home. The district has told teachers again and again that they cannot control phones. However, the district owns the chromebooks.

Teachers would lose Google Classroom, which they have come to rely on, as if it were air. However, students' loss of Google Classroom could help them develop their executive functioning skills, which are also sorely weak.

Maybe this isn't the solution, but it's definitely another development coincident with the pandemic, and should be considered as some low-hanging fruit to improve student outcomes. Or we should at least do some deep thinking about how teachers and students can use the district's resources.

With New Haven's student achievement falling so far behind national norms, tutoring, intensifying classroom instruction (while increasing classroom size with "Right Sizing"), and bringing in lots of new "programs" can only go so far in 180 days to pull our kids up. Looking at chromebook use could be a cost-neutral way to support improved student achievement.

Is training provided for tutors? I would not feel competent to tutor a kid in arithmetic given how differently I think it is probably taught today. I would also want to know something about the way reading is taught in the NHPS, so as to be able to make connections for the kid between the challenges in front of us as we sat together with a book, and the methods being taught in class.

When we see all these remedial programs, remember that we didn't have to shut down our schools or have lockdowns or any of the other unscientific steps imposed on us by Fauci et al. during COVID. Check out how well Sweden did by following standard epidemiological advice, like that in the Great Barrington Declaration. Sweden didn't cause businesses to fail or children to lose both educational and emotional growth.
We were made to be fearful and then stampeded into conforming to the mis-information from the credentialed classes and government.
I fear that we have damaged a generation of children who may never recover.
The current statistics as to school drop outs and suicide rates in children tell the parts of this massive deception that should be, but isn't, part of of a national conversation.
By all means try to remedy the harm done, but be honest as to why it is needed to begin with.

@LucaD: It's important we learn the right lessons from the Covid experience because the amount of control exerted over us-including "vaccine" mandates that caused many people to lose their jobs-may well be repeated in the next "event".

All that ARPA money, but none of it for the kids!! Amazing

@Heather C: You wrote: "We didn’t know exactly what we were up against at the beginning of the pandemic."

When are we going to stop blaming Covid for the fact that our children are behind in all areas? Third graders are behind due to Covid too? Come on most five year old kids don’t read so how did Covid impact them? Our schools are responsible for this. Support teachers in our schools to educate our children and provide small group instruction and tutoring during the school year. The Covid blaming the is done in NHPS to not be held accountable for low test scores has got to stop.

No lessons have been learned from Covid - at least not by the people urging parents to give the shot to toddlers and children. No public admission of increased heart problems in young males.
Covid protocols/mandates exacerbated many problems, including in education.
You can't go forward if you don't know where you've been and where you are.

The Children's Defense Fund is a source I trust for information. Here is an article on the dangers of mRNA shots to children: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/mrna-covid-vaccines-seizures-toddlers-fda-jama/?utm_source=luminate&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=defender&utm_id=20240425