Emily Hays Photo
Superintendent Iline Tracey: “We have a challenge on our hands.”
New Haven Public Schools
High school report cards had far more Fs this fall than last year.
The Covid-19 pandemic has produced a new batch of sobering data: The number of New Haven high schoolers who failed five or more classes this winter was four times higher than it was the previous year as learning went remote.
More students are failing classes overall this year in New Haven public schools. The most dramatic change though was in the number of students with Fs in all or most of their classes as remote school continued this winter.
“It’s this — what I would call ‘dire’ — bucket. The students failing five or more classes are not going to have been exposed to or have not mastered the material,” said New Haven Public Schools data chief Michele Sherban.
Middle schoolers returned to a hybrid of remote and in-person school in early March. High schoolers are scheduled to have that option for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic started on April 5.
Sherban presented these results at the Board of Education Teaching and Learning Committee on Wednesday. She showed the committee the number of middle schoolers and high schoolers with Fs, broken down by grade and the number of classes they had Fs in. She compared the data to pre-pandemic levels and found what she called a “tremendous increase” in Fs in remote school.
African-American students and male students are disproportionately represented among these students struggling with remote school. The usual categories the state identifies as vulnerable are also disproportionately represented — low-income students, students with disabilities and English-language learners, among other categories.
Schools all across the country have seen similar plunges in student grades, particularly among low-income Black and Hispanic students.
The number of failing grades has raised questions about whether grading as normal could lead students to drop out and whether districts have done enough to support marginalized students.
Tracey: What Else Can We Do?
NHPS data chief Michele Sherban: “Tremendous” rise in remote-schooling Fs.
Superintendent Iline Tracey pushed back against the specter of this last question at Wednesday’s Teaching and Learning Committee.
She has led the district in distributing laptops and tablets to every student who did not already have a device by the time remote classes started this fall. Her youth and family outreach department has gone door to door to find students not showing up to class.
“If it’s not about having a device, if it’s not about providing the opportunity, what then are the problems students are having?” Tracey asked.
“We have a challenge on our hands. Students are so long out of school that it becomes an easy way out at this time.” (Click here, here and here for previous stories in which students and parents speak out on challenges associated with remote learning.)
Emily Hays Photo
An NHPS team has gone door to door seeking to connect with “ghost” students who have not been attending remote classes during the pandemic.
The district has yet to run the numbers on whether the students with Fs are the same record-high number of students who are chronically absent.
Sherban and Tracey said they expect the failing students and the absent students to overlap.
The reasons for remote absences tend to be a mixture of crises, according to the Office of Youth, Family and Community Engagement. Students are working to fill gaps in their families’ incomes. Families are going through illness and divorce or are just too overwhelmed to suddenly play the role of teacher for their children. (Click here to read about efforts the school system has made to reconnect with “ghost” students not attending remote classes.)
The district made the call to return to grading as normal this fall to encourage participation. Many students dropped off the map last spring when the district announced that remote school grades could only improve their report cards. The district has managed to dramatically reduce absences compared to that period.
Board of Education member Ed Joyner reminded those at the Teaching and Learning Committee that the district plugs so many more social service gaps than affluent districts. New Haven public schools are food distributors, transportation providers and are centers for physical and mental health care.
“I’m almost having a Fannie Lou Hamer moment. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I don’t know what we have to do to convince people that we are doing as much as we can possibly do. We will do more when we figure out how to do so. And we are doing all this under great duress,” Joyner said.
New Haven has been drawing up plans to catch students back up with intensive summer school, extended school days, tutoring and more. The main vehicle for this is the second round of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER II) fund. This coronavirus relief aid is in danger of being diverted to cover operating costs in Gov. Ned Lamont’s proposed education budget, against federal rules for grants.
“This year’s effect on our students has been like no other. We do not want them to be casualties of this any more than they have already been,” said district Supervisor Of Literacy Lynn Brantley.
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