LEWISTON – Christal Smith’s two eldest sons have struggled at school. When COVID-19 closed the categories in person at its Lewiston Elementary School last spring, their learning practically stopped.
This report is part of an ongoing series on poverty in Maine and the effects of poverty on our communities. The paintings were carried out in cooperation with Investigative Publishing Corps.
“There is no organization. There’s no schedule. There’s no plan,” said Smith, 31. There is only once a week in Zoom to meet the teachers ».
Smith, a medical marijuana caregiver, and her husband, a handyman who paints in jobs, were fine just before COVID-19. The paintings dried up once the pandemic began, decimating the source of income they had. They planted a lawn to eat, and depended on loose food from Good Shepherd Food Bank and the school; they had little cash for the basics, not to mention tutors or a personal capsule instructor, as some Parents in Maine hired.
The school, he said, offered little help. I felt like I was going home alone to school for all four kids.
“I had to get my hands on all their teachers and beg them to connect me to the (online) systems,” said Smith, whose children are between the age of 6 and thirteen.
“Really, in the spring, I don’t have much to say (about school) because it was very, very difficult,” Smith added with a big sigh. “It was hard. “
All of his children chose the Lewiston school formula option to be remotely informed full-time; Smith’s idea in particular that his two elders, who have disorders that inform them about lead poisoning when they are young, would not do well to go from two days in user to 3 remote days each week as Lewiston predicted. This year, at least, they have genuine schedules with genuine online courses, and Smith likes the formulas on offer. But you’ll have to advise your children through various categories a day on their own, the circle of family members who stack around the dining room table with computers provided through the school formula.
“I’m the only one who’s addressing all four kids,” Smith said. “They’re going to ask me questions and ask me things at the same time. “
Is she up to it?
“Not exactly, ” he said. “But my children want an education. “
Maine’s school systems with the highest poverty rates have long struggled with student success. Some, like Lewiston, have fought for generations. Poor communities cannot equip their schools, expand systems, or remain the most productive teachers as easily as richer communities. Income families are more likely to face hunger, the risks of lead paint, common moves, homelessness, trauma, and other demanding situations that make learning difficult. Kids who can’t even do fundamental activities are calmer behind their peers who can do it.
“There are so many cumulative effects on poverty and limited opportunities,” Lewiston Superintendent Jake Langlais said. “It spreads in the classroom in many ways. “
That’s before COVID-19. As the pandemic continues, academics, especially those in poorer school systems, are going through an even more complicated time.
Reduced school days. Emphasize home learning, even though the mother and father may not be able to teach. There are no computers for some students, no internet access for others. Constant tension on teachers, parents, children.
The Sun Journal, in partnership with Investigative Editing Corps, analyzed the effects of recent state tests to identify Maine in the region whose academics performed worse than expected, even taking into account poverty.
The goal: to read about those school systems, how they performed last year, and what it will look like in the long term as the pandemic continues. If they may not have advanced students before, how will they do so now?
We discovered computer shortages and lack of broadband, typical disadvantages caused by aggravated poverty, fear that loss of learning would have a long-term impact, but we have also discovered schools trying to succeed in demanding situations with ingenuity and the attention of their academics. they’re polite.
Speaking of the new school year, educators have presented the same analogy: “It’s like looking to build a plane while you’re flying it. “
POVERTY PROBLEMS
The Sun Journal analyzed the effects of state math and English tests from 2018-2019 for more than 500 Maine schools, as well as the effects of clinical testing by nearly three hundred schools. The effects showed how each student framework has behaved given its percentage of economically disadvantaged students.
At Marcia Buker School in Richmond, for example, 41% of academics are expected to have met or exceeded state expectations, also known as point functionality, on the state math test, but 17% did. did.
At McMahon Elementary School in Lewiston, 46% of young people are expected to have met or exceeded expectations in the state English test, but 19% did. A few miles away, Longley Elementary School in Lewiston, now closed and merged with the new Connors Elementary School, has noticed that 35% of its pupils pass the English exam; 13% did.
For Lewiston, where nearly a third of the city’s youth live in poverty, according to the most recent census figures, schools have struggled with poverty and poor student performance for generations, although some mistakenly these disorders only happened after Somali and African immigrants. began moving out 20 years ago, according to Lewiston’s superintendent.
“I would strongly discuss that belief because we have many young people who might have come to the United States with refugee families, but have also been here for 10, 15, 20 years. I think there’s a belief that if a student has anything to do with being a refugee, he’s also poor. This is not the case, ” said Langlais. ” I know that as a principal of Lewiston High School, one of the most demanding situations I’ve faced was generational poverty.
Experts say that deficient academics, especially those whose parents were also raised in poverty, do not get as good results at school or in standardized tests for a variety of reasons: students’ aspirations are lower, parents may not be well informed or possibly paint long hours and cannot help with home paintings Parent families cannot perform enrichment activities or guardians , young people focus on gathering their fundamental desires rather than learning Researchers found that low-income youth are already behind that their kindergarten peers and low-income teens are less likely to graduate from the best school.
“What we do know is that deficient academics have more challenges. Not that they have fewer learning skills; they have more obstacles in their path,” said Amy Johnson, co-director of the Maine Institute for Educational Policy Research at the University of Southern Maine.
In 2014, the institute tested the dating between poverty and good educational fortune in Maine. The study found that 42% of academics in the state were considered “economically disadvantaged” and that a school’s poverty rate increased and student functionality declined.
He also found that academics who had no deficiencies behaved poorly when going to schools with the highest poverty rates and low scores.
The analysis of recent knowledge through the Sun Journal revealed a similar trend: in the best mathematics of schools, for example, for every 10 percentage points that accumulate in economically disadvantaged academics, the percentage of academics with the highest point in state tests was reduced by 6 points. .
But while poverty can harm learning, “it is an insurmountable barrier,” said Johnson, one of the authors of the 2014 study.
According to the study, other points can help, adding education points for instructors and duration and type of school: K-8 schools performed better than committed universities. Johnson said school culture, student systems, and the tone set through leaders can also help.
“A lot of those things are things that don’t charge money. They just require a lot of non-stop work,” he says.
Maine’s school systems have worked for years to reduce the effect of poverty on learning. Many, like Lewiston, offer loose breakfasts and lunches to all students and infrequently send food to the house so no one is hungry. -School systems and summer categories with special tours and enrichment activities. Some have on-site medical and social staff.
Even then, however, a fraction of the young people who passed state tests were successful.
And then COVID-19 was stung.
LOST LEARNING
No one yet knows how much academics lost in learning when Maine schools closed last spring. Some schools have tried to keep academics moving forward, training new curtains through Zoom categories and remote assignments. that in academics and focused on the wisdom and skills that academics already had not to back down. But many people, educators, and parents feel that academics have lost ground, regardless of which path their school chooses.
Research through McKinsey
“Low-income students are less likely to have high-quality distance learning or a supportive learning environment, such as a quiet area with minimal distractions, devices they don’t want to share, high-speed Internet, and parent supervision,” the researchers wrote.
McKinsey researchers studied 3 statistical models for this school year: full face-to-face courses, part-time face-to-face courses with intermittent school closures, and full-time distance learning. – the path that many Maine schools have selected – can result in the loss of approximately seven months of learning through students. Low-income students may lose more than 12 months.
This can be just a total generation of young people for the rest of their lives.
‘The damage to Americans is significant, but the consequences may be deeper: America in total can suffer measurable damage,’ the researchers wrote. -19 are probably less professional and less productive than academics of generations who have not experienced a similar gap in learning.
Recognizing the potential impact, especially for underficient students, Maine’s school systems are applying tactics to track young people and keep them there, even as they plan for the worst situation of all. world: close the doors of the school.
SOLUTIONS COME WITH PROBLEMS
Poor students are less likely to have their own computer at home, so Maine schools supply everyone with laptops or tablets. Poor students are also less likely to have high-speed internet or internet access, which is why many schools provide wifi hotspots for everyone. those who love them. They are less likely to have enough to eat. Schools will provide individual breakfasts and lunches, even for young people who come to school remotely. They are less likely to have help at home, so schools arrange as many in-person catepassries as possible.
But the solution has its own problems.
National computer shortages have been exacerbated by U. S. sanctions against Chinese suppliers. Lewiston schools ordered 1,600 Chromebooks and more than 1,000 iPads months ago, but none had been delivered until the start of the school year.
“There is a package with our stopover placed on a boat in China,” Langlais said shortly before the start of the school year. “As far as we know, they’re on their way . . . what I do I don’t know when they’ll get here. “
The school formula gave middle and high school students their own computers for years, however, it never needed machines for each and every elementary school student. Scarcity has led school leaders to fight to gather as much as they can. It’s still not enough.
“In high schools, I think we have enough to do about part of the school,” Langlais said, “so we need to set priorities. “
Lewiston nevertheless received 1,100 iPads, two weeks after school, but the devices still want to be set up for students, so they haven’t been distributed yet. The school formula also won lots of MacBooks after the start of the school year. Lewiston is still waiting for his 1,600 Chromebooks.
The state provided machines to schools that wanted them last spring. Some schools didn’t want them at the time, but now they love them. In Andover, for example, the school’s 20 families reported last March that they had household appliances that their Youth Can Consume, but as the pandemic progressed, parents wanted this computer or the family circle pill for their own work.
“I interviewed the parents and they told me they had access, which they did, but over time they found it more confusing than easy,” Pratt said.
Now he’s waiting for the iPads he ordered, but he doesn’t know when they’ll be delivered.
Wi-Fi hotspots are useful, but they depend on cellular signals, which in rural Maine can range from abnormal to non-existent. According to teachers, what academics want is reliable broadband Internet access that uses broadband. Voters spent $15 million this summer. Bonus for assistance bringing broadband to spaces in need, and that can help the state mobilize up to $30 million more in subsidies, however, bond cash is unlikely to be distributed until early next year and it will take even longer to get projects off the road. . This won’t help families who want it now, so some school systems, by adding RSU 56 in the Dixfield area, direct parents to school parking lots with difficult Wi-Fi signs.
“We’re looking to get other people where they can at least join if they don’t have it at home,” said Pam Doyen, superintendent of RSU 56 and principal of her Dirigo high school. “But it’s a challenge because the foothills of west Maine, some of those places, just down the hills, don’t have a very clever tower connection. “
This wifi parking is recently mandatory. RSU 56 closed its schools and transferred everyone to online education over the past two weeks in September after two other people related to the school formula tested positive for COVID-19. The school formula now organizes part-time in -People courses.
Then there’s the meals. The federal government will pay for food distributed under the loose school breakfast and lunch program, but Maine schools have to pay for all necessary extras in the pandemic era (special preparation and delivery, disposable bags and cutlery, individual condiment packs) and some may charge only $100,000 this school year.
And then there’s the challenge of classes in the user. Smaller schools, such as Andover Elementary, which has 34 students, were able to become a full-time user again, however, other schools had to stagger students during the week because they did not have enough area to maintain the social distance needs of the state from 3 to 6 feet. They usually teach in the user two days a week, but even school days are shortened so that young people don’t have to wear masks for so long, so teachers can offer hours of work to students who are remotely informed that day, so school systems can accommodate more bus trips.
Individual and school systems also have their own problems.
Andover Elementary is a small K-5 rural school. You have an area to organize full-time face-to-face classes, but you want greater airflow to help protect students and staff from the virus. You have secured a federal investment to install air treatment equipment. However, vendors are too busy to move on to the small Oxford County school formula and do homework.
“It’s the kind of thing you’re in, the harder it is to bring them here,” said Susan Pratt, superintendent and principal of the school. “I’m running as fast as I can, but we do we don’t have much time to spend that money. We have to spend them until December 31. “
For now, school is a fan.
Stratton School attracts more than 80 K-8 students from a variety of small towns in Franklin County and unre groomed territories in the shadow of Sugarloaf Mountain. As many families live at the point of breaking poverty the percentage of young people who qualified for loose and Lunch at a reduced price fell partially after Maine’s minimum wage rose to $1 an hour; with about $40 more in the parents’ wallet each week, they were no longer considered “economically disadvantaged. “Medical care, even a pandemic, is complicated to dream, with the nearest hospital 68 km away and the nearest gym 26 km away. School staff spent the summer developing school year plans and contingency plans, developing a number of new protection policies and moving everything around the school to create more classroom space.
Teachers and they’re stressed.
To help, the school transferred its nurse part-time full-time. Your full-time social worker is helping teachers and academics deal with stress. Assistant Superintendent and Chief Superintendent Barry London has already warned his school board that they would possibly all want a break.
“I told them that if we move to Thanksgiving and this is a firestorm, we could take an extra day off from school,” she says.
‘UNEXPLORED WATERS’
Experts say that no school has been popular to educate the pandemic, neither in Maine nor nationally. The state’s spring shutdown occurred so temporarily that schools only had time to react, not plan. They have had more time to prepare for this. new school year, however, nobody knows what he paints until he paints, or not.
“These are waters unknown to all, ” said London. ” All we can do is fine and make decisions based on the knowledge (of student evaluation) we collect. “
For the systems of the region whose academics performed poorly, even before the pandemic, the new year meant creativity.
While other districts were still recovering from spring and bogged down in plans for the fall, RSU 56 organized a summer school, in person, in small groups, with masks and non-public protective equipment. He also hired a representative from another state, to help teachers in their online training and greater interaction with students.
When Andover learned last spring that her young students needed flexibility (the family’s only computer might not be loose until Mom finished running), teachers organized small categories online at night. Think of reading equipment for a handful of children. It worked well enough for Andover to plan to do it again this year.
RSU 2, which includes Marcia Buker School in Richmond, plans to hire a parent advocacy coordinator so families can have a liaison officer who can elbow the school on the occasion of an online challenge or otherwise.
Stratton has built and furnished seven classrooms, with a slate attached to the look of a garage building. He seeks to offer golf, socially remote, rather than his own long-time sports. With staff members who are also Maine guides, Stratton can be Offering extracurricular activities on the water.
“Going back to trials and tribulations, there are also positive aspects that will come out of all this,” London said. “We were able to be effective and coordinate our power systems through this. We’ve created outdoor study rooms that I’ve been looking to do, but you’re busy in your squirrel cage and all of a sudden it’s gone. We are fortunate to have written a grant a few years ago for canoes, oars and life jackets, so the doctor is in the lake. “
While there is no gold standard, Maine schools, especially those involved in the Western Maine Education Collaborative, have percentage ideas.
“In a sense, I think other people see this as an opportunity to replace some things with better long-term things,” Johnson told the institute. “There are things we’re learning in this experiment about more important tactics to engage students, better systems for tracking and tracking students at risk. “
But it’s not easy to do right now, even if it’s the time when those concepts are most needed.
“It’s hard because everyone drinks in this chimney hose about ‘what are we going to do today?” said Johnson. Let’s hope some of those things are the pandemic . . . But right now, everyone is so busy looking to spend the day that we’re not able to prevent it and think. “
Progress?
Can schools in this region of high poverty and low performance advance their academics this year, despite the demanding situations they face?
Experts say we’re going to see. Parents for sure.
The directors say yes. But it may not be easy.
Even at Strong Elementary School, where students achieved much higher-than-expected results in state mathematics, 31% are expected to do well; 56% have done so – the director anticipates difficulties.
“Some young people might have to safeguard a full school level,” Brenda Dwiggins said. “They’ve been out of school for six months when you think about it, even though we’ve provided them with training resources and classes. “
Most school leaders recognize that some, if not most, of their students will have fallen behind: spring has been chaotic, and summer often causes a learning glide, a pandemic or not, especially for young people whose parents can’t do summer extras like a robotics camp and music lessons. But they planned to compare students as soon as they returned, to take advantage of what young people know and fill the gaps in what they don’t know, whether it’s done in a classroom, through a computer screen. or using household chores sent home in an old package.
If they can only wave a magic wand and get something, directors presented a variety of wish lists: reliable broadband Internet access across the state, laptops for everyone, more resources to give deficient young people the reports their wealthiest counterparts take for granted, for whom airflow is repaired.
And that the risk of COVID-19 disappears.
Seeing how the new school year extends in front of them, some parents still don’t know what to think, they’re optimistic, but they’re also worried after a chaotic spring.
Six of Hilowle Aden’s seven children attend Lewiston schools and surely believe they will be informed this school year, when they are physically in school, but feared that two days a week would not be enough.
“When young children are home, they don’t progress,” Aden said. “But when they go to school, I know, I think, they will progress. When children are informed of anything face-to-face with a teacher, they know when they have to ask at that time. “
You would like to take categories in the user 4 days a week.
“If it’s not five days,” he says.
Smith, Lewiston’s mother of four, chose otherwise for her children, who will be fully informed from a distance because she believes that coming and going between school and house categories will be too disturbing.
She believes her two elders were delayed last spring, while her two younger years remained fairly stable. When the new school year begins, Smith is confident, cautiously confident, that his children will get a better education this year. despite some significant disruptions that occurred even before the start of the categories: she was wrongly told that remote students would not have access to loose breakfasts and lunches, and her 13-year-old daughter, who reads first grade, wants special education facilities and had her own attendance in elementary school, was placed in normal categories for college.
“They said an assembly would soon be scheduled, but we still don’t know when,” Smith said a few days before the school year began. “As I said, I was livid. It’s ridiculous. “
Smith has two hopes for the new school year: that his children will learn and COVID-19 will disappear.
“I hope it’s all over soon and things will be back to normal. But I don’t expect that to happen any time soon,” he said. Probably not this year. “
This task was produced with the Research Editing Corps, https://www. investigativeediting. org/, with contributions from American student Thomas Furlong and Matthew Thibault.
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