Five weeks into this whole remote-learning-in-a-pandemic thing and I’m ready for it to be over.
So. Ready.
Let me be clear: I have it incredibly easy and I know that. I have one high school senior living at my house who knows his way around a Chromebook, not two or three or four kids, no toddlers, nor any elementary school kids who need so much more guidance.
But still. I thought I got how this whole satisfactory/unsatisfactory thing was going to work, and I thought our senior was “engaging.â€
Then we got mid-quarter reports, which were emails letting us know whether our students were doing their work, or at least some of their work.
We got several “not engaging†emails from teachers, which led to some somber discussions and sent me to Synergy, the online gradebook, and the realization that I was less sure how this was supposed to work than I thought.
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Matt Larson, associate superintendent of instruction, said Lincoln Public Schools drafted three emails for teachers to follow: one indicating students’ work was satisfactory, another that students were doing some coursework but not enough to make satisfactory progress, and a third that they weren’t participating at all.
Now, I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the online gradebook, an uncomfortable balance between "cool — more information about how my student is doing" and "TMI. Please, just stop."
From the time our three kids graduated now to the time our nephew moved in with us, the online gradebook had gotten better, easier, more clear.
Now, though, it’s a whole new dance nobody’s ever done before. And I had questions. I sought clarification, and since I figure I can’t be the only one wandering lost in the remote learning forest, I’ll share.
* Opting to take third-quarter grade: The option to use a third-quarter grade for the entire semester, which required filling out paperwork, was driven by equity concerns, not only for students who didn’t have regular or reliable internet access at home but for those kids who district officials knew would struggle to get schoolwork done because they were working or watching siblings or had other family situations that made learning from home too difficult.
An unintended consequence, Larson said, is that some students not facing those obstacles also took that option. That meant some essentially checked out for the fourth quarter. Not something LPS was encouraging, but a reality.
LPS officials are in the process of gathering numbers to see how many students took that option.
Some students selected to opt out of certain classes so they could focus on others, maybe a math class that students knew they’d need to keep up with to be ready for the next year.
* Satisfactory/unsatisfactory: Students who didn’t opt to take their third-quarter grade were expected to jump right into the cyberspace wilderness, with their fourth-quarter assignments graded as S or U.
Still, those students’ grades won’t drop below their third-quarter grade, despite any U’s showing up on their online gradebook.
But Larson said they can improve their third-quarter grades. Although the gradebook will indicate only S and U, teachers know how well students are doing. Those students, Larson said, can discuss their grades with their teachers and if they’ve done well enough to improve a grade, they can still fill out the paperwork to take the higher fourth-quarter letter grade in the classes they choose instead of simply "satisfactory."
Student engagement
A few weeks into remote learning, LPS officials gathered rough data on student engagement showing levels varied from 40% to 70% in high schools and 45%-85% in middle schools.
Not surprisingly, the higher the poverty level at a school, the lower the engagement level.
They’re getting more data from principals and teachers to update those numbers.
And there’s still lots of gray. What, exactly, does “engagement†mean? Logging on to Google Classroom and doing an assignment or two doesn’t get you a third-quarter email saying you’re doing satisfactory work, but it does mean you're engaging in coursework.
At the elementary level, 81% of the students were engaging in the assignments as of April 22, which means students have logged into Google Classroom or participated in one of the weekly Zoom meetings with teachers. Larson said anecdotal evidence indicates most kids engaged are doing so with some regularity.
And the poverty level of schools pretty dramatically affected those levels, with individual school engagement levels ranging from 57% to 99%.
This is by no means a new observation, but this pandemic is exacerbating — and laying bare — the education gap in Lincoln and across the country.
Looking forward
There are a couple of reasons LPS officials decided to have remote learning in summer school be “synchronous,†which means students will need to log in at a specific time for classes, which will include some direct instruction via videoconferencing technology.
For one, they wanted to give students who enroll to replace a failing grade or get the final credits they need to graduate more teacher support.
They also want to see how it works, because nobody knows yet what school might look like next fall and school officials must prepare for all possibilities.
LPS had more than 1,900 students enrolled in summer school last year. That’s more than six times the number of students at the city's smaller private schools, such as Lincoln Lutheran, that almost immediately pulled off “synchronous†classes using technology such as Zoom.
And 1,900 is just a fraction of the 42,000 students who attend LPS during the regular school year.
Graduation
It remains to be seen how graduation ceremonies will play out, although LPS officials say there will be some kind of recognition on July 26.
Whether that happens at Devaney and Pinnacle Bank Arena like always depends on the health directives from state and local officials.
But it's hard to imagine an arena full of parents and grandparents and students in two short months.
There have been some modified in-person graduations: Last month, the Air Force Academy in Colorado held a scaled-down graduation with no crowds watching and cadets standing 6 feet apart.
But think about the prospect of bringing a high school full of seniors together who haven’t seen each other in months and then trying to keep them distanced.
So LPS officials are also working on a virtual graduation if necessary.
Other schools across the state have created programs with pictures and videos to recognize each student individually, but LPS officials aren’t saying how it might look here.
So stay tuned, and stay flexible, and breathe deeply.
And if you have any ideas about what to do about senior grad parties, send them my way.