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How St. Paul is helping students catch up from pandemic learning loss
The news of declining test scores nationwide is not a surprise to St. Paul administrators, as the effects of distanced learning have weighed heavily on their minds.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - The news of declining test scores nationwide is not a surprise to St. Paul administrators, as the effects of distance learning have weighed heavily on their minds.
"We anticipated the data to show what it did," said Sue Braithwaite, elementary curriculum supervisor for St. Paul Public Schools. "I think every kind of decision that we've made in the last couple of years has been as a result of what's happened during the pandemic."
Braithwaite said her focus now is on how to do right by students going forward. The district has funneled millions of dollars toward helping children catch up in reading and math.
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"We certainly brainstormed a lot of ideas, but landed on … this is about the teaching, and that's what students need more of," she explained.
For example, Braithwaite said the district spent $11 million in federal funding for a K-2 initiative last year to hire one or two additional teachers for every elementary school. The teachers go to each class to provide reading support in small groups of kindergartners through second-graders.
"One teacher said she's taught for 30 years, and this was one of the best things that she feels has really supported students is getting daily instruction," Braithwaite said.
These additional teachers focus largely on improving foundational skills like phonics, such as letter sounds and decoding words, which are the skills younger children missed out on.
District officials also cite data showing that scores on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment improved between the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years, suggesting that their efforts to catch up students are working. The test scores, however, lag behind the 2019 scores and are not yet back to pre-pandemic levels.
To help teach the older elementary school children, the district has bought materials that focus on understanding the way children learn how to read.
"Particularly our third-grade students missed some of those foundational lessons when they were in kindergarten and first grade," Braithwaite said.
Braithwaite also said not every child lost ground while they were learning at home and that many actually gained technological skills.
"We've tried to reframe it not so much about what they lost, but what did they gain and how can we continue to help them move forward?" she said.