Online learning hurt most students’ grades

Across Southeast Iowa, COVID-19’s disruptions to the school year were a detriment to online students’ grades.

Like many high schools, Washington returned to in-person learning at the start of the school year, but gave students the choice to opt into entirely online coursework for varying lengths of time. Over 100 students chose to do so for at least one term by the school year’s end.

Nearly half of those online students failed at least one class, according to Principal Erik Buchholz’s report to the school board in early June. For in-person students, that number was only 12.45%.

Buchholz said the lack of structure led to shortfalls for online learners.

“If I were to boil it down to a teaching aspect, it’d be time management,” he said. “When you don’t have a destination to have to go to and a time frame in which things are presented, you might find yourself just staring at a computer questioning whether you really want to get started with it or not.”

Other schools saw similar trends. Mt. Pleasant High School Associate Principal Mike Wilson said the presence of teachers in the room was profoundly important.

“The students had the same access remotely as the students had here in the building other than the fact that they didn’t get to touch base with a live teacher,” he said. “They had recorded lessons, they had curriculum they needed through our learning platform. It’s just that if there’s not a teacher there to nudge them and encourage them and sometimes prod them, sometimes kids don’t perform.”

Mt. Pleasant Director of Instruction Katie Gavin echoed Wilson’s remarks. Of the district’s more than 40 online learners in grades 6-12, Gavin said only 30% completed all the credits they were enrolled in this school year.

“If they didn’t have a set schedule or set expectation of someone following up with them in the home, they were more likely to fail,” Gavin said. “We knew that going in, with research about online programming. If you don’t have the pieces in place, it’s really hard for a 14-, 15-, 16-year-old to have the self discipline to do the work, especially if they have something that they’re struggling with.”

For some remote learners, school became a back burner concern as they worked to support their families.

“A lot of students ended up going and finding jobs,” said Buchholz, Washington High School’s principal last school year. “When they’re out making $9 an hour, 40 hours a week, and then trying to get home after a long day … it becomes an easy thing to put off and not necessarily realize the impact it could be making.”

Some school officials said the pandemic’s early disruptions had a lasting impact on in-person students, though not as much as its ongoing effect on virtual learners.

“In the spring time (of 2020,) school for kids was voluntary,” Highland Principal Angela Hazelett said. “There were some things that teachers were planning to do in the spring that they were unable to do with all of the students … Going into this school year, there were some gaps because kids missed instruction.”

The pandemic’s effect was not necessarily uniform across districts. Officials at Fairfield and Highland school districts said the 2020-21 school year was close to normal in terms of grades, although neither could provide specific data.

“I don’t want to come off like everything was rosy, we certainly had our challenges,” Fairfield Principal Brian Stone said. “There’s no doubt that it has impacted us, clearly, but we’re always looking at it with the glass half full. We’re looking for ways to continue to try and improve.”

Fairfield piloted a unique return-to-learn plan this school year, establishing off-campus locations where students could attend their virtual classes during routine school hours with a teacher in the room. The plan addressed issues like virtual structure and discipline that other districts said were the greatest challenges of remote learning.

As for Highland, Superintendent Ken Crawford said the school’s tight-knit community aided extensive efforts from its teachers.

“I think teachers have worked really, really hard at meeting kids where they are and bringing them up,” Crawford said. “We still have smaller class sizes, we’re still a smaller school than some of the areas around. I don’t want to say that we’ve got everything mastered, but I also believe just having small class sizes and knowing our clientele so well has played a major factor.”

In some districts, data is lacking. Principal Angela Hazelett said Highland, like many schools in the area, used the online education platform Edgenuity to host its virtual students.

Edgenuity had its own curriculum and state-certified teachers, and gave students pass/fail grades instead of traditional letter scores. Hazelett said Highland students using the platform had flexible deadlines for assignments, many of which may not be turned in until after the next school year begins.

“Being the unique year that it is, with Edgenuity we didn’t give the kids a cutoff date,” she said. “Because it is different having all of your curriculum delivered online versus in-person. We still have some students that are finishing up some course work from the school year this summer.”

Superintendent Ken Crawford said the lack of data would delay decisions about how to get students who were online up to speed.

“Most of the conversation with them is going to probably happen next year, when we can see where they’re at academically compared to people that were in the building,” Crawford said. “We’re just going to wait that out … I have no basis to make an opinion on that.”

As with school districts, the exact effects of the pandemic varied by individual students. Fairfield Principal Brian Stone said a selection of students, however few, learned new skills this school year.

“For some students, it actually provided them that postsecondary type environment where they could maybe do many more things,” Stone said. “I would also say that more than likely, the students that were highfliers virtually would also typically be highfliers face to face.”

Mid-Prairie Superintendent Mark Schneider said several students in the district even found virtual learning preferable to in-person classes.

“It’s interesting, we’ve had students try out the virtual academy, and they really liked that mode of learning,” Schneider said. “This isn’t due to COVID reasons, (it’s) just a mode of learning that they want to choose for their children, just like some parents choose home schooling.”