Some Western Pa. students grapple with post-covid learning loss

Before the pandemic, Alana Griffin said her son was advanced in his academics. Now, she said, she considers the 9-year-old to be at an average level.

Her other son, who is 8, needs to catch up in reading and math, she said. Though her children see a weekly tutor, the learning gap has yet to be fully bridged.

Children across the country are experiencing similar struggles, a phenomenon educators and onlookers describe as learning loss. It is blamed generally on covid-19 and more specifically on months of remote education.

“I really want the school system to see there is a gap and implement extra steps,” said Griffin, who lives in McKeesport and sends her sons to an Allegheny County charter school. “We’re running a race, and we’re behind. We can’t run the same pace as we were before.”

Between 2020 and 2022, reading test scores for 9-year-old students saw the steepest decline since 1990, according to a National Center for Education Statistics assessment that looked at data provided by the National Assessment of Educational Progress on the 9-year-olds.

Math scores were hit even harder. For the same age group, test scores decreased for the first time since NAEP began tracking student achievement in the 1970s.

Kristina Terrell, who has four elementary school-age kids in Pittsburgh Public Schools , said her fifth grade son “loves math” but has struggled this year.

When school lockdowns began, Terrell said she tried to model a classroom at home. She used whiteboards, charts, group science experiments and one-on-one lessons to engage her kids.

An unforeseen issue, however, stemmed from how she taught math to her oldest son. Like many parents, she learned how to solve equations differently than her kids do.

“He missed that connection with the curriculum and structure for how the district teaches it,” Terrell said. “I spent that entire time teaching him a method that I knew and I understood that he seemed to pick up on very well, but returning back to his fifth grade school year, it was not the method that the district would have proposed and offered, but we had no alternative.”

State data reflect these struggles. The 2021 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment results revealed that fewer students in grades 3-8 were proficient or advanced in math and English Language Arts compared to pre-covid results — and more students have a “below basic” knowledge of these subjects.

Though the state did not administer PSSAs in 2020, other data suggests grades have at least improved since the onset of the pandemic. In July, research published by NWEA — a nonprofit that creates academic assessments for students pre-K-12 — revealed elementary-aged students recovered some of their loss during the 2021-22 academic year compared to the previous school year.

Even so, achievement gaps remain, especially in high-poverty schools, NWEA reports.

Autumn Jevicky, whose twin seventh graders are in the Greensburg Salem School District, said she believes funding and resources are necessary to “address the missing blocks” and “stop the bleeding.” She said she wants to see her children’s needs addressed before they show up on a report card.

“The saddest part is that my children have all the resources and support they need, and they’re struggling,” Jevicky said. “I can’t imagine the students who lack those resources.”

Sharmaine Gamble echoed these concerns. Gamble has two elementary-aged sons in the Wilkinsburg School District.

Her 8-year-old son struggles with reading, despite the fact he and Gamble read a lot when classes were virtual. Gamble said she thinks remote learning required less effort than in-person instruction, and now her son must adjust.

This can be frustrating for her son, but Gamble and her son are putting in the work at home to try to catch up, she said. Still, it might not be enough — and Gamble expressed concerns that not every struggling student can receive extra help at home.

“(My son) comes home to a place where we hold education very high, but I cannot verify, confirm or validate that’s happening at every household,” Gamble said. “And even though that is happening at my household, he could still use a tutor or one-on-one attention to fully grasp the concepts.”

School districts look for solutions

Jim Croushore, principal at Stewart Elementary School in the Burrell School District, said students in both of Stewart Elementary’s grades — fourth and fifth — are experiencing learning loss.

To address this issue, the school uses online tools and sets aside a 45-minute support period every day. It also offered summer programs in 2021 and 2022, Croushore said.

The goal, he said, is to identify areas in which individual students have difficulties.

“A lot of our focus this year is to get to know our kids, learn the gaps they have and help bridge those gaps,” Croushore said.

Simultaneously, the school is continuing to challenge students who are already on par with pre-covid expectations, he said.

In the Hempfield Area School District, educators are prioritizing opportunities to “increase engagement among students,” Superintendent Tammy Wolicki said.

The district has offered small group instruction, summer enrichment camps, additional specialized staff and instructional coaching for its teachers. It also increased intervention support and instructional time in core areas, Wolicki said.

“The necessity to respond and adapt instruction in response to covid had its challenges, and, as we come out of that period of time, (Hempfield) is continuously working to respond to our students’ needs in all areas,” Wolicki said via email.

Quaker Valley School District hopes systemic learning loss is a thing of the past for its students.

Susan Gentile, the district’s director of curriculum and instruction, said the district began seeing learning difficulties among some students during the first year of the pandemic. But she said the district addressed those problems before they became widespread.

Quaker Valley kept its elementary schools open for in-person instruction as many days as possible, hired online teachers and helped bridge gaps in younger students by implementing small groups and supplemental instruction.

Teachers also met with each other to discuss areas where students needed further reinforcement.

“After that first year, things really started to come together,” Gentile said. “We’re not really seeing those gaps anymore.”

This is reflected in the district’s 2021-22 achievement data, which looks “very similar” to pre-pandemic years, Gentile added.

Though many parents and educators are disheartened by learning gaps, Chartiers Valley Superintendent Johannah Vanatta looks at the situation differently. Vanatta pointed out that the students who don’t meet academic expectations now are the same students who survived a global pandemic.

She put it this way: “Grit is more valuable than a state standard.”

“I don’t think we can say (the students) lost something,” Vanatta said. “I think they gained a lot. We should be really proud that they lived through this. And they will catch up to whatever they missed the years before, and they will be back on par with whatever standard we impose upon them.”