Thursday, July 16, 2020
www.berlincitizen.com
Volume 22, Number 20
Effectiveness of distance learning difficult to measure By Michael Gagne Record-Journal staff
File photo
Education commissioner: School year will be marked with innovation and commitment The Connecticut State Board of Education met on Tuesday, July 14 to discuss the reopening of state schools. The following is an Executive Summary from Dr. Miguel A. Cardona, Commissioner of Education. Introduction It has been 100 years since educational, public health, and governmental leaders have had to grapple with the
challenges we are facing today, and have been facing for the last several months. When the effects of the pandemic required that schools across Connecticut cancel in-school classes during March, it took moments to realize that education in Connecticut would be forever changed. Connecticut has long been focused on providing all students with equity and excel-
lence in education, and this pandemic has forced us to further focus on the inequalities that still exist within our system and to begin to address them with renewed fidelity. We now look forward to the 2020-2021 school year, a year that will be marked with innovation and commitment. It will be our most See School, A20
The board, meeting remotely during a virtual meeting earlier this month, discussed state officials’ plans to fully reopen schools this fall, and the impact of distance learning over the last months of the school year that had just ended. Board member Tim White cited a report issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics that remote learning was likely to result in students experiencing severe learning loss and social isolation.
The conversation came as Cheshire and other school districts in the Meriden area assess the effectiveness of the distance learning programs they rolled out last spring and prepare for the physical reopening of their school buildings in September. True cohesive measures of how much learning was lost and the extent of student participation during remote learning will be difficult to ascertain.
In Southington, school officials had leaned on classroom teachers to check in with students to make sure they were logging into remote learning Board colleague Anne Har- programs and participatrigan, in response, suggest- ing in their academic ed board members and the lessons throughout the public need to be mindful spring, according to Steve of what schools provide for their community.
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State Commissioner of Education Miguel Cardona speaks with Berlin High School students while on a tour of the school on Jan. 28.
The likely toll of distance learning on the well-being of students, through social isolation and loss of learning, is not lost on some members of the Cheshire Board of Education.
“It’s not just education, it’s health, it’s social emotional well-being, it’s safety, it’s many, many things that our public schools do for our children,” Harrigan said.