Covid Slide

By Dr. Lisa Tuttle-Huff

Madison Local School District has been used to dealing with “summer slide” — where some students lose academic gains from May to August. But this year, we have to figure out how to attack a “COVID slide,” because of the time spent last year without traditional interaction with teachers.

Madison Local Schools teachers and administration understand that the educational loss from COVID is different from student to student.  The first step for us is to diagnose where each child stands.  We have been giving formative assessments to our students all year. The purpose of these tests is not to give students a grade, but to make plans for the gaps in instruction that our students have experienced.  Now, we are planning for the coming weeks and months by assessing how we have done this year to close the gaps.  In addition, we are planning for summer programs to help students with the educational loss experienced last spring. 

Parents may receive a survey from their child’s school to ask if their child would attend summer programming opportunities this summer.  Students will have opportunities to take programming for up to 6 weeks and in increments as small as two to three weeks. We are researching providing transportation and meals for students. 

Madison Local Schools has been working with administrators and teachers to begin to develop a plan for the summer.  Some of the items that we are discussing include:

• Impacted Students: How will we identify which students have been most impacted by the pandemic in terms of their learning progress ?     

• Needs: How will we identify the needs of those students?

• Resources and Budget: What resources are available to address those needs? Generally, what is the budget for our summer plan?

• Partnerships: Which local and regional partners (parks, libraries, museums, after-school programs or civic organizations) can we engage in supporting student needs?

• Alignment: How can our plan reinforce and align to our school strategic plan and student graduation plans?

Madison Local Schools is dedicating our COVID funding dollars to making sure that our students are caught up and ready to succeed next year in school.  We are hoping to make this summer programming interactive and engaging, not a “sit and get” event.  Stay tuned for more information about summer programming for your student.