A recent report by the Connecticut RISE Network, a CT-based nonprofit organization with “a mission to empower educators to achieve breakthrough results, helping all students realize and achieve their full potential,” has concluded that CT schools witnessed improvements in student retention and engagement this spring, including a higher probability of advancment to the next grade, and of graduation within four years.
Students and educators alike have faced additional challenges throughout the past two school years, due to remote and hybrid learning, and the signs of improvement concluded in the RISE report indicate exceptional effort on behalf of students, teachers, and families to innovate and generate academic solutions.
The CT Mirror recently cited potential reasons for improvement in students’ success: designated on-track coordinators checking on students’ social-emotional wellbeing during the pandemic, increased hours to make up or strengthen school work, reassessment of grading systems tailored to students’ varied learning styles, and increased focus on the holistic relationship between teacher and student.
The RISE report spotlights nine districts in CT serving 13,000 students: East Hartford, Hartford, Manchester, Middletown, Norwalk, Naugatuck, Stamford and Meriden, analyzing examples of how schools engaged students who were failing or truant for the first half of the school year.
Francis T. Maloney High School in Meriden, CT
CT educators offered supplemental learning opportunities, such as special sessions on Saturdays, and significantly shifted students’ expected outcomes: “the [RISE] report states that 71% of the 55 students from both of the Meriden high schools who attended Saturday sessions this spring went from being off-track to on-track in the second quarter.”
RISE also notes the potential of summer learning to keep students on track. Educational support organization Catapult Learning similarly published a recent article citing the importance of summer education to combat the “COVID Slide” in students’ progress. Catapult offers schools a signature turnkey Summer Journey Program, designed to accommodate the academic, social, and emotional needs of students and their families with a “comprehensive suite of summer solutions,” including programs that incorporate literacy and math intervention, STEM and robotics enrichment courses, social-emotional learning, and family support.
An additional means of summer education this year includes “Connecticut Summer at the Museum.,” sponsored by the state government through recovery funding “to provide students and families with engaging summer enrichment and learning experiences in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.” From July 1-September 6, 2021 all children aged 18 and under, with an accompanying adult who is a CT resident, will be eligible for free admission to any of more than 100 participating museums across the state.
In spite of a very challenging school year, positive trends in CT education bode well for a promising fall.