Coronavirus / COVID-19

Pandemic education tightens bonds between fathers, kids

Special to redefinED June 17, 2021

Special to redefinED

Dylan Wood, an incoming sophomore at Land O’Lakes High School’s pre-International Baccalaureate magnet program, shows the books his father, Mark Wood, encouraged him to read this summer. Titles include John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” and John Knowles’ “A Separate Peace.”

Editor’s note: This commentary from Mark Wood, a professional writer and editor with an educator’s heart, is redefinED’s salute to all dads as Father’s Day approaches. Wood, who respects teachers, values learning and makes sure his son does all his homework, is married to Lisa Buie, senior writer for redefinED.

It was hard for me to imagine that I could possibly spend more time with my son, Dylan.

In early 2020, I was picking him up every day from school. In the car, we would perform a daily debrief through which I would hear about every class, every assignment and every homework task. After sharing dinner, I would ferry him to his Boy Scout meetings every Tuesday. Every Monday, Thursday and Friday I watched karate practice.

On weekends, we would share movie nights with mom, attend church, pursue our hobbies or compete in a karate tournament.

I always considered myself one of the lucky dads. My job as a writer and editor afforded me maximum flexibility. Dylan’s sick at school? No problem, I got this. Scouting campout starting Friday? I’ll just work remotely. Even when Dylan was a baby, I negotiated a work-at-home arrangement to keep him out of day care as long as possible. A congenital partial hearing loss was my motivator.

I spied as he pinched his first cereal puff in his tiny fingers and deposited it into his mouth. I watched as he took his first wobbly step.

Last year, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, I learned that I only had begun to spend time with Dylan.

As eighth grade continued into the fourth quarter, all students in Dylan’s school district were required to take their classes online. I worked at home and kept watch. When the number of cases continued to spike, my wife, Lisa, and I decided that we would choose our district’s option for Dylan to learn remotely via Zoom classes. In this arrangement, his district would let students log into in-person classes via the upstart computer platform. In some cases, masked teachers would instruct students sitting at desks and peering through screens. Some teachers had all-Zoom classes and could doff their face coverings.

As Dylan now was a ninth-grader in a rigorous pre-IB magnet program, we worried about academic struggles and logistical problems. So I appointed myself principal of our little home-based school. Order would be maintained. Discipline assured. And time with my son multiplied exponentially.

Now the first year of high school is behind us. Dylan excelled, earning four A’s and two B’s in a program known for its demands.

Evidence indicates that a legion of fathers have joined me in increasing their time with their kids and taking a more active role in their education.

A new poll conducted by Pearson and its online school, Connections Academy, shows that 89% of fathers report that being involved in their children’s education has helped them grow closer to them. A similar survey that the company conducted in March showed that 76% of parents said supporting their children’s learning at home was gratifying. I suspect many dads, like me, also were required to work at home for an extended time, putting them close by as they and their kids navigated Zoom meetings and enjoyed casual environs.

Some of the results confirm what I’ve known since my son entered preschool in 2008: Taking an active role in your child’s education will draw you closer to them and help you understand them. It also will make you part of your child’s “education team.” Not everyone is a teacher, but I believe everyone, particularly parents, can be “educators.”

Results show that 90% of fathers surveyed say they understand their child better. Slightly fewer (89%) said that being part of the learning experience helped them grow closer to their child.

More than eight out of 10 dads agreed that their children adapted to online learning well and that it helped boost their child’s confidence and time management skills.

For many, including our family, pandemic-related distance learning choices will not be offered in the 2021-2022 school year. Frankly, our son is eager to get back to in-person learning to fully experience the social advantages that high school offers. We don’t blame him.

With this return to normal, nearly three out of four fathers surveyed worry that they won’t be able to maintain the same level of involvement in their child’s education. I do not necessarily share their concern.

Sure, I won’t be able to pop my head in my son’s bedroom between classes for a quick update, but you can rest assured that I’ll stay involved. I have served on school advisory councils during Dylan’s elementary, middle and now high school years. I’ll continue to quiz him in the car about classes and homework on the way to after-school activities.

Meaningful involvement will take a little more effort this fall, but I hope dads — and moms — will remember the fulfillment they got by having more access to their children’s education this past year.

Parents can continue that access and influence by talking daily with their children and keeping communication lines open with teachers and administrators.

School may be a building, but education is an endeavor. And all of us are called to play a crucial part in our child’s learning. I hope all parents will join me in being educators.

June 17, 2021 1 comment

Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Course Choice Customization Education Choice Featured Parental Choice Private School Scholarships School Choice

Commentary: Move to trash

Special to redefinED June 10, 2021

Special to redefinED

Editor’s note: This piece from Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, appeared recently on Education Next.

A crisis like a pandemic can spark unpredictable changes in trends and behavior, like widespread mask wearing in the United States. But it also can accelerate changes that were already underway but otherwise would have taken root much more slowly.

For example, working remotely was a relative rarity in early 2020; now many organizations may never again expect all employees in the office five days a week. And outdoor eating spaces, an occasional curiosity in some cities, have popped up nearly everywhere. Lots of cities and small towns have made it clear that they would like to keep this innovation even after the crisis recedes.

So too in the world of K–12 education, where some new pandemic-era practices are likely to persist for the long term.

Some of these are simple and straightforward. Using Zoom for parent-teacher conferences and PTA meetings makes life easier for working parents. Online curriculum materials rather than printed textbooks may also have staying power, since so many students have Chromebooks or other internet-connected devices.

Others are more complicated, such as recording a school’s or district’s best teacher giving key lessons and using those videos in multiple classrooms. That frees up other teachers to provide support and individualized instruction—a nimble, but politically sensitive, way to rework teachers’ roles and use technology to improve instruction (see “How Big Charter Networks Made the Switch to Remote Learning,” feature, Spring 2021).

But as both common sense and classic conservatism would submit, not all of the changes that have occurred in education during the pandemic are positive. And just as there are some innovations that we should strive to maintain in the post-Covid era, there are others we should leave behind.

Here are my top five—including several that are close cousins (perhaps evil cousins?) of more promising ideas.

To continue reading, click here.

June 10, 2021 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Course Choice Customization Demographic Research Education Choice Featured Homeschooling Parental Choice School Choice

American K-12 has been permanently changed by the pandemic

Matthew Ladner June 7, 2021

Matthew Ladner

And these children that you spit on

As they try to change their worlds

Are immune to your consultations

They’re quite aware of what they’re going through

David Bowie, Changes

A district school superintendent recently told me: “COVID has kicked the education reform can down the road 15 years. I’m not sure we are all aware of the implications yet, but the belief that we are returning to 2019 ‘normal’ is folly.”

Wired reported this month on the increase in homeschooling during 2020:

In 2019, homeschooled students represented just 3.2 percent of U.S. students in grades K through 12, or around 1.7 million students. By comparison, 90% of U.S. students attend public school. But a March 2021 report from the U.S. Census Bureau indicates an uptick in homeschooling during the pandemic: In spring 2020, 5.4% of surveyed households reported homeschooling their children (homeschooling being distinct from remote learning at home through a public or private school).

By fall 2020, the figure had doubled to 11.1% … The U.S. Census Bureau’s survey indicates that homeschooling rates increased across all ethnic groups in the past year, and the greatest shift was among Black families, who reported a 3.3 percent rate of homeschooling in spring 2020 and 16.1% later in the fall.

Tyton Partners made another set of estimates based upon a survey of parents. Nothing looks revolutionary at first glance in these estimates, but look closer and you can feel the earth shift under your feet.

The Tyton estimates show a less profound (but still sizeable) move to homeschooling. You probably shouldn’t get overly attached to either estimate because the situation is very fluid, and we’ll know better in the fall. Even if the Tyton numbers are closer to reality, as the Wired article notes, the ease with which people can homeschool has increased, as have the incentives to do so.

There will be no putting this toothpaste back in the tube.

If the Tyton estimates are accurate, district and private schools will have suffered their largest single-year declines in history while charter schools, micro-schools and homeschools enjoyed large increases in enrollment, and supplemental pods emerged spontaneously to educate 7 million students. We see, for instance, a rate of charter school enrollment almost four times that of the average between 2000 and 2018. The shakeup likely isn’t finished.

The largest decrease in enrollment nationwide came from kindergarten students, with parents choosing to “redshirt” rather than enroll them in fall 2020. A National Public Radio survey of 100 school districts found an average kindergarten enrollment drop of 16%.

Assuming most of those families choose to enroll for fall 2022, schools likely will have to shift teachers out of first-grade assignments (where there will be fewer students) into kindergarten assignments (where there will be more). Which school sector they sort themselves into and at what rate also will be of interest. A back-of-the napkin estimate of the number of redshirted kindergarteners based upon the typical size of recent cohorts and the 16% figure would fall between 500,000 and 600,000 students.

The Wired article contains a point-counterpoint between a representative of the American Association of Superintendents and the Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars. The Superintendent’s representative makes the usual worried statements about money for the system. The Black homeschool advocate seems much more focused on the interests of students:

… Ali-Coleman, of Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars, warns against over-emphasizing the limitations of low-income families. She says that not all homeschooling families are necessarily financially privileged, either, pointing to Fields-Smith’s research on single Black mothers who homeschool their kids in spite of low-income status.

Moreover, adequately funded public school systems can still harm children of color: More money won’t shield a child from unequal discipline, a biased curriculum, or a pervasive school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately pushes Black youth out of schools and into criminal justice systems.

Sure enough, when you plot academic growth for Black students in the top five spending states – in order, New York (1); Connecticut (2); New Jersey (3); Vermont (4); and Alaska (5) – in the Opportunity Project at Stanford University explorer, only Alaska has a rate at or above the national average.

Of greater interest still will be Tyton Partners’ estimated 7 million students who engaged in supplemental pods. These students remained enrolled in another school online but joined small education communities to do so.

The Tyton Partners survey found 15% of parents made shifts in their child’s schooling situation this past fall. More change is likely on the way for this fall. In the medium to long term, the most significant change likely will be the availability of entirely new sectors and methods of education.

June 7, 2021 0 comment

Coronavirus / COVID-19 Education Choice Featured News Parental Choice Reading Scholarship School Choice

Private schools turn summer school into summer camp to make up COVID learning losses

Lisa Buie May 27, 2021

Lisa Buie

One Florida school is hosting a summer camp that will include reading, math and Bible class. Another is incorporating sports and drama into its offerings. A nonprofit organization will use the arts to help students with reading skills. Meanwhile, field trips, which practically were non-existent during the past school year, are making a comeback.

It’s all part of an effort to make summer school feel more like summer camp for students who have endured a year of masks, social distancing, and in some cases, learning entirely online and need to make up for lost time.

Though Florida schools, unlike those in many other states, were required to offer in-person instruction five days a week during the 2020-21 school year, COVID still disrupted learning, especially for families who were directly impacted by the pandemic or who lacked Internet access or other resources. Despite that return to brick-and-mortar schools, educators say some students never fully recovered since the sudden pivot to distance learning when the pandemic shuttered campuses statewide in the last quarter of the 2019-20 academic year.

“Some of these kids have lost a year,” said Stacy Angier, principal of Abundant Life Christian Academy in Margate, a small town 15 miles northwest of Fort Lauderdale. The school accepts K-12 state scholarships managed by Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog.

The school plans to offer three weeks of tutoring infused with fun. The first half of the day will include reading, math, and science “skill sharpeners.” During the afternoons, the students will get to choose among three tracks: sports such as flag football, basketball, or volleyball; arts such as drama, dance and music, and artistry that includes baking, knitting crocheting and crafts. Field trips will round out the summer experience.

At Tampa Bay Christian School, the SummerFUN program isn’t limited to students who attend the school. The state’s Reading Scholarship Program will allow district school students to attend if they have unused funds to apply. In addition to academics, the program will offer STEM, sports, and drama.

Theater also will take center stage at a summer program sponsored by the Central Florida Urban League and Central Florida Community Arts. The program, which was also offered after school and during spring break, helps students hone their reading skills by allowing them to write and design their own story.

“Specifically, this program will meet Florida Department of Education standards that ensure student achievement in particular grades and subjects, achievement growth on Florida Assessments and closing the achievement gap, all while boosting the reading and writing comprehension, knowledge, and confidence of our youth,” according to a statement on the league’s website.

Students who are approved for Reading Scholarships also can apply their funds toward 10 hours of extra tutoring.

“The idea is to help students avoid the summer back slide that inevitably happens annually, but we know that will be greater this year with all of the adaptations that needed to be made by schools and the virtual learning that students experienced this school year,” said Rebekah Lugo-Melise, senior manager of arts equity and access for Central Florida Community Arts.

This is the group’s second year partnering with the Urban League. It promises to be bigger and better with a playwriting theme, Lugo-Melise said.

“The goal for the students this year as we work with them is for each of them to write their own plays and design the costumes that would be used if the play were produced,” she said.

The community arts group is also planning supplementary materials that will play into the themes that the Urban League has established for the camp, with students creating newspapers in which they will promote their plays.

“They will get to do some acting, some drama exercises, and a myriad of other activities to expose them to the arts and to encourage engagement in their learning,” Lugo-Melise said.

Experts say that while it’s always important to make summer learning engaging, this year is more critical because of the learning losses and because the long-term stakes are high. A report by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco recently estimated that pandemic-related learning disruptions will reduce the size of the economy over the next 70 years.

“Now, our country is heading into the most important summer for education in America perhaps since World War II,” Jenni Torres, vice president for curriculum for early education at Waterford.org, wrote in an opinion piece for The 74. “Due to COVID-19, the system is due for an overhaul to meet the new, long-term educational normal — and it needs to be done by the fall.”

May 27, 2021 1 comment

Coronavirus / COVID-19 Education Choice Faith-based Education Featured News Features Parental Choice Religious Education School Choice School spotlight

A new normal for South Florida private school as tumultuous year winds down

Lisa Buie May 20, 2021

Lisa Buie

Abundant Life teachers Sarah Hennebery, left, and Carmen Mondesir conduct their end-of-week lesson, which included devotions, circle time, a spelling test and a math lesson.

The past year has been like a wild ride through the wilderness for Abundant Life Christian Academy, a small, faith-based private school about 15 miles northwest of Fort Lauderdale. Think Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, a fast, bumpy, roller coaster-type ride aboard a speeding train through a haunted goldmine in the dark at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando.

Days before state leaders ordered COVID-19 school closures, principal Stacy Angier knew what was coming. As a member of the Broward Health Board of Commissioners, she had been working with the county’s nonprofit healthcare system to prepare her community for the shutdown.

Taking steps to prepare her students, families and staff for virtual instruction was nevertheless a challenge. The intrepid Angier managed to do it all in three days.

One year later, as the 2020-21 school year comes to an end, she’s breathing a sigh of relief. Despite enrollment declines that threatened the existence of some private schools and resulted in permanent closings of 209 of the nation’s 6,000 Catholic schools, Abundant Life remains intact.

“We have survived,” Angier said. “Most of our kids are back at school, and we’re going to make it.”

Fourth-grade teacher Jasmine White assists third-grade teacher Sharon Nugent in learning online platforms for remote learning.

Angier reopened Abundant Life to in-person instruction in August while continuing online learning for those who wanted it. Masks, desk shields, daily deep cleaning, social distancing and $320,000 in federal aid made it possible, along with state scholarship programs managed by Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog.

Angier also closely monitored the latest COVID information from Broward Health.

About 60% of the students chose in-person instruction. That number recently rose to 80% as families began feeling more comfortable about sending their children back to the classroom. Abundant Life’s total enrollment stands at 457, about the same as it was during the 2019-20 school year.

Looking ahead, Angier said she expects to see more interest from families whose children attend district schools, thanks to the recent expansion of state scholarship programs and raised awareness among parents.

Angier said positive COVID tests were limited to 26, thanks to safety protocols that included isolating and sending home anyone who appeared to be the slightest bit under the weather. It came to be known informally among the students and staff as the “three-sneeze” rule.

“I had a student tell me a teacher had sneezed three times and ask if they should be sent home,” Angier recalled. “When you can minimize exposure from kids not feeling well and from adults, keeping people who are sick home really does help everybody else.”

She said the school had zero flu cases, which she attributed so the stringent rule enforcement.

Despite the challenges, Angier and her staff managed to maintain a sense of community. They hosted an in-person National Honor Society induction ceremony for students and parents. They also allowed school sports to continue as much as possible.

At the end of the soccer season, the team gifted Angier with a backpack signed by all the team members as a thank you for letting them play.

“We tried to keep things as normal as possible,” she said.

Learning among those who were online proved to be the biggest challenge. Angier said teachers monitored virtual students closely to make sure they were turning in assignments and hitting benchmarks. Those who didn’t were directed to return to campus.

“The ones who have been home all year, unless they had a really focused parent … did not do as well as we wanted,” she said.

To address learning losses, Abundant Life is offering a three-week summer program in July that will be open to all students. Aigner expects those students who were learning at home, especially those with less adult supervision, will benefit the most.

“Those kids are seeing the most learning loss, so we we’re trying to target that to get things made up,” she said. “Some of these kids have lost a year.”

Slowly, things have returned to what used to be, although the school will continue some practices, such as encouraging children to eat lunch at outdoor picnic areas.

This week, Angier and 36 eighth graders, along with chaperones, celebrated the end of a stressful year with a field trip. The trip wasn’t part of her original plan; it evolved after the eighth-grade teachers came to her and told her the students were restless and disappointed that they had not been on a field trip all year.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked the kids. “You guys plan a trip and we’ll see what we can do.”

They chose Walt Disney World, the “happiest place on earth.”

Angier said the hotel staff worked to make it special, allowing the kids to swim one evening until 10. A Michigan couple at poolside asked if this was a school trip. Angier said yes.

“It looks like they’re all family,” the woman replied.

May 20, 2021 0 comment

Commentary and Opinion Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Demographic Research Education and Public Policy Education Choice Education Equity Education Savings Accounts Featured Homeschooling Microschools Parental Choice School Choice

The jump ball of American K-12 education

Matthew Ladner May 17, 2021

Matthew Ladner

Award-winning journalist, bestselling author and speaker Eric Weiner noted, “All the golden ages, as we’ve seen in Athens and Hangzhou, contain an element of free for all, a chink in time when the old order has crumbled and a new one is not yet cemented. It’s a jump ball, and that’s when creative genius thrives, when everything is up for grabs.”

In the chart above from Tyton Partners, a leading investment banking and strategy consulting firm, you see both creative genius and the early stages of a K-12 system that indeed is up for grabs.

Tyton Partners conducted a longitudinal study of K-12 enrollment and family spending, finding interesting trends during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the initial findings:

· Parents and caregivers took greater responsibility for school decision-making. More than 15% switched their child’s school for the 2020-21 academic year, which is estimated to be 50% higher than behavior pre-pandemic.

· School enrollments shifted with public and private schools experiencing an estimated decrease of 2.6 million in student enrollment; charter schools, homeschooling, learning pods, and micro-schools all realized net increases.

· The pandemic catalyzed growth of supplemental learning pods – defined as cohorts of students gathering in a small group, with adult supervision and outside the framework of their traditional physical or virtual classroom – to learn, explore, and socialize.

· Households spent an estimated $20 billion more on an annualized basis on education-related activities, primarily stemming from the emergence of supplemental learning pods.

· Five activities independently correlated with a parent’s positive perception of his or her child’s learning experience during COVID-19.

· Limited awareness of, and access to, alternative and emerging learning models significantly hindered parent agency, particularly for parents at lower-income levels.

That last point is vitally important, and we will return to it.

According to Tyton Partners’ estimated overall enrollment trends based on schooling decisions of its survey sample, both district schools and private schools lost enrollment from pre-pandemic levels – an estimated 47.1 to 45.6 million public school students; and 5.3 million to 4.2 million private school students.

Every other form of schooling gained enrollment: charter schools (3.5 million to 4.1 million), homeschools (1.9 million to 3.1 million), micro-schools (410,000 to 610,000), and learning pods (580,000 to 720,000).

Additionally, Tyton Partners estimate that almost 7 million students took part in supplemental pods, meaning they remained enrolled in a remote school but participated in an in-person learning pod.

Private schools took the biggest loss in the estimates. The mandatory closures in the spring of 2020, the surge in unemployment, and the uncertainty surrounding the fall of 2021 combined to close many of them. The shape of the post-pandemic world, however, appears much more diverse, with significantly larger charter, home and micro-school sectors.

Many families decided to “red-shirt” their kindergarten-aged students in the fall of 2020 rather than enroll them in “Zoom school.” How these families decide to educate their children will be one of the major shoes to drop in the fall of 2021, with the other being another scramble across sectors. District to homeschool represented the biggest sector jump in the fall of 2020, followed by private to district.

Now back to the equity question raised in that final bullet point.

Micro-schools are schools, and schools require resources to operate. Micro-schools will continue to grow mostly as a form of education that is accessible only to the well-to-do unless lower-income families are able to access their public K-12 funds in education savings accounts.

Some pod operators have been able to access public funding to address equity issues and in a way that empowers families. The battle to empower families continues, as do the possibilities for the empowered.

May 17, 2021 0 comment

Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Education Choice Featured Microschools News Parental Choice School Choice

Pandemic pod rockets South Florida entrepreneur into a new career

Lisa Buie May 11, 2021

Lisa Buie

Christy Kian of Boca Raton discovered a new way to pursue her passion for teaching during the coronavirus shutdown.

Christy Kian wasn’t sure what she was getting into last year when she agreed to help a parent struggling to educate her two children during the coronavirus pandemic.

The mom wasn’t satisfied with the distance learning plan her school had set up at the start of the shutdown, and things were still in flux for the coming school year. She asked Kian if she would be willing to teach her children at their home.

After nearly two decades of experience in traditional school settings, Kian had to think carefully. But in the end, the call to set off on a new adventure proved too tempting.

Those tentative steps into the unknown launched Kian’s tutoring business.

“It’s been magical,” said Kian, whose Boca Raton-based company, Launch Concierge Learning LLC, blasted off in mid-July. “It’s been better than I could have imagined.”

Kian spent the 2020-21 school year working exclusively with two pandemic pods, small groups that employ a teacher to instruct children in person at home. The pods became a national phenomenon last summer when school campuses in some states refused or were forbidden to reopen, spurring some parents to take matters into their own hands.

Within weeks, social media sites popped up across the country, matching teachers with families eager to try something new. Some families grouped to form micro-schools, which typically serve fewer than 10 students.

The Washington Post called the pods “the 2020 version of the one-room schoolhouse, privately funded.” Experts wrote essays and did research on the trend.

To prepare for her new adventure, Kian spent the summer of 2020 creating curriculum, designing lesson plans, and setting everything up on a spread sheet so that everything would run smoothly from Day 1.

She made the decision to teach the children mostly in person, with kindergarteners in one group and second graders in another. When one family traveled briefly out of state, she pivoted and taught them online.

All her students have thrived under the new learning model.

“I’m doing fractions in my kindergarten,” she said. “If you look at the regular curriculum for kindergarten, fractions are not a part of it.”

The students made such learning gains that Kian decided to introduce them to material early in hopes of giving them an edge when they return to the traditional classroom.

“By exposing them to it now, I hope it will kick in later,” she said.

A peek at her Facebook page offers a window into the classroom.

“Insect week! This Eastern Lubber Grasshopper was a wonderful sport in class. Now she is free again in my backyard. But not before teaching us to sing Head, Thorax, Abdomen.”

“Our second-graders wrote their own fairy tales!”

The students learned about scientists such as Jonas Salk and artists such as Claude Monet, experimented with stop motion animation, and read lots of books. Kian made so many trips to the public library that the staff came to know her by name.

Just before winter break, the students surprised Kian with a T-shirt with her logo – a rocket ship blasting off – on the front and “Commander Christy” emblazoned on the back. They all wore T-shirts that matched.

The show of school spirit touched her.

“It really felt wonderful to me that they took such ownership,” she said.

With the kindergarteners heading back to the traditional classroom in the fall, as their parents had planned from the start, Kian is focusing on her rising third graders, who will be returning to her for another year. She’ll spend this summer creating curriculum and lesson plans for them.

She also is considering picking up another group for fall but still hasn’t decided. In any case, she has no plans to return to traditional school.

Quoting a parent, she said, “This has been a terrible year, but we made lemonade.”

May 11, 2021 0 comment

Coronavirus / COVID-19 Customization Education Choice Featured Florida Tax Credit Scholarship News Features Parental Choice Private School Scholarships School spotlight

Academy Prep posts strong finish to school year despite pandemic’s challenges

Lisa Buie May 6, 2021

Lisa Buie

The spacious Lakeland campus of Academy Prep opened to in-person instruction last fall, with online learning available to those wanted it.

Academy Prep Center started the 2020-21 academic year with a unique perspective. Understanding that education is hardly a one-size-fits-all proposition, even in the best of times, school officials allowed the trio of private schools to tailor their reopening plans to parents’ needs, with a different look and feel at each location.

The St. Petersburg school opened entirely online after 100% of the parents requested it. The Lakeland location, which was roomy enough to accommodate social distancing, opened its oak-shaded campus to in-person instruction, with online learning available to those wanted it. The Tampa school offered a hybrid experience, with online instruction and an open campus where students who lacked adult supervision at home could come to participate in online classes.

“We have to all just be more agile and not be afraid to ask for what we need,” L’Tanya Evans, head of school for Academy Prep Center of Tampa said at the time.

As the traditional academic year ends, all but a handful of Academy Prep students are back in person, with Lakeland ending its online program in September. School leaders say they will return to full brick-and-mortar operation for summer programs and continue it when the 2021-22 academic year starts in August.

“I cannot say enough about how inspired I am and how impressed I am by the students we served through the year and our colleagues who serve these students,” said Lincoln Tamayo, head of school for Academy Prep Center of Lakeland. “It is a great testament to our better natures.”

All students who attend Academy Prep, which offers a rigorous program to prepare economically disadvantaged students for college, attend on Florida Tax Credit Scholarships administered by Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog. School leaders went above and beyond to offer all students a safe environment amid the pandemic, including a strict mask policy, social distancing and hygiene rules. Students were organized in cohorts that remained in the same classroom all day, with their teachers changing classes.

Tamayo, who also serves as chief operating officer for the foundation that oversees the three nonprofit middle schools, said that arrangement created the biggest challenge for students who as active middle schoolers weren’t used to staying in one area all day.

The challenge for teachers was having to transporting their materials from classroom to classroom all day. The other big challenge for the adults, Tamayo said, was having to “constantly remind” students to stayed properly masked.

But despite the inconveniences resulting from operating a school during a pandemic, Tamayo called the year an overwhelming success. Of the nearly 70 students at the Lakeland school, only five COVID cases were reported. None of the staff was infected, and only one adult who was not an employee of the school contracted the virus. All infections occurred away from the school, Tamayo said.

“I will say that for the benefit of those we are here to serve, it served our kids extremely well, and we were very happy to engage them in person and through the year the way we are meant to engage as humans,” he said.

He pointed to the school’s first chess championship as a testament to the students’ passion for learning; two-thirds of the student body came out on a Saturday morning to participate.

“That speaks volumes,” said Tamayo, adding that he expects to see gains on standardized tests when results come in.

Seventy percent of students at Academy Prep Center of Tampa returned to in-person instruction after nine weeks of a hybrid arrangement in which a handful of students came to campus each day with to access distance learning, while most accessed distance learning from home.

“We needed that time to get our campus ready,” said L’Tanya Evans, head of school for Academy Prep Center of Tampa.

Gradually, as COVID didn’t pose as much of a threat as initially expected, students and staff returned. Today, 87% of students are learning in person on the Tampa campus, and all faculty members but one are teaching in person.

“We’re feeling pretty familiar,” Evans said.

Like the Lakeland and St. Petersburg campuses, Academy Prep Center of Tampa continues to follow all safety protocols including mask wearing, social distancing, and hand washing.

“We’ve been very blessed that we haven’t had any exposures since January,” Evans said. “We’ve been able to keep exposures and keep students in their cohorts. The students adapted very well. We’ve been proud of what we have been able to do with a Herculean effort.”

Frequent breaks for stretching and movement proved helpful for the students, and Evans has used food to keep her staff motivated, bringing in home-cooked meals three times a week that she prepared herself.

“I wanted to make sure my faculty is being taken care of, and this includes a mental health component as well,” she said. “We wanted to see what things we can do so they can be their best selves for the kids.”

Evans also has worked hard to make sure all 124 seats are full for the 2021-22 school year. Unlike Academy Prep Center of St. Petersburg, which is more of a neighborhood school, the Tampa location draws students from as far away as Riverview in the southern part Hillsborough County and Wesley Chapel, which lies in an adjoining county just across the northern Hillsborough county line.

She has visited area after-school sites such as Boys and Girls Clubs as well as churches and other schools, and the school is sending out 5,000 direct mail pieces to homes in target ZIP codes to make families aware of the school’s mission and invite them to enroll their children.

At Academy Prep Center of St. Petersburg, which opened entirely online in August, in-person classes resumed in late March in rooms with bipolar ionization filters and hand sanitizing stations. Students also stayed in their homerooms with teachers moving from room to room.

“We’re about 80 percent in person and 20 percent online,” said Gina Burkett, head of school for Academy Prep Center of St. Petersburg. “We’re going to finish 80-20, but in the summer, we’re going to be a full in-person campus.”

Though students started the school year online and spent much of the year learning remotely, that didn’t stop them from exceling.

Test results showed no measurable learning loss during the pandemic, and many students improved their scores during virtual learning, Burkett said. The average grade-point average during the pandemic was 3.1, with 40% of students earning academic honors.

Enrichment also continued, with 14 different online programs being offered each quarter.

Meanwhile, enrollment has remained steady at 137, just three seats short of the 140 maximum, with attendance at 99%.

The school is preparing to transition to its summer program, which begins in June. The traditional academy year will begin in August.

Burkett said the St. Petersburg communities that the school serves tend to be more cautious about safety than the communities of the other two schools, so all mask use and other protocols will continue through the summer, with leaders re-evaluating for August.

“We don’t need to make that call right now,” she said.

Fundraising, a critical aspect Academy Prep Center, a nonprofit, has remained strong at all three schools. The Tampa and St. Petersburg schools have each held events this year and exceeded their fundraising goals. The Lakeland campus has a live event, Evening of Stars, set for tonight. It will include an open house and dinner.

“The angels in our communities have been very understanding, sympathetic and empathetic with the changes we have gone through, Tamayo said. “They have really doubled down on their care and consideration for us.”

May 6, 2021 0 comment