Over the past year, the Class of 2021 experienced stinging sacrifices, potentially life-changing insights and a range of hardships and new options they describe as certain to shape their entry into the adult world. As glimmers emerge promising a return to normal school operations after a year of remote learning, high school seniors look ahead with a new mindset of bracing for change and adaptation.
Leaders at some Kentucky elementary schools making the strongest progress in creating student proficiency prior to the pandemic see a new landscape ahead as vaccines offer promise for a return to normalcy.
The City of Covington worked throughout 2020 to provide devices and connections for students in the Covington Independent School District. When the pandemic hit, nearly 60 percent of families lacked regular internet access. The city government moved quickly to budget $2.5 million from federal pandemic aid to expand internet access across Covington and initiate partnerships
The challenges of the past year have led many educators to explore new ways to reach students and families. Educators at Kenwood Elementary in Louisville’s South End find themselves discussing major changes based on their pandemic experiences. The past year has involved absorbing shock of the school’s sudden closing, working to equip and reach students
For Kelsey Lee of Morgantown, locking in quality child care was such a priority that she put her name on a top local provider’s waiting list while she was pregnant. More than five years later, she said that decision has helped her son be more than ready to thrive in kindergarten next year and in the school years ahead.
Each academic year a select group of Kentucky’s public schools perform better than expected on measures of educational achievement. These measures include things like the percentage of elementary students who achieve proficiency or distinguished in reading, or the proportion of less-advantaged middle school students who show a similar level of competency on the math assessment. Understanding the reasons for better-than-expected performance is fundamentally important.
Understanding homework can be hard enough. After participating in the Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership, however, energized parents in Paducah are pursuing a bigger plan for bolstering school success — expanding opportunities for adults to explore family dynamics, discuss child development, grasp education issues and more.
In May, the final learning triumphs of a topsy-turvy school year occurred at converted breakfast tables, in living rooms, or bedroom corners across the state.
The spring of 2020 showed how a hurried push to provide remote learning and continued connection provided students and teachers ways to connect, network and move learning forward.
APRIL 2020 \\ SCHOOL SUPPORT STAFF
For more than 100 high school students in Graves County, thinking about the effects of coronavirus arrived months before prevention measures transformed students’ lives and left school staffs and communities scrambling to meet the needs of suddenly isolated students and families.
Kentucky’s aggressive response to limiting the virus’s spread upended student and family life. In addition to new modes of teaching and learning, the crisis has also jolted adults who support schools into new directions and prompted community responses to supplement student learning and promote families’ welfare.