A significant number of students across the country fell behind as ill-equipped school districts attempted to teach them over Zoom and other virtual platforms.
WUFT reported “above a third” of students in the Alachua County, Florida district fell behind in what was called coronavirus pandemic-related “learning loss.”
“It’s just hard when you’re sitting at home, looking into a screen, you don’t know your classmates,” parent Jenni Van Hart told the news station. “It’s been hard as a parent to see her struggle and cry.”
Van Hart said her daughter went from a straight-A student to “barely passing every class during the pandemic.”
Gainesville High School teacher Kelley Serravalle wondered if the students were actually doing the work themselves:
As a tech savvy 29-year-old, Serravalle mastered a whole system to teach remotely and help panicky veteran teachers adjust. Her usual creative, hands-on teaching methods rendered obsolete online and in person as students couldn’t share materials for projects.
Serravalle’s gradebook uncovered a disparity among her students. Homework grades were high; online students’ exam scores were low.
She graded and asked: “OK, did they cheat on this? Because their work doesn’t show any work anywhere but they got the right answer, but they have no idea how to explain it to me?”
That’s the parents fault. My wife and I both work full time and we made sure they don’t fall behind. They have been back in class since last January. It’s worth paying to live in Worcester County. We left Wicomico before we had kids.