Fr Many students were missing online classes and failing this fall at Shaw High School in East Cleveland, one of the poorest districts in the country and that the state had declared itself to be in “academic difficulty” before the pandemic.
As absences increased during the holiday season, that “academic anguish” was only getting worse.
“We saw the difficulty of students in the remote period,” said Henry Pettiegrew, CEO of the 1,800 student district on the Cleveland border. “We saw students moving away. We saw students not entering classes. We had students and we couldn’t find them. “
So he and Shaw High School principal Larry Ellis took a bold step. When they opened the district’s only high school for students in January, they removed the online learning option of almost all of the school’s 600 students and sent them to the classroom.
“Our students are going through difficult times,” Ellis remembers thinking. “Let’s get them back.”
Students could only continue classes online if they had attended 80% of classes and passed, a standard that only 15% of Shaw students achieved. Students also had to agree to a “contract” with the school, so that they could continue with classes.
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This attempt, which had mixed results, breaks with two national trends during the pandemic – school districts prioritizing the return of younger students and districts allowing parents and students to choose between face-to-face or online classes.
More than 500 Shaw students who did not meet these criteria, about 85% of the school, all had to go back to school in person two days a week from January 19.
In mid-February, there were encouraging signs and some shortcomings. School attendance is still not where staff want it. Although Ellis said that about 250 students came to school in the first week, it has dropped to about 200 now.
“You can demand that they come, but that does not mean that they are going to enter the building,” admitted Ellis. “But the pressure is for students to enter.”
Students who are back at school say they prefer to be in class with their teachers and classmates than at home.
“It’s much better,” said veteran D’Kano LeFlore. “My grades were terrible online. Now that I am in person, my grades are improving. “
Concerns about getting COVID from school are not keeping D’Kano away, even though the county remains at high risk of spreading across state and national risk ratings.
“I can get sick anywhere,” he said.
Academic and attendance struggles have always been a problem in East Cleveland, a suburb bordering the Cleveland suburb that already included the properties of John D. Rockefeller and other early industrialists. But the area has declined over the decades into one of the poorest in the United States and one repeatedly on the verge of bankruptcy or being merged in Cleveland.
With half of its families living below the poverty level and almost one in six houses in the city abandoned and rotting, some estimates consider it the fourth poorest city in the country. Stanford University researchers ranked the district as the 48th worst among more than 11,000 districts in the country, slightly worse than Detroit, in a 2016 index of socio-economic challenges faced by students.
With that in the background, the district has repeatedly had some of the worst attendance rates in Ohio and scores repeatedly or nearly at the bottom of Ohio state tests. He was declared in academic difficulties and was supervised by the state in 2018. Then COVID appeared and classes were transferred to the Internet.
“We were late because of poverty,” said Una Keenon, president of the school council. “Now we are even more.”
“With the pandemic, everything was terrible,” she said. “I don’t think half of the children who use computers are working as they should. They are not really interested in that. Before (time) cooled down, you could see them going up and down the street during school hours. “
As Pettiegrew began planning for school openings in January, he and Ellis decided to prioritize the return of high school students. He and Ellis said they wanted to ensure that high school students pass classes and earn credits to graduate, a challenge in a district where the graduation rate is just under 80%. They also wanted students prepared for college or jobs after high school.
“We just didn’t want children to get hurt,” said Pettiegrew.
So they decided to give elementary and high school parents the choice of part-time or online school on a part-time basis, but only offer it to high school students with a history of good online results. These students and parents still needed to talk to assistant principals and promise to maintain attendance and grades to stay online.
At the same time, the district had three members of its “Graduation Success” team calling, sending e-mails and text messages to the parents of other students to return to school on January 19. Thomas Coleman, who heads this team, estimates that he also visited 200 student homes between the fall and this winter’s attempts to recruit students back to school.
“Many parents agree with this, but many parents are against it,” he said of the attendance requirement. In many cases, he said, parents are very concerned about safety to send students back. Other times, students are working to help support their families and he is unable to win them back.
Ellis compared the opening of January 19 with the first day of school in a typical year, with students and teachers excited to be back.
“I think they were hungry,” he said. “It was nothing magical that we did. They wanted to return to some sense of normalcy. I think they needed the school as much as the school needed them. “
As attendance has dropped and with students divided into groups on Monday / Tuesday and Thursday / Friday, there is no crowding at the school. A gym class that normally has 50 students had just nine a day recently. A science class had only five students, similar to what other teachers say they see in many other classes.
Although low attendance is contrary to the goal of Pettiegrew and Ellis, it makes it easier to distribute students for security. This reassures teachers, who returned to school before receiving any vaccine from COVID and who have already received one of the two recommended doses. The East Cleveland Education Association did not answer The 74’s questions about the reopening.
“Honestly, I was very worried about coming back here,” said music teacher Randy Woods, who avoided visiting his father, who has cancer. “When I started receiving five children, six on a good day, I said, ‘I can do this’.”
Woods also said that students need a chance to be in school. Some do well online, he said, while others do assignments only sporadically.
“Most students benefit from being involved, just by being in the space of this building,” he said.
“I think it is important to give them as many opportunities for success as possible.”
Gymnastics teacher Nim Bryant was also concerned about the return, but still retained his secondary job as a wrestling coach at East Cleveland High School, who put him on his knees on the wrestling mat near the children.
“I have faith,” said Bryant. “I feel that I take all possible care, but people stayed at home and ordered everything to be delivered and even then they received it.”
While the full effect of calling so many students back to school depends on test results and how many students complete classes, students say that coming to school makes it easier to take classes that they can skip at home.
Sophomore student Rajahlee Alex said it is easier to understand classes without delay on WiFi connections and you can interact with a teacher.
“My grades were a little weak when we were online,” she said. “’They were very bad. It was difficult to keep track of everything, but at school, you do everything here. “
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