More Wilkes County high school students than normal are needing to retake fall semester courses for credit or credit recovery due to failing grades, said Donna Cotton, chief academic officer for the Wilkes schools.
This and other information Cotton shared during the Wilkes Board of Education meeting on Feb. 1 reflect continuing challenges students face trying to learn during the pandemic. Media reports indicate similar situations nationwide for students using remote learning full-time or part-time.
A student retaking a course for course credit is seeking credit toward a grade point average and for meeting a graduation requirement. Credit recovery refers to retaking the course only for credit toward graduation.
“We are working with our high school students to make sure they aren’t missing anything they need for graduation and that we get them the credit they need,” said Cotton.
She also said average scores on three of the four high school end of course (EOC) tests given in December in the Wilkes schools were lower than a year earlier.
Cotton said average scores were lower on ninth-grade Math I, 11th-grade biology and 10th-grade English 2 EOCs this past January than on the same EOCs in January 2020. She said average score on Math 3 EOCs in January 2021 increased.
She said that at the end of the second nine weeks on Jan. 14, Wilkes elementary and middle schools sent home “at risk” letters to make parents aware of students at risk of being retained in the same grade next year due to failure to make adequate academic progress.
Cotton said this can refer to not completing assignments, not participating, not doing well on tests or not even taking tests.
“Middle and elementary school students who don’t show progress, as evidenced by completion of assignments and by assessments, will need to be retained” in the same grade level next year.
“If they’re not giving us any evidence that they can make progress, they will be retained next school year.
“That’s a hard thing, but If they’re not doing anything, we have nothing to show that they should go on to the next grade.’
Cotton added, “There’s still time. We still have many weeks and months left for students to get back on board and show us that they can make progress. This is something we’re looking at very carefully.”
She also said dropping out was a bigger problem than normal last spring and again this fall in the Wilkes schools and nationwide due to the pandemic.
At the end of the first four months of 2020-21 school year in Wilkes, 47 students had dropped out. That compares to 36 dropouts by that time in 2019-20 and 35 by that point in 2018-19.
“We attribute a lot of that to the situation we’re in with COVID-19” said Cotton, adding that many students are maintaining fulltime jobs while engaged in the full-time remote learning option in school.
Students in all Wilkes public schools still have the option of using full-time remote learning;
At the Jan. 1 meeting, school board member Hardin Kennedy asked if the percentage of students in the Wilkes schools who opted for full-time remote learning is still around 31%. School Superintendent Mark Byrd said that percentage had dropped since mid-year
The majority of students in Wilkes County public high schools and middle schools on are the “A/B schedule,” which means about half of students in a school are using in-person learning in their classrooms and half are at home for remote learning each day. This is alternated each day.
All Wilkes elementary schools are still engaged in full-time in-person learning in classrooms.
Kennedy also asked if student participation during remote learning in the middle schools had improved since earlier in the year.
Cotton said principals of the four Wilkes middle schools stated in a meeting the last week of January that student engagement in remote learning was improving. She said having in-person meetings with parents made a difference, but lack of student engagement in the middle schools was still a concern.
In early November, Cotton gave a report showing 21% (1,842) of students in the Wilkes schools were failing more than one class at the end of the first nine-week grading period and 1,210 of them weren’t considered engaged.
She said 538 (20%) of the 1,842 failing more than one class were in high school and 734 (35%) in middle school, with 173 of the high school students and 664 of the middle school students considered not engaged.
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