CLEVELAND — Teachers, parents, and school administrators are worried about the amount of time lost learning during the pandemic. Districts across the state are preparing summer learning plans.
Last week, Governor Mike DeWine asked district administrators to submit learning plans to the state.
But some students aren't waiting for the summer to try and close the learning gap left behind after the pandemic school year.
Morgan Hill is a junior at Beaumont School.
The penultimate year of high school wasn't what she planned for so Hill and her family found a tutor.
"I wanted to do something to help myself be better," she said. "Studies have shown and the data has proven that not everyone really excels in the distance learning model," said her father, Dennis. "So we decided to kind of ramp it up a little bit."
Morgan Hill has been working with Kathi Howard-Primes at Momentuum Tutoring. "She helps with all my classes. But the main ones are math and chemistry," Hill said. "And English, also."Howard-Primes has private and small group tutoring sessions that went virtual during the pandemic. She's also worked with school districts across the state.
She said this summer learning is important for student's future success.
"We know that the students on top of the summer learning slide, now we have this COVID-19 learning loss," she said.
To combat that slide across the country, 20% of federal money allocated to school districts must be used for learning recovery.
Howard-Primes said if she were to plan for summer learning, it would be a three-prong approach.
"So what I would suggest in a perfect world is that the school districts, as well as the community programs and parents collaborate together."
During a conversation at The City Club of Cleveland in mid-March, DeWine focused on Ohio student success.
"These kids have to get caught up," he said during the program. "How the schools spend the money to get the kids caught back up is probably the most important thing."
The newest relief package coming from Congress set aside more than $123 billion for schools across the country.
"So we can't just meet the students where they are. We have to meet them where they are and to take them further," Howard-Primes said about how summer learning should go.
She knows not every family can get students back to class over the summer. She says about two hours of learning a few days a week can help close the gap.
Akron Public Schools is expected to present their plans to the Board of Education on April 12
More on closing the achievement gap, in the latest Voices for Change podcast:
